But
everyone wants controlled and legal migration, surely you can grasp that much
The difference will always be that Brexit voting xenophobes (NB - not all Brexit voters are xenophobes, but at a guess all xenophobes who voted in the referendum, voted Brexit) want next to nobody, because for some bizarre reason some of them feel threatened by people who look and sound different and that might destroy the lovely 1950's chocolate box world in which (they think) they exist (unless they can do my plumbing/build my extension/wash my car and do it cash in hand....am I right lads and lasses?).
By contrast. the lefty liberal bleeding hearts want to open the doors to everyone with a sob story...and give them good quality housing....and shower them in benefits....and free healthcare....and free education....! And all the while the xenophobes are sneering at their naivety for not realising that many of these "sob stories" are actually just here to rob/molest your granny or sell your kid drugs. Not to mention this is all happening while we can't even "look after our own" - it's a disgrace I tell you!!
But then we have more rational thinking people who realise there is a balance to be struck, but agreeing where that balance should be will always cause disagreement.
- Too "fascist" and not only do we increase risk of what we're seeing unfold in the channel now, but we run the risk of putting many of those with a real legitimate claim for asylum in peril and at the mercy of organised crime (on both sides of the channel).
- Too "libtard" and you risk overwhelming communities and services provided for them, not to mention risking some pretty dubious characters secreting themselves among the arrivals.
It will not surprise you to know I don't think we have the balance right at the moment. Too many seriously desperate people are taking seriously desperate measures to come here (and yes because we are an attractive destination and yes because they may already have family who are already legitimately here). That is still an exceptionally small fraction of those who have been displaced, and far, far smaller than many of our European counterparts are taking. We clearly have an economic need and overwhelmingly those who are here want to be net contributors to our economy. If they help us achieve the Holy Grail of increased productivity then we all will be winners (our historically low productivity IS our biggest achilles heel right now). Net contributors also help to build the services our communities need (if the government choose to use the extra revenue in that way of course). And yes, migrant from EU countries WERE net contributors to our economy - we got more from them than they ever took from us.
If you are wondering in a few years time why Germany is continuing to whip our a**e when it comes to productivity and GDP, then it would be good to remember just many migrants they have taken in to help them achieve it! The reality is that strong economies have always been built to some degree on migrant workers - not that we should overlook how they have often been treated as migrant workers, but that's a separate debate.
So there has to be a balance on what genuine migrant cases actually need from us and what we as a country also need from them. We may never agree, but compromise is the key to any difficult decisions in life. My concern is that this government, more than many through recent political history, hate any form of compromise and invariably try the my way or no way approach (hence the posturing by Pritti and Bojo which has achieved the square root of fuckall and probably taken us backwards). They are also playing to an audience whipped up to believe this is a massive issue by those, such as our friends at the Daily Mail, Daily (Nationalist) Express and such, and those like Farage, Katie Hopkins and the chap who calls himself "The Little Patriot" - who gives "rousing" speeches on beaches at the "front line".
All of this creates the illusion that desperate people (or illegal immigrants as they are referred to by the above in an effort to dehumanise them) arriving in rubber boats are figures of hate, mistrust and "enemies of the people". The narrative has been carefully controlled to the point that it is extremely difficult to counter without seriously raising tensions - it is too controversial for many. It does not help that the art of debate and reasoning, particularly on this subject, has long since been lost - your're either for or against and never the twain shall meet. IMHO, it firstly needs people to step back take a breath avail themselves of the facts around this and the life stories of those who are making these perilous journeys, and try to have a adult conversation over the best way to resolve. Not least of all looking at why so may people are being displaced in the first place....not that we can necessarily solve that!
If we do not tackle this sensibly and rationally now, we are in for some extremely rough times in future, because we are yet to see any real influx of climate refugees. This has the potential to absolutely dwarf what some currently perceive as an issue, when whole regions are potentially displaced.
www.theguardian.com
www.gov.uk
