Roger Daltrey Of ‘The Who’ Blasts UK Immigration Policy

Roger Daltrey apparently “won’t get fooled again” by the Labor Party in the United Kingdom.

A former UK Labor Party supporter, the lead singer of The Who registered his disapproval of large-scale immigration from Eastern Europe that occurred under Labor Party rule. The UK is now governed by a parliamentary coalition of Conservatives (aka Tories) and Liberal Democrats under Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron.

In an interview, Daltrey contended that the open-door immigration policy was a job killer for homegrown UK workers. “I will never, ever forgive the Labor party for allowing this mass immigration with no demands put on what people should be paid when they come to this country. I will never forgive them for destroying the jobs of my mates, because they allowed their jobs to be undercut with stupid thinking on Europe, letting them all in, so they can live 10 to a room, working for Polish wages.”

The Who frontman grew up in a working class neighborhood in London.

The Labor Party has a roughly equivalent ideology to the Democrats in the US.

Added Daltrey: “I’ve got nothing against the Poles at all, but that was a political mistake and it made me very angry. And the people who get it in the neck are the immigrants, and it’s not their fault.”

Jack Straw, the former UK government official who was in charge of immigration policy in the Labor-controlled government, recently admitted that allowing one million Eastern European immigrants into Britain after 2004, while well-intentioned, was a “spectacular mistake.” Another wave of Eastern European immigration into the UK is expected after January 1 under EU rules.

As in the US, immigration is a controversial, hot-button issue in the UK, and is in part responsible for the rise of a new political party called the UK Independence Party (UKIP)

Daltrey recently visited Washington, DC to perform at a ceremony to unveil a bust honoring former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, one of America’s staunchest allies who was instrumental in defeating the Nazis in World War II. He sang “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Stand By Me” at a festivities held at the US Capitol.

[image credit: Michael Borkson]