An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West

Konstantin Kisin is many things. He is a comedian. He is an author. He is a Russian. And now he is an immigrant to Britain. Unlike many who come to Western nations, he actually loves it there and he has no desire to destroy it or subvert or take it over or turn it into some hell hole like we find in so many places.

He likes it there so much that he penned an entire book on this: An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West (Constable, 2022). Born in Moscow, he moved to the UK when he was 11. The 41-year-old satirist, podcaster and conservative commentator has been a passionate defender of the West.

One of his most memorable moments in this regard was the very important 2023 speech he gave at the Oxford Union student debating society in favour of the motion: “Woke Culture HAS Gone Too Far.” You can see his 9-minute talk here:

As to his 200-page book, it is all well worth reading of course, but here I want to focus on just one chapter. Chapter 9 is titled, “An Immigrant’s View on Immigration.” As mentioned, Kisin has no desire to tear down the UK and transform it into some Western wasteland.

Instead, he loves being in the West and loves the opportunities available here. He loves the freedom and the prosperity and the things so many people in so many other parts of the world long for. So let me offer a few quotes from this chapter, in the hope that it encourages you to go out and get a copy of this vital volume.

Early on he states what should be patently obvious: to critically assess immigration policies does NOT make one a racist or a white supremacist. It simply means offering mental and moral clarity to important issues – issues that usually go from bad to worse when they are not so assessed. As he says, “the overwhelming majority of the things that are now described as ‘racism’, ‘xenophobia’ and ‘bigotry’ are simply a product of the fact that we now see everything through the prism of race.” (p. 143)

He lays out his views here:

Yes, some immigration is good. Not only do new arrivals bring drive and creativity, they also often have skills that can help to create a more flexible labour market and boost productivity. It’s also humane for a plentiful country to share its opportunity-rich land with a moderate number of genuine refugees – people fleeing war and persecution in their own countries.

But, in the words of Joseph Stalin, ‘quantity has a quality all of its own’; or, put simply, you can have too much of a good thing. Other than a handful of lunatics who advocate the idea of open borders, most of us understand that there is a sensible level of immigration which, when exceeded, becomes disruptive to existing communities. This, in turn, does everyone a disservice, including the immigrants themselves.

(p. 139)

One of the mantras used to push for ever more immigration is the weasel word “diversity.” Kisin says the following about this false god:

The laudable idea of ensuring people are not excluded and given opportunities they might have been denied in the past – which we call ‘diversity’ – has morphed into something ugly and discriminatory. As American philosopher Eric Hoffer famously wrote, ‘Every great cause starts as a movement, becomes a business and eventually degenerates into a racket.’

Diversity has long ceased being a noble cause. It’s been a business for some time and is now rapidly becoming a government-funded, media-supported, propaganda-driven, shameless racket. So many people are now aware of this that even the diversity hustlers have had to change the word – they call it ‘representation’ now. This is why any conversation about immigration immediately becomes a toxic fact-free zone of hyperventilation – their livelihoods are at stake.

So let’s take a deep breath, set aside the hysteria and look at the reality. First of all, let us dispel the myth that Britain has always been a nation of immigrants. It hasn’t. The fact that we even entertain such a historically illiterate slogan is testament to the power of American culture from which we have imported the idea. Prior to the Second World War, the last major waves of ‘immigration’ into this country were the Viking invasions and the Norman Conquest of 1066. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to compare modern-day immigrants with raping, pillaging marauders and foreign invaders.

(pp. 145-146)

He offers a fair amount of statistical detail on such matters, including this:

According to figures from YouGov and Ipsos MORI, just 3 per cent of the British public thought immigration was a major worry when Tony Blair first came to power in 1997. Today, this figure hovers around 50 per cent. When people try to blame David Cameron for Brexit, I think they massively misunderstand what happened. Mr Slippery, as journalist and author Peter Hitchens famously called him, had no choice – the public were angry about the disruption to their communities and that’s why UKIP and later the Brexit Party did so well, especially with working-class voters.

Worse still, it turns out they had good reason to be sceptical. The huge and unexpected spike in numbers wasn’t organic, such as when a massive expansion of industry requires extra workers. Instead, it was mainly the result of European Union (EU) free movement and a strategic plan by politicians who wanted to remodel Britain in their own vision, even though it meant engaging in social engineering.

(pp. 147-148)

And again:

To put things in perspective, I should point out that more people settled in England during the height of the New Labour movement than had arrived between 1066 and 1950. Let me say that again: more people came in a decade than had come in nine hundred years. Like everyone else, they all required housing, access to healthcare, employment and food. Meanwhile, their children also needed schooling and medicines. None of this stuff grows on trees, so it had to be funded by the state, who get their money via taxation.

Ergo, the higher the rate of mass immigration, the higher the number of working people who are ever so slightly worse off. This doesn’t mean that immigrants are inherently bad people, or that all of them rely on the state, but it does mean there are real-world consequences to sudden changes in population numbers. This is especially true when a sizeable number of immigrants are not wealthy.

In 2020, the BBC published an immigration briefing using data from both the government’s expert Migration Advisory Committee and a team of Oxford economists. Together, they found that migrants paid £4.3 billion less into the public purse than they took out for the period 2016–17. Six years earlier, in 2014, the BBC also reported on research published in the Economic Journal that showed the total contribution of immigrants was minus £114 billion for the period 1995–2011. A short time later, a report by the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs concluded that ‘the fiscal impact [of immigration] cannot be used to justify large-scale immigration’.

(p. 149)

He looks at things like Brexit in more detail and then says this:

Let’s just admit the truth: counter to what politicians keep preaching at us, diversity is neither our strength nor our weakness. Like all policy decisions it comes with trade-offs. Immigration both benefits and disrupts the country, and when it gets too high the disruption becomes too much, while the benefits diminish.

Even so, higher levels of immigration are far easier to manage and sustain if we plan and prepare for them. Newcomers need not only jobs, housing and primary school places – they also need encouragement and support to learn the language, adapt to local customs and traditions and make themselves part of the national fabric. Many will do this naturally, but the pursuit of ‘multiculturalism’ is a direct obstacle in their path.

A multi-ethnic society cannot thrive if we encourage people to cling to their own. As my parents always told me, ‘We didn’t send you to Britain to be a Russian in Britain – we sent you there to become British.’ This does not mean casting aside my Russian identity, but it does mean embracing my British one.

Take, for example, somewhere like Japan. That’s a country that is entirely monocultural, so are we saying that it’s deficient in comparison with somewhere like America, which is ethnically diverse? Of course not. It’s just different. Besides, it’s not a fact that diverse societies always succeed. The Indian subcontinent is a case in point. Although it’s very ethnically diverse, there is still a significant issue with racism and prejudice….

(pp. 153-154)

Again, Kisin is NOT anti-immigration. Remember, he is an immigrant himself. “Immigration is good for everyone,” he says, “when it is controlled.” He goes on to write:

This isn’t racist. It’s not a judgement on the character of immigrants as human beings. It’s acknowledging that big influxes of people, regardless of their race, have practical consequences for everyone. These issues are complex and far-reaching, but they are real. One of them is the demand placed on public institutions, such as the NHS, which (contrary to popular belief) is not [an infinite] resource.

(p. 156)

Kisin closes the chapter with these words:

Needless to say, none of this negates the contributions that immigrants make to England and the UK as a whole. You already know the vast majority of those who’ve come to Britain in recent decades are thoroughly decent, hard-working people. I am proud to be one of them. They sweep our streets, pick our fruit and prop up our NHS. Others are top doctors, professors and engineers. One day they might bring their ingenuity to bear on the railways, so that a smattering of autumn leaves no longer brings the system to a halt.

I am confident that over the decades to come the children and grandchildren of today’s migrants will help to write our laws, run our businesses and judge our talent shows. That’s pretty much inevitable. But it is also time for people in Britain to remember who we are and what we stand for: tolerance of opposing views and diversity – not just of skin colour, but also of thought, and freedom to speak and hear the facts, no matter how uncomfortable they may be.

And the fact is this: British people don’t hate immigrants – they hate the politicians and ‘journalists’ who keep claiming that they do. Plenty of immigrants feel the same way. Me included.

(p. 158)

This is a great book and one that brings some much-needed sense to the debates of the day. To get a further idea of where he is coming from, I encourage you to watch his short speech that I posted above. And then grab a copy of his book. You will be glad you did.