Melanie Phillips: still fantasizing—or lying—about her stand on Muslim immigration

Notwithstanding my exposure of Melanie Phillips’s false statements to me in 2006 about her record on immigration (see “An exchange with Melanie Phillips about Islam,”, and “Who misrepresented Phillips’s position on immigration?”), she continues to tell correspondents that she has called for a cessation of immigration into Britain, when, in reality, she has never done any such thing. As I’ve pointed out numerous times, despite her description of Muslim immigration into Britain as a “lethal” development, she has never called for the reduction of Muslim immigration into Britain by even one person per year.

The following e-mail exchange took place on September 20 between Karen W. in England and Melanie Phillips.

Karen W. to Melanie Phillips:

Dear Melanie,

In your recent list of articles, you have written one about Britain’s elites’ appeasement of radical Islam and failure to support the “moderate Muslims.” If what you describe as this “climate of defeatism, appeasement, and cultural collapse that is now on display” were defeated, what would the West do?

In other words, what is the “climate of defeatism, appeasement, and cultural collapse” currently PREVENTING the West from doing?

Is the fact that we are allowing continued Muslim immigration one of the symptoms of this climate of defeatism and cultural collapse? If so, why have you never once called for a reduction of Muslim immigration?

By refusing to address that issue, are you a part of the climate of appeasement and defeatism?

It seems to me that to reverse the “cultural collapse” we would have to return to the days of a strong British identity and Christian values. A return to those values would leave no place for those who are unassimilable, i.e. Muslims as well as most Third World immigrants. A confident British people would therefore expel Muslims and stop Muslim (and other Third World) immigration. A strong British identity would not wait for an Islamic “Reformation” (not possible) nor would it tolerate “moderate” Islam.

Melanie Phillips replied to Karen W.:

Sent: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 9.11am
Subject: Re: Muslims

You are mistaken. I have advocated tight control on all immigration.

Melanie

KW replied to MP:

Where have you advocated “tight control on all immigration”? And what do you mean by “tight control”? This is an elastic term. Cessation of all Muslim immigration is what is required. What are your views on that?

Best Regards,
Karen W.

MP to KW:

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 10.49am
Subject: Re: Muslims

In my book Londonistan. What I mean by that is an almost total cessation of all immigration for the time being.

Melanie

KW to MP:

This is what you actually wrote in your book Londonistan:

“Next, a properly motivated nation would set about the remoralisation and re-culturation of Britain by restating the primacy of British culture and citizenship. To do this, it would recognise that British nationhood has been eviscerated by the combination of three things: mass immigration, multiculturalism and the onslaught mounted by secular nihilists against the country’s Judeo-Christian values. It would institute tough controls on immigration while Britain assimilates the people it has already got.”

“Tough controls” is political rhetoric. It could mean stricter scrutiny of immigrants but not necessarily an absolute reduction in numbers. Therefore you have not, anywhere that I can find, stated that a reduction or cessation of immigration is required. Why are you so disingenuous about this?

Karen

MP to KW:

Sent: Thu, 20 Sep 2007 6.00pm
Subject: Re: Muslims

I have now done you the courtesy of responding twice to your messages and explaining what I mean. Your tone is offensive and unwarranted. This correspondence is now closed and any more emails from you will be deleted without being read.

Karen sent the above exchange to me, with this note:

I now have received the same treatment as you did. She has said that I am “offensive and unwarranted” !!?? and announced that the correspondence is now closed.

Isn’t this over the top?

I wrote back to Karen:

Ok, join the club! You gave it your best, trying to get to the bottom of her position on Muslim immigration. Just as she insisted to me in e-mails last year that she had taken a position that in reality she had never taken (and has not taken since then), she made the same assertion to you, and when you quoted her own book to her, proving that she has not taken such a position, she angrily ended the correspondence.

I must say, however, that if you had not said that she is disingenuous, she would have had absolutely no excuse for cutting you off; now she has the “color” of an excuse. At the same time, asking a person whom you have caught in an obvious contradiction why she is being disingenuous is not the most terrible thing in the world. An honest person would have replied.

From time to time people accuse me of being intellectually dishonest, and if they are sincere and not unreasonable, I always answer fully and try to clear up the record so that the person understands what I meant. And if it turns out that there is a contradiction or something untrue in something I’ve written, I correct it. This is because I do not want people to think that I am dishonest. See, for example, my recent exchange with Zippy Catholic, which he started off by suggesting that I was deliberately misprepresenting his position. I didn’t cut him off. I didn’t say to him, “How dare you question my honesty? Be gone!” I explained fully to him what I had said and why I had said it, and also tried to understand his position better. And it ended with Zippy posting a note at his website thanking me for giving him a fair hearing.

By contrast, in response to your reasonable statement that she was being disingenuous, Melanie Phillips, instead of striving to demonstrate to you that she’s not disingenuous, cut you off forever. Her behavior speaks for itself. She is unable to defend herself from the charge of intellectual dishonesty.

Karen replied:

Exactly, she couldn’t defend herself.

What’s the point of her writing?

She might not have cut me off if I did not describe her as disingenuous, but she would never have come clean on her position on Muslim immigration anyway. It is good that she can now know that people are not taken in by her.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 20, 2007 02:13 PM | Send