An Irishman, a Frenchman and a Japanese Physicist walk in to an (English) bar

Yesterday, the leader of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), Nick Griffin, outlined his party's immigration policy. When asked to expand on their manifesto pledge that Britain should be a "non-immigration country," he elaborated, "the doors are going to be shut because Britain is full, we're the most overcrowded country in Europe."


Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme he lamented, "while we'd actually rather today be talking about the economy as the other leaders are going to be, we're very pleased to talk about immigration because what we're saying is what the British people think." All of them? Why bother collecting polling data when you can mind read?


When asked who the doors would be shut to, Griffin responded "to everybody...unless" and then went on to outline some circumstances where immigration would be welcomed:


"We've got a policy to create a whole new generation of British built nuclear power plants... if for that we've got to import a Japanese physicist and let him come here with his family then we'll let them come."


I wonder will people queue all night outside HMV to get their hands on the first shipment of Japanese physicists?


But when asked, what if other countries reciprocate by closing their doors to Britons, Griffin replied, "the last thing I saw, there wasn't a queue of Brits wanting to go to Albania or Somalia." Huh? The former a country whose GDP is 25% of the European average and the latter a country ravaged by civil war.


So to clarify Griffin's position, "Japanese physicists."  Good. "Polish plumbers" and "Afghan refugees." Bad.


Today presenter Sarah Montague countered, "but [British] people might want to go live in France, they might want to go live in Ireland."


"We are certainly not going to shut the doors to the Irish because as far as we are concerned the Irish are part of Britain and are fully entitled to come here. And France doesn't have that many people coming to Britain. The people that come to Britain from France are usually people like the Japanese physicist I mentioned earlier who are actually contributing to our society."


In case you're wondering the phrase to note is "as far as we are concerned."


All this reminds me of a joke I heard once, an Irishman, a Frenchman and a Japanese Physicist walk in to a bar....