When Nigel Farage and his crop of UKIP MEPs turned their backs on a chamber-orchestra performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the summer opening of the European Parliament, even sympathisers winced.
As political point scoring went, presenting so loutish a cold shoulder to a masterpiece of western music showed a jarring lack of courtesy, especially since those involved were not, it seemed, planning to reject the attached salary.
It was a sorry protest in that it showed a brazen disregard not merely for ‘EU regulations’ but for one of the grand peaks of European culture. So far as Britain is concerned, people – and ideas – have been drifting from Europe since the passing of the Ice Age. Not all were nice; not all were brilliant; not all were welcome. But Britain’s population is a rich old stew of Iberian, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, Danish and Norman folk – even before we include the more varied migrations of the past hundred years.
Britain is experiencing a little turbulence
A long view of the problems of modern migration
