Go Back to Where You Came From

by Rick Johansen

There was a programme on Channel 4 last night called ‘Go Back to Where You Came From’. It is an immigration reality TV show in which, as the blurb goes, “six opinionated Brits” and, as The Guardian puts it, ‘are taken to Syria and Somalia and put on the perilous migrant route to the UK.’  Before they left for Raqqa in Syria and Mogadishu in Somalia, we certainly came to know some of their opinions. I wasn’t able to watch it through to the end, but it’s not why you might think.

A chef called Dave felt the best way to ‘stop the boats‘ would be to line the coast with landmines, adding that “It’s like rats – leave food out, they’ll keep coming.” The Guardian also described other ‘opinionated Brits‘ as follows:

‘Nathan, a haulage contractor in Barnsley, reckons his children “will be going to work on a fucking camel” if the government doesn’t get a grip on immigration. Chloe, a Conservative pundit who has frequently appeared on GB News, knows that “my views are just common sense. In 10 years’ time, Britain’s going to be full of people wearing burqas. Islam will have taken over.”’

From what I saw, it was a tough watch. I am not, personally, in favour of lining the cliffs of Dover with landmines, not least because of the risks to nearby locals and their dogs and I don’t regard migrants as ‘rats‘. Nor do I think people will be going to work on a ‘fucking camel‘ anytime soon and that Britain will be full of wearing burqas, Islam having taken over. But I’d like to think I have learned something in my life and in this specific instance to listen to what people are saying and maybe look beyond the actual words they are saying. Let me take Brexit as an example.

Many people voted to leave Europe because of migration and were told by populist right wing politicians that Brexit would see it fall. Instead, the reverse has occurred with European migration to the UK falling off a cliff and non-EU migration increasing dramatically, mainly from countries like India, Pakistan and Nigeria. I wonder if the kind of people who say things like “In 10 years’ time, Britain’s going to be full of people wearing burqas. Islam will have taken over” expected this to happen? But let’s dig deeper and take seriously their concerns.

What some of us pro Europeans – and to an extent I include me in this – have somewhat ignored the people who followed Nigel Farage’s lead, even mocking them, referring to them, as I have done, as gammons. While I firmly believe there are no benefits of Brexit to the people of Britain, not least because no one has been able to point any out, maybe we should be more respectful.

If people are concerned about migration and its effects, let’s discuss the issues. We may even come to accept that maybe they have the odd good point to make. Not laying minefields on the Kent Coast, perhaps, but there are some points many of us can agree on.

Why should we write people’s views off because they are ‘difficult‘ for us to understand? Should the liberal left ignore those views, treat them as thick racists who are lesser people than the so-called intelligencia? I am not saying that we be nice to actual fascists but ordinary, often working class people who feel and I would argue are disenfranchised from normal society. Who listens to them? Nigel Farage? Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson? Not really they don’t. We should.

I stopped watching, albeit a fair way in to the programme, for a couple of reasons. But it wasn’t because of what you might deem to be the unpleasant language detailed above. The participants were deep in hostile territory, but crucially under the protection of a vast security cordon. They were as safe as they could have been. Although this was so-called reality TV, it wasn’t reality. They were watching a real life documentary but without the danger. I am not sure it taught the reasonably informed viewer anything at all, other than the obvious fact that Raqqa and Somalia are hell holes.

If we are not going to write off people’s concerns, whether we share them or not, let’s be honest about the religious aspect. I am not just a socialist, on the soggy soft left side of socialism, as well as being an atheist and a secularist. Today, let me dwell on the secularist aspect. This is what secularism means. In short it means this: ‘A secular democracy where everyone is treated equally, regardless of religion or belief.’ I’ll break this down a bit. It means one law for the land, no religious laws. No religious schools of any kind. It means equality for all of us. No privileges, no special treatment, like the cruel killing of animals (like Halal). In short, this is our country. Like it or lump it. And I’d go further. If you want to live in a solely religious country, then go and live in one. Ideally, we all live happily ever after, regardless of one’s religious superstition of choice, multiculturalism within a secular framework.

The people who participated in Go back To Where You Came From are perhaps more liberal than they realise. I would, under no circumstances whatsoever, and that includes being paid to go there by Channel 4, visit Somalia or Syria. I choose not to visit islamic states (not to be confused by Islamic State) because of my principled opposition to the existence of islamic states. I won’t even visit Qatar, Bahrain or even Turkey for that reason. They did, presumably because they were interested and well rewarded, and maybe now they have a different perception of why people escape tyrannical islamist fascist states. Or maybe they don’t? It really doesn’t matter that much, no more than who wins I’m A Celebrity or Big Brother.

When it comes down to it, God is not great. HE is the elephant in the room, even if the elephant no more exists than he does. Having said that I strongly support people’s right to believe in the God of their choice. We should all be free to believe, or not to believe, and if people were, everywhere, what a wonderful world this would be.

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