How do you few the probability of a transformation of Europe from within, into an Islamic continent? I personally feel this a very real possibility. I am not an islamphobe, before the outrage mongers say anything, but personally I feel there will be many moderate muslims and ones from differing sects who will suffer and live in misery if something authoritarian, and profoundly opposed to the west took hold.
I really feel Europe is hapless right now on this, and the 'democratic deficit' being caused by Europe's arrogant, out of touch leaders is making populaces seeth and turn to left and right extremes and polarization. Europe would be better of as sovereign countries with a genuine sense of the national interests and a re configuration of political priorities. There are signs this could be happening, but I still feel that the UK has better prospects to avoid this than many in Europe. But, this is heavily, massively dependent on one condition; that it ceases it's total rejection and misunderstanding of genuine conservatism, and finds a political force that resurrects it.
I do not mean 'Toffs' or the meaningless tribal identity of the Tory party, and the problematic opposition that causes by it's nature. I mean the original meaning of the word as it exists globally. The idea of conserving what is precious in order to facilitate cohesion and not jeopardize what diversity and tolerance you have. The way some on the cultural left speak, you would think we are somewhere near Iceland, with an inbred population desperately in need of massive rates of our mixture, culturally before we die genetically and civilizationally. This is patently untrue and absurd. What I find doubly bizarre about this position is that the levels of immigration they advocate facilitate less integration and race mixing, not more. And, most oddly, the people most gung-ho, seem to like to admire 'diversity' from an abstracted distance and pat themselves on the back for how much they like more and more immigration.
It is these types I've seen in the referendum being shrill and calling people bigots. I actually saw this directed towards Tony Parsons, a leave voter- "Ah, the old 'married an immigrant' line', desperate now(or we've heard it all now)" words to that effect. Err, he did marry an immigrant(A Japanese woman), and has a legitimate right to raise this point against the smears.
This is a rather good example of what I'm talking about. The distinction(highlighted to me, beyond the broadcast media portrayal, in the EU vote) between two distinct subsets of people, evident beyond the other dichotomies going on.
One group who are embracing of diversity on a level they don't use politically and are not shrill or loud about, who also have an understanding of and regard for conservative concepts like sovereignty, continuity, and limits on immigration. And, another group of dogmatic, divisive moral zealots who politicize everything, and love policies from an abstract perspective, (not to mention and opportunistic and power hungry one) without in reality living right within or experiencing all the effects. They are low empathy in my view and shallow, and often representative of the denatured detachment that politicians live in. We see this encapsulated in the types who would probably never marry another ethnicity lecturing someone who has, on the bigotry of his position.
There are many immigrants and descendants of immigrants who think completely differently, love the UK, and it's flexibility dual identities and want some cultural stability and not to lose our common thread. They have an understanding of both our strength in variety, but the need fro facets of conservatism to preserve the common linkages, often stemming from their own culture(which maybe preserved more sense than we have done of late)
Anyhow.
'Eurabia', and/or the loss of identity, including diverse multi-faceted identities, in the UK. I want to discuss it, and I want to discuss the underlying differences between Europe and the UK that affect this, and possible future approaches that are necessary. How should these approaches play out(in your ideal), how will they likely play out(what policies will likely be adopted), and again, how will they and should they(if at all) differ in Europe and the UK?