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This shouldn t be a surprise: It s hard to avoid noticing what recent polls have shown : that admiration for the Queen, and support for the system ofconstitutional monarchy, is somewhat higher among Britain simmigrant communities than it is among native-born citizens. This makes life difficult for Britain s struggling republicanmovement, whose demonstration during Sunday s Jubilee flotillaattracted about 1,000 soggy people, almost all of them white. Among the more surprising immigrant-offspring voices speaking upfor the Queen this week is Sunder Katwala, a former head of thevenerable left-wing Fabian Society, who shook up Britain s LabourParty supporters with an essay in the left-wing New Statesman under the provocative headline The left should love the Queen. As a Briton of Indian descent, he argued that the left is in dangerof losing the support of people like him if they become toointensely focused on abolishing the monarchy. Against the backdrop of Britain s increasing ethnic diversity,the monarchy has become more relevant, Mr. Katwala wrote. That seems to be a lesson that both the Conservative Party and themonarchy itself have eagerly taken to heart. Indeed, the House ofWindsor deliberately chose to begin its Diamond Jubilee tour in themidland city of Leicester, which by the end of this decade willbecome the first city in Britain that is no longermajority-white, Mr. Katwala writes. Indeed, some of the most outspoken critics of the Queen today areright-wing Britons who are opposed to their country s racialdiversity. I tend to think, the Daily Mail columnist PeterHitchens wrote of Her Majesty this weekend, that she has been moremulticultural and politically correct than she needed to. On the other side of the coin, this weekend saw the London districtof Brixton hosting a refugee Jubilee in which hundreds ofrefugees gathered to salute their Queen of Sanctuary. It wasorganized by Mr. Katwala s left-leaning think tank British Future . Some refugees told me she represents the stability which makesBritain a safe haven, citing freedom of religion, Mr. Katwalaexplained. His observations have been supported by a string of surveys andstudies which show that immigrants especially those fromreligious-minority backgrounds tend to be more loyal to theinstitutions of the British state, including the monarchy, thannative-born citizens. One large-scale survey last year by the research group Demos found that 83 per cent of British Muslims (who are more likely thanother religions to be foreign-born or directly descended fromimmigrants) said they were proud to be a British citizen andloyal to their country s existing institutions, versus only 79 percent of Britons in general. A 2009 Gallup survey found thatBritain s minorities are more likely than all populationssurveyed to identify strongly with their nation, and to expressstronger confidence with its institutions. Perhaps that isn t surprising: The Queen, after all, is athird-generation immigrant, and she s married to a man, PrincePhilip of Greece and Denmark, who was born in Corfu and immigratedto Britain - - effectively as a refugee, after his father wasbanished in a military coup. So immigrants have a number of reasonsto be more loyal to the British monarch; they may well seethemselves in her. More Related to this Story Queen goes to the races as jubilee begins The adoration of the monarch. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China Retort Pouch Packaging , Fishing Lure Packaging, and more. For more , please visit Zipper Pouch Packaging today!
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