WHY BRITAIN HAS RWANDAN STABBERS

by Colin Liddell

I am not going to waste your valuable time by telling you how terrible the stabbings in Southport were, or how angry some people are, or even the opportunity for "cooking the shit to make it stink" that Russian disinfo ops see in this. 

What I am going to waste your time with is pointing out the very real FINANCIAL reasons why Britain has Rwandan stabbers in its midst, or, if you want another example, Somalian stabbers, or any kind of foreign refugee population that is capable of producing stabbers or other dangerous people.

Nationalists who push for strong anti-refugee policies don't really know what they are up against.

Britain is a country with specific economic characteristics. Much of its economy is based on what is known as "soft power." Here is a definition:

"Soft power is the ability of a country to influence others through attraction and persuasion rather than coercion or force. It involves shaping the preferences and behaviours of other countries and peoples through cultural appeal, political values, and foreign policies. The concept was developed by Joseph Nye, an American political scientist, in the late 20th century."

While this is all rather nebulous, Britain's soft power is immense and has an enormous financial impact, although this is not easy to estimate. Globally the UK is often mentioned as the number two Soft Power in the World. It is in fact a Soft Power Superpower!

Soft Power benefits the UK in the following ways and financial amounts (estimates derived from AI):

Foreign tourism: £28.4 billion per year

International Students: £20 billion per year

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Around 10-20% of £1.5 trillion (c. £225 billion) 

Cultural Exports: Part of £116 billion (2019) 

Brand Value and Strategic Advantages: difficult to isolate but likely substantial (c.£132 billion annually)

This gives us a total of £521 billion (or approximately £7,776.12 per person in the UK)

Of course, it would be possible for the UK to have relatively strong Soft Power without allowing refugees easy and permanent access to life in the UK.

Japan, for example, has immense Soft Power through anime, manga, being a bit weird, and kvetching about the A-bomb. But it also has an extremely restrictive attitude to refugees. However, Britain's soft power is unfortunately much more wrapped up with its international openness and therefore its attitude to refugees.

Britain not cute enough to pull this off

Compared to Japanese Soft Power, British Soft Power is "post-Imperial" and depends heavily on its humanitarian image and moral leadership, which also involves it doing a certain amount of "moral offsetting" for so-called "past crimes" of colonialism and slavery. Japan, by contrast, just has to be cute, appeal to geeks, and not let the Prime Minister visit Yasukuni Shrine too often.

Unlike Japan, which is relatively isolated diplomatically , the UK is Head of a Commonwealth of dozens of former colonies and territories and is also one of the five permanent veto-holding members of the UN Security Council.

A generous refugee policy is a key part of UK Soft Power. By cleverly utilising this, Britain is able to align its national self interests with widely admired, post-religious "universal values" of "human rights" and "the individual dignity of man," etc. This also boosts its status and influence in various international organizations, by showing a sense of "global responsibility" and upholding "international norms." Being extremely restrictive in its attitude to refugees would undercut the influence that it accrues from this.

It's refugee-friendly Soft Power shows "openness to the world" which strengthens the UK's cultural appeal and improves its connections with different parts of the world. This increases FDI, tourism, and the kind of cultural and image-based exports in which Britain is heavily represented.

The choice of a refugee bear was not accidental

Furthermore, showing that Britain is pro-refugee and pro-migrant reassures foreign investors that labour will remain relatively cheap, thus reinforcing FDI.

Out of the above estimated £521 billion boost that the UK economy gets from its soft power, I believe that around 10-20% of this is strongly dependent on the UK being seen as a friendly country to refugees, including Axel Rudakubana's family who came to the UK in 2002.

10-20% of £521 billion, btw, is approximately £78 billion (or £1,166) per Brit. 

The truth -- sad or otherwise -- is that most Brits will conclude that all this is worth the occasional interracial stabbing, at least until the costs of this to the British state become more onerous. So far, all we have seen are a few small and easily controlled disturbances.

Also, it looks like the British state may use these disturbances to clamp down more on social media. It is already making threats and noises towards Elon Musk's Twitter platform, which it is blaming for channelling Russian disinfo and polarisation ops. 

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Colin Liddell is the Chief Editor of Neokrat and the author of Interviews & Obituaries, a collection of encounters with the dead and the famous. Support his work by buying it here (USA), here (UK), and here (Australia).