A Green Party candidate campaigned in Urdu for a British by-election. Konstantin Kisin asks what that actually says about integration, identity, and who politics is really for.
Summary: The Linguistic Shift in British Politics
In this video, Konstantin Kisin discusses the significance of a Green Party candidate campaigning entirely in Urdu for a British by-election.
He argues that while immigration clusters are common, the act of a politician abandoning the national language to reach voters signals a profound and unacknowledged shift in British society.
Kisin (yes I am a big fan) contrasts the British experience with the American “melting pot” model, noting that Britain’s rapid transition from a homogeneous society to one with “majority-minority” cities has occurred without the democratic consent of its citizens.
He concludes by (in my opinion rightly so) criticising the hypocrisy of political elites who praise multiculturalism while ignoring the resulting lack of social integration and the linguistic fracturing of the electorate.
Highlights from the Video Transcript
The Changing Face of British Politics The battle over the upcoming by-election in Gorton and Denton has so far been largely uneventful. The Labour Party, which holds the seat, looks set to lose it as you’d expect. Their leader has, after all, the worst personal satisfaction ratings of any British Prime Minister since records began. Reform looks set to do well which, with immigration dominating the political conversation, is also unsurprising. The Greens are also performing strongly and, like Reform, may even win the seat.
So far, so predictable. But then a video by Green candidate Hannah Spencer began doing the rounds. It wouldn’t be worth discussing if it weren’t for one minor detail: it is delivered entirely in Urdu.
Clustered Immigration and the Cultural Shift Now you might be thinking, “Look how right-wing Konstantin has become. Why does anyone care whether a few unrepresentative areas have a lot of people from a particular community living there?” After all, this tends to happen when groups of people move from country to country. People are not atomised individuals, especially in more traditional societies. British settlers who moved to the New World didn’t move in groups of three either. A lot of immigration happens in clusters. It’s why so many big cities have a Chinatown. I’m not against Chinatowns. Then again, I’ve never seen a British politician campaigning in Chinese.
The Difference Between Britain and America I’m aware as I say this that some American viewers might find it strange that I take issue with this. After all, there are many parts of the US where you’ll get by just as easily with Spanish as you will with English. But, there is a big difference between Britain and America.
When you become an American citizen, you’re called a first-generation American. When you become a British citizen, you’re a first-generation immigrant. I’m not complaining – that’s what I call myself – because that is a cultural difference between Britain and America.
Historical Context and Homogeneity America displaced its native population and replaced it with waves of colonists from different parts of Europe and later immigrants from all over the world. With the exception of the people brought there against their will, they all effectively took the land from someone else. Because Americans have a collective sense of being historically recent arrivals, it’s just that much harder for them to deny other people the American dream, provided they do it legally.
Until very recently, Britain was a highly ethnically and culturally homogeneous society. Your opinion of whether that’s good or bad is unimportant for the purposes of what I’m saying here. The fact is, in the lifetime of almost everyone alive today, London and other British cities have gone from being overwhelmingly populated by native Brits to being majority-minority. In 1991, London was estimated to be 80% white British. By 2021, it was 36.8%. This dramatic change happened in the lifetimes of three out of four people in Britain today.
The Question of Consent and Integration Britain voted against mass immigration in 2010, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2024. This change happened not only without the consent of the British people but in direct contravention of their wishes. Words like “invasion” and “colonisation” sound like the anger is directed at the immigrants themselves, but 95% of the anger I see is directed at the British politicians of all three major parties who did this.
The people I am starting to hate are the liars and the hypocrites who want to have it both ways. If you say that too many people in Britain don’t speak English, live in a parallel society, and don’t integrate, you’ll be shouted down and called names by the very same people who are campaigning in a foreign language.
You cannot have your cake and eat it too.
Either multiculturalism is “hunky-dory” and diversity is our greatest strength, or you have to concede that there are parts of the country where, if you want to reach voters, you have to speak their language – not the language of our country.
The Reality of the “Gardenistas” Many of the people who defend the policy of mass immigration are only doing it because they suffer few of the consequences and reap many of the benefits. If a policy benefits you more than it harms you, it’s a good policy for you. But as Argentinian President Javier Milei once said: “We can all be whores with someone else’s arse.” If mass immigration is good for you, fine. Can you at least stop making the rest of the country pretend it’s good for them too and calling them names if they refuse?
Questions Worth Asking
Why does it matter that a British politician campaigned in Urdu?
Kisin’s argument isn’t about the language itself. It’s about what it reveals: that in parts of Britain, a candidate can’t reliably reach voters in English. Whether you see that as pragmatic outreach or a sign of fractured integration rather depends on which side of the argument you already sit on.
Is Britain’s experience of immigration really that different from America’s?
Kisin argues yes, and not without reason. America was built on successive waves of migration and has a cultural identity rooted in that idea. Britain’s identity, for better or worse, developed from a far more homogeneous base over centuries. That doesn’t make one right and the other wrong, but it does mean the two countries absorb demographic change very differently.
Did British voters actually consent to large-scale immigration?
Kisin says no, pointing to successive elections where immigration reduction was a stated priority and largely didn’t happen. Whether that represents a democratic failure or the complexity of governing a modern economy is, to put it mildly, a matter of debate.
Is criticising lack of integration the same as being anti-immigration?
Not necessarily, and Kisin makes the distinction. His frustration is directed at political elites who champion multiculturalism publicly while quietly acknowledging, through their own campaign tactics, that meaningful integration hasn’t happened in some communities. It’s a fair point, even if people will disagree sharply on what the solution looks like.
What is the “Gardenista” argument Kisin makes?
It’s the idea that many vocal supporters of mass immigration are insulated from its pressures, living in areas where housing, public services, and community cohesion are less strained. If a policy works well for you personally, you’re more likely to defend it and less likely to understand why others don’t share your enthusiasm.