I am grateful to the writer and comedian David Schneider for explaining in a single tweet David Cameron’s comments last week about why Britain should not take any more refugee children into the country:
“We mustn’t take refugee children from Europe as it’ll incite others to disguise themselves as 7 year olds with no food, family or shelter”.
Actually, that’s how it sounded to me when I heard him say it; political speak for “we don’t want anymore foreigners over here so I’ll pretend that I’m doing these desperate children a favour.”
Part of the problem is, as I said the other day, that we have not had a grown up debate on the subject of immigration and because we have not had a debate it is easy for fear to flourish. Cameron says we must not let anyone in (despite presiding over record numbers of immigrants coming to Britain) and Corbyn says we should let more people in. Never the twain shall meet.
There are genuine concerns amongst the electorate about both the scale and effects of immigration. The scale in terms of sheer numbers arriving and the possible effects on wages, schools, the NHS, housing and so on. The effects in terms of how large scale immigration affects our culture. But one side says immigration is bad in every instance and the other says its good. And that is it.
Immigration is a subject which we are afraid to discuss, especially those of us who call ourselves ‘left’ (or Tories, as the hard left calls the likes of me). It’s awkward, it’s difficult, we don’t want to look like we appear racist. These are precisely the reasons why we should be having an informed national debate.
I happen to think that the effects of immigration are largely beneficial to the country although I am not blind to the fact that it is not beneficial in every instance.
The lack of openness about immigration is why Cameron preys on our fears and stokes our prejudices. This is why he feels the need, indeed that he feels able, to come up with a load of old tosh in order to prevent more refugee children coming to our country. And his friends in the media can say that our services are already stretched to the limit and that Cameron is right. But the reason our services are stretched to the limit is because Cameron himself cut them, as a clear political choice. We remain the seventh richest country on the planet, despite Cameron doubling the national debt since he became PM in 2010.
A national debate requires political leadership and it involves a little courage, characteristics which are not synonymous with Cameron. He will worry that he might sound weak, that the right wing of his party and indeed the fruitcakes of Ukip might pounce on him and exploit his alleged weakness, but I would not see it as a weakness at all. I see Cameron’s current stance as weak, as I saw Ed Miliband’s Labour’s stance on immigration as weak and pitiful dog whistle politics.
The victims of our political inertia are the children, always the children; drowning in the oceans, starving and freezing to death.
Come on, David Cameron. For better or for worse, you are the most powerful man in the land and you can start us talking. We’re not all stupid, you know, but many of us are worried, almost all of us care. Some of us, you know, are only here because our parents and grandparents were immigrants and despite our silly names and unusual dietary habits, live the British way of life, whatever that is.
Immigrants, migrants, refugees? How about people? That might be a good place to start.
