by Guest

contribution by Soho Politico

As we have all now read, yet another recorded interview with culture warrior Daniel Hannan has surfaced and caused much controversy.

What I’m interested in is the defence of Daniel Hannan over this emanating from the right.

Their claim is that Hannan’s lionising of Powell is benign, because he never associated himself with Powell’s views about immigration specifically, and is in any case personally a ‘libertarian’ on borders.



Guido Fawkes leads the charge, writing:

Guido spoke to Dan to ask him when he gave the interview – about “a month or so” ago was his answer – before the NHS kerfuffle cemented Dan in the affections of Labour’s spin operation. He said it wasn’t the first time he said that, that he wasn’t going to deny his view in the future and that on immigration he was on the record as taking the Friedmanite free market liberal view rather than the restrictive Powellite stance.

Is this correct though? Well, not if Hannan actually believes what he co-wrote with Douglas Carswell in The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain.

Because The Plan certainly does not endorse a libertarian open borders policy. Let’s take a look, starting with the book’s opening paragraph:

The British state is failing. It can’t deliver even the most basic services competently. We have the highest prisoner population in Europe, and one of the highest crime rates. Our pupils compare dismally with similarly aged pupils in other countries and previous generations. Our healthcare system is more likely to kill its charges than any other in the developed world. Our roads are choked, our railways crumbling, our airports unbearable. Our borders are, to all intents and purposes, wide open. (p. 7)

Wait: so, libertarians are enthusiasts for open borders. But Hannan thinks that Britain is ‘failing’ because of open borders. Hmm. On to the next page:

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 Britons emigrate every year; more than 300,000 foreigners settle in their place, many of them illicitly. For the state cannot even discharge its elementary function: to secure the national territory. (p. 8)

It doesn’t sounds like Hannan is very keen on a libertarian approach to immigration after all, does it? Later on, Hannan and Carswell endorse immigration quotas (p. 43), and advocate the extended use of national referendums, partly on grounds that, if the Swiss experience is anything to go by, the public, when asked, are likely to reject ‘generous immigration rules’ (p. 159).

And let’s not omit to mention that the dynamic duo also oppose humanitarian intervention to save people from genocide, out of concern that some of the people rescued might later want to settle in Britain. They write:

Like the doctrine of universal human rights on which it is based, humanitarian intervention is a doctrine with superficial appeal but which is unfortunately wide open to abuse. Interdependence was shown to be a grim reality when intervention over Kosovo in 1999 caused huge numbers of Albanian asylum seekers to arrive in this country. (pp. 72-3).

So is Daniel Hannan a libertarian on borders? Nope.

—————–

Cross-posted over from the new Soho Politico blog.