By Mark Gullick
03/11/2024
You can’t get everything in London, but something you definitely can get just at the moment is a haircut. There has been an explosion in barber shops in the capital in the last two years. But many of these are Potemkin barber shops, façades disguising criminal activity with the legitimate front of a regular business. Many of these “shops” deal drugs, employ illegal immigrants, and launder money. The swirling red-and-white pole traditionally associated with the barber now indicates to a certain section of London’s immigrant underworld not “I can get a haircut here,” but rather, “I can get drugs here, or a black-market job, or a safe-house, or a range of illicit financial transactions” [Barber shops increasingly a front for crime, security sources warn, by Helena Lambert, Daily Telegraph, Jan 19, 2023].
Barber shops are a perfect cover as they are cash-driven and have a perfect shop window to display the fact that they are a functioning business. There are currently 17,702 barber shops operating in the U.K., a 50 percent rise since 2018 [Why your £10 barber shop haircut could be fuelling the small boats crisis, by Mattie Brignal, Telegraph, February 14, 2024].
Why your £10 barber shop haircut could be fuelling the small boats crisis. Experts are warning that behind the low-key exteriors, many barber shops are involved in human trafficking, forced labour, drug dealing and money launderinghttps://t.co/m5CTFYRu4A
— Lotus Eaters News (@lotuseatersnews) February 14, 2024
It has been suggested that a fashion for more intricate hairstyles has led to the rise in demand, but that scarcely seems credible. There may be a trace of Islamic sectarianism in his comment, but former (no one today would dare speak out) Metropolitan Police Officer Ali Hassan Ali commented a couple of years ago that “A lot of these shops have thousands of pounds of equipment but no customers” [Barber shops increasingly a front for crime, security sources warn, by Helena Lambert, Telegraph, March 19, 2023].
Albanian and Kurdish people-smuggling gangs are reportedly at the root of this (presumably well-groomed) mafia. Once this explosion of Mohammedan hairdressers showed on the MSM’s radar, the Home Office (= Department of Homeland Security) predictably vowed to “get tough.” Michael Tomlinson [Tweet him], Minister of State for Countering Illegal Migration, joined enforcement officers on a raid on one such shop suspected of hiring illegal immigrants, in a farcical echo of Winston Churchill’s presence when Home Secretary at the 1911 Siege of Sidney Street, when immigrant Russian Jewish terrorists were run down and killed.
EXCLUSIVE:
— GB News (@GBNEWS) February 14, 2024
WATCH: Officers raid barbershop employing migrants as criminal gangs exploit high-streetshttps://t.co/CKaBxFgk2F
Diversity is strength for these front businesses, however. The raiding officers and the hard-nosed minister did not find the Albanian they suspected of running the racket, although they did find a Colombian barber working illegally [WATCH: Officers raid barbershop employing migrants as criminal gangs exploit high-streets, by Mark White, GBNews, February 10, 2024].
So, police time spent investigating these front operations, and the resultant judicial costs incurred, become just another hidden expense on the ever-lengthening taxpayer bill for immigrants and services provided. Whether or not cash leaves the country from these faux businesses is unclear; “remittances” are yet another drain on the economy.
But importing ever more drug dealers and human traffickers and allowing them to game the system is clearly another phase of the Anarcho-Tyranny the Sunak regime seems set on.
Should you happen to be in London, get a shave and a haircut while you can afford it.
U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has not only announced £1 million ($1.28 million) for the construction of a memorial to Muslim soldiers who fought for the British Empire in the Great War and World War II, he opened his Parliamentary budgetary speech with the proposal. The decision followed a request from a Muslim M.P. [Sajid Javid: £1 million for Muslim war memorial after MP’s request, by Jack Rawlins, Bromsgrove Advertiser, March 10, 2024].
This is naked appeasement, a desperate attempt to placate Muslims after two recent furors.
The scheduling of a vote in Parliament on a ceasefire in Gaza was reportedly influenced by threats of intimidation of Members of Parliament outside the House of Commons. (Remember, British MP David Amess was murdered in 2021 in his office by a UK-born Somali.)
A few days later, former Conservative M.P. Lee Anderson (he has since joined the Reform Party) alleged that Muslim London Mayor Sadiq Khan was controlled by Islamists [Lee Anderson defects from Tories to Reform UK-after claiming ‘Islamists have control of Sadiq Khan,’ LBC.org.uk].
Reactions to both these events provoked the usual hair-trigger accusations of Islamophobia, which is fast becoming an even more potent accusation than plain old “racism.”
Muslims certainly did die for the Empire in both World Wars, but so did Hindus, Gurkhas, and Sikhs. The treatment of the Gurkhas is already a national disgrace, and there was no money forthcoming to commemorate them [Will Britain’s Nepali Gurkha Veterans Get Justice?, by Arun Budhathoki, The Diplomat, August 30, 2021].
Muslims immigrants are fast becoming the British equivalent of American blacks: the British government insists that ordinary kuffars show deference, although this is to people whom they did not ask for or were given a choice about hosting.
Presumably we will be seeing a lot more Muslims in soap operas, period dramas, and films about how tough it is to be a Muslim in the U.K.
It is so tough that the government has just announced £117 million for extra security around mosques, compared with £70 million for synagogues [Government commits extra funding to protect UK Muslims, by David Hughes, The Independent, March 10, 2024].
Actually, of course, it is Jews who are feeling insecure in Britain at present, particularly in London [Adviser warns London a ’no-go zone for Jews every weekend,’ by Kate Whannel, BBC, March 8, 2024] However, supporting them — especially over Gaza — is becoming increasingly politically risky with a general election looming.
So Muslims trump Jews. They can expect a lot more visible “celebration” of their alien presence in Britain.
You can tell the current (and almost certainly outgoing) Sunak government is worried by watching its diversionary tactics. It has recently started harrumphing over illegal immigration, both as a desperate election ploy and also to steer attention away from legal migration.
Why do illegal immigrants not follow the same route as legals, but instead enter the country undocumented and at great personal risk? Illegal “migrants” landing on the Kent coast will have paid several thousand euros to people-smugglers for their transit. They will surely have paid more than an economy air ticket to the UK from their country of origin.
Two reasons:
So what is the government’s justification for allowing legal “migrants” both to enter the country and, in many cases, to stay? The myth of a labor shortage is just that. Most illegal immigrants” are unskilled, and there are already 1.3 million unemployed in Britain [UK Labour Market Statistics, House of Commons Library, February 13, 2024].
But with legal immigration, the government can play the student card. We need more students because you can never have too many Gender Studies graduates boosting the economy.
Just as a hammer is a benefit in the right hands but a potential disaster in the wrong ones, so too is a technocratically designed system such as the student visa process in the U.K. When it works, bona fide students are free to come into a country still respected for its educational standards. When it doesn’t, bogus students join the ranks of illegal immigrants as negative social capital, and they are often able to bring dependents with them to make a family outing of this deception [James Cleverly finally opens a review…, by David Barrett, Daily Mail, March 11, 2024].
African and Muslim students may not like British universities’ obsession with gender, and gay and women’s rights. But they will most likely get to stay on in Britain, along with their families.
It is the indigenous British people who need an education.
The housing of illegal immigrants in British hotels has finally tested the patience of the public at local level, and the Home Office (+ U.S. Department of Homeland Security) has been desperately trying to think of alternatives. Some observers joked that they would soon be offering people’s homes to illegals. But if Ted and Jose Saunders were among those jesting, the husband and wife are no longer smiling.
Our council tried to force us to sell our £200,000 home to make room for asylum seekers: Elderly couple’s horror after strongly-worded letter lands on their doorstep
— John B Tawn (@27Tawnyowl) February 14, 2024
via https://t.co/SoLYFq4fjs https://t.co/HPk5R4bJ2K
Moving into their new house in November, chosen so as to be near to their granddaughter, who needs care, the couple were astonished to receive a letter from the local authority, North Northamptonshire Council (NNC). [Our council tried to force us to sell…, by Nick Craven, Daily Mail, February 14, 2024]. The letter informed them that a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) had been put on their house, and even told them that it was intended for use to house immigrants.
A CPO is exactly what it suggests, but is commonly used by local authorities to buy properties left empty over time. The Saunders had been living in their house for over three months.
The English have long had a phrase to describe this action by NNC: “trying it on.” This usually denotes an action which seems wholly unrealistic and so has little chance of success, but is attempted anyway, on the off-chance you had hooked a sucker. In the case of the Saunders, NNC was undoubtedly relying on the respect the British older generation still has for authority, having been alive at a time when it could be trusted. Elderly people are notoriously vulnerable to bogus home-improvement schemes sold at the front door for this very reason. This chap knows what he is talking about, I had better take his advice.
Fortunately for the Saunders, they questioned the decision, and got the usual, weaselly excuse from NNC that it had been an administrative mistake.
This is a Trend. Elsewhere in England, Leicester Council is considering buying homes to house “migrants” [Council considers buying 27 Leicester homes…, by Hannah Richardson, Leicestershire Live, March 2024]. It has just increased its property taxes by the legal maximum of 4.99% [Council tax bills to rise by maximum level in Leicester, by Hannah Richardson, BBC, February 23, 2024].
One way or another, and despite helpful headlines reading “Council considers…,” ordinary people will be paying for their new Muslim neighbors.
Had the Saunders been gullible and trusting, they would doubtless have agreed to the sale. And that could have opened the floodgates to a slew of similar actions. If the U.K. government or even local authorities can find a way to extort people out of their legal property, they will.
The British don’t have any guns to take away, as is the constant threat in the U.S. [All the Way Down the Slippery Slope: Gun Prohibition in England and Some Lessors for Civil Liberties in America, by Joseph E. Olson and David B. Kopel, 22 Hamline Law Review 399 (1999)].
But the Regime can come for their homestead.
Mark Gullick has a PhD in philosophy. Originally from London, he has relocated to Costa Rica. He has also written for TakiMag, New English Review, Counter Currents (including a monthly UNION JACKAL column on general political and cultural topics, Standpoint and The Brazen Head.
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