In the old days, just after we left the EU, Brexiters were delighted. We had, after all, taken back control. Many had no idea what we had taken back control of but mere facts only get in the way. But we do know that it was all about stopping Johnny Foreigner coming over here, taking our jobs while simultaneously living a life of luxury on benefits in the free houses given to him while being denied to that group of people known as ‘our own’. Well, we’ve finally left the EU so let’s see how stopping Mr Foreigner is coming along.
As we can see by the graph, in 2018 426,000 pesky Europeans came over here, taking the jobs that no one wanted and fixing things, compared with 327,000 non Europeans. By 2022, those figures changed a great deal with 151,000 Europeans coming over here and a mere 925,000 non Europeans. Since 2018, we now have 51,000 less Europeans over here but a net gain of 662,000 non Europeans, the majority of whom come from India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Some people were very angry about the population increasing by 354,000 in 2018 but I have seen very little by way of negative reaction in the media that played such a crucial role in persuading Brits to make themselves poorer and to lose benefits like freedom of movement. It’s certainly an odd way of taking back control, but what do I know? I’m a lapsed Remoaner who has given up on rejoining the EU, in all likelihood for the rest of my life, but I do find it all a little odd.
Europeans coming to work and live here never bothered me much. After all, that’s how I came to be here in the first place thanks to an economic migrant in terms of my Norwegian grandfather helping to set up a factory in Portishead and my mum coming here for love (that didn’t work out quite so well and I am sure there are those who feel she should have been sent back to her own country when her marriage went tits up). Unlike Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman, Kawi Kwarteng, Sajid Javed and Priti (she isn’t) Patel, who are all the children of economic migrants, coming over here etc etc and destroying the country in a way a bunch of Polish plumbers never could.
I am sure that somewhere in the 5000+ blogs I’ve published in the last nine years I have referred to my concerns about multiculturalism in its most literal sense. I am all in favour of a multiethnic, secular country in which everyone can enjoy the freedom to live under one law but I do have reservations about cultures that I am uncomfortable with, including those which permit genital mutilation, operate their own disputes through religious courts, kill animals for food without pre-stunning, forced marriage; that kind of thing. I do not see the vast majority of European Union citizens as seeking to live their lives in those terms. Yes, our own culture has grown and been enhanced by the injection of different cultures and that is something which we should welcome. I am not convinced that the change to non European migration, at a vastly higher rate than was the case in terms of EU migration, is quite what Brexiters had in mind. Or maybe I do them all a disservice and that a big increase in Commonwealth migration was one of the secret reasons they wanted to leave Europe, in which case I apologise to all concerned.
When we were in the EU, we could easily have reduced migration if we chose to do so. But whether Labour was in power or the Conservatives, who are usually in power, we chose not to. When other EU countries have turned off the migration taps, we chose to keep ours flowing because of the economic benefits. Now more Europeans are leaving Britain than arriving and the loss is being more than compensated for by nearly a million people coming over here, mostly from outside the EU.
Personally, I don’t much care where migrants come from as long as they work hard and play by the rules, which is to say the law of the land, but it does seem strange that we had this angry, divisive debate about stopping migration that was won by those who wanted to stop it but now those with the power, the hard Brexiters who run the country, have dramatically increased it.
Funny old world, isn’t it?
