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Which People's Party?
An interesting column from EURSOC favourite Denis MacShane MP in the Telegraph yesterday. MacShane advises Gordon Brown to reduce government spending on wasteful services and pass the savings on in the form of tax cuts. All uncontroversial stuff from a Telegraph columnist, though it's queer to come across a Labour MP calling for that party's "client state" to feel the edge of the blade.
However, one little word leapt from the page: Tax cuts "can be targeted at the indigenous working class, furious at the incessant year-on-year council-tax increases above the rate of inflation," he writes (our bold face). Indigenous?
Should the cuts apply to British people alone, and immigrants be excluded from the benefits? Does MacShane mean all immigrants, or was his use of the word a clumsy way to separating working class Brits from London's international "non-doms", who many claim are escaping the clutches of the taxman? Surely Euro-friendly Denis MacShane can't be suggesting that EU nationals (who make up a large slice of non-indigenous people living in Britain) be excluded from tax reductions?
Curious stuff. What defines indigenous these days, anyway, now the word is clearly acceptable when applied to British people? Most of Europe's indigenous peoples appear to inhabit the fringes of the continent: the peoples of the Caucasus, the Sami of the far north of Sweden and Norway.
There are three listed indigenous peoples on the Crimean peninsula alone - the Crimean Karaites, the Crimean Tatars, and the Krymchaks - yet in the rest of Europe, only the Basques of northern Spain and southwest France are listed as indigenous peoples by the same definition.
Clearly, there are reasons to avoid claims of indigenous status across the entire continent, not least because some European nations have a habit of invading other countries where their estranged indigenous relatives are said to live. But it would be interesting to know what a people have to do to declare themselves "indigenous."
Expect an outbreak of Yorkshire tribal dress and Birmingham first nations arts if there's any chance of a tax cut in it, though.
