Nationalists are portrayed as rough, nasty, working-class, with bad taste in tattos, tend to regard flags as clothing, and are just plain lunatic-fringe. Need I say 'Nigel Farage' to make my point? What presently defines Nationalists is a dislike of the foreigners who have taken their jobs and council housing, filled the schools with children who don't speak English and whose parents make demands for special treatment, and generally lowered the native's standard of living towards their own. Nationalism is driven by hate and that's not a look most people want to wear.
Nationalism needs to be mainstream-friendly. Which means it needs to be re-phrased as a positive ideology that loves all people, but gives economic, political and and social preference to native-borns. It needs to spell out policies that explain how a child born to two UK citizens is going to get a useful education, a starter job, and within five years a job that pays enough for them to see some kind of future involving partners, children and home ownership. Because if it doesn’t, then the ordinary people won’t feel as if it is addressing their real needs.
There are two truths about the labour market: a) every migrant or offshored worker takes away a job that a national could have been trained to do, and b) someone decides to hire the migrants and offshores the jobs and it ain’t the working man. Reducing and discouraging the use of migrant or offshore labour is only a third of the solution. Another third is making the national population employable. And the final third is having employers making products and providing services that are valued enough to let them pay a decent wage.
An employer that really can’t make a profit unless they pay under minimum wage is either making a product that no-one much wants, or doesn’t know how to present it so that they can charge a decent price for it and so pay their workers. (The truth is that employers who complain about wage rates are mostly just plain greedy. The bosses see that £1/hour as money they personally could be getting. If adding £1/hour to their workers’ wages really will sink the company, it probably doesn’t deserve to be floating.)
A mainstream-friendly Nationalist would emphasise good business practice, a living wage, be tough on greedy businessmen (who are very often the ones employing migrant and offshore labour), talk about training and work acculturation, and about the life people want to lead. And every now and then throw in the condition that the people who were born here get first-served. They would blame the people who are actually to blame: bad, incompetent, greedy businessmen and the politicians who support them. And they would praise firms that pay well, make products people want to pay for and employ and train nationals.
Try these for size...
When every British citizen who is able to work after suitable training (and in some cases also acculturation) is working, then employers can import Bulgarian builders and Australian programmers. Foreign workers - imported or offshored - are allowed only to companies with training programs that will make the employment of foreign workers un-necessary in two years.
British citizenship is for people born in the UK both of whose parents are British citizens. If one or other of the parents isn’t British, they can sort out the child’s non-British citizenship for themselves. British citizens who marry non-British citizens can bring their spouse to the UK, but nobody can marry into citizenship. When they get divorced, the non-citizen partner has to go home.
Everyone is welcome to come to the UK and enjoy the cultural, scenic, recreational and educational opportunities available. People with huge fortunes who want to buy property and spend their money in the UK are welcome. Paying a £350,000 annual fee (offset against their tax bill) for enjoying the benefits of honest civil servants, policemen and judges, plus the other benefits of the British State, will be no problem for them.
Non-citizens have to go home when they run out of money or can’t find work (after, say, four weeks) after their current employer lets them go. Family go with them: they have a right to a family life, but not to choose the country where they enjoy that right.
Anyone, British citizen or not, who pays their due taxes in the UK gets all the benefits that the UK State provides. Except unemployment.
Any foreign national who commits a crime gets sent home, with their family. They can appeal once they have landed at the other side. The jury says “Guilty” and the accused and her family are going home the same day. This works retrospectively for people who have already settled in the UK. If they are broke, we’ll pay the costs of sending them all back. They don’t get to come back in again. Any assets they have can be seized to pay the fines and costs. Note that since entering a country illegally is a crime, illegal immigrants will be sent home immediately. (And no legal aid for handling immigration issues and appeals. Everyone has a right to legal counsel, just not for free.)
The British Government will place the interests of its citizens first in all policies, negotiations and legislation. (Now there’s a radical idea!). Once the people believe that, the amount of ill-will and all-round cussedness for which the English are noted will decline. Within the decade.
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