Some weeks ago, I published a few blogs on what is the taboo subject of the left and the recruitment tool of the right: immigration. Just in case you don’t remember them (!), the basis of my argument is that we need to talk about immigration. Left, right, centre, those of no politics at all, this cannot be left solely to the politicians.
When prime minister Gordon Brown referred to Gillian Duffy who approached him during the 2010 general election campaign as a “bigoted woman” because she raised with him issues including immigration and crime, he said the great unsayable. His reaction was quite typical of left of centre politicians. “Immigration”, they mean, “is a jolly good thing so shut up and talk about something else.” Not good enough. Brown was saying that Duffy was, effectively, a racist for even raising the subject, but why? More than one in five people who live in Rochdale are Asian or of Asian extraction and many of them live in tight pockets of the town. Is is allowed for a white person to simply raise the simple question about what their town looks like? Add to this mix, add high levels of unemployment and depravation, low levels of pay. Has immigration been a factor? People need to be allowed to express their views. This is about not racism: it is about freedom, or the lack of it.
I happen to think a lot of immigration is good immigration. For example, the NHS would collapse without overseas workers, but do overseas workers lessen the opportunities and lower the wages of other workers? I have seen evidence that suggests they do and they don’t lessen opportunities and lower wages. And what do politicians do? Put in simplistic terms, the left says immigration is good, the right says it is bad. And it’s an age thing too. Older people fret more about immigration than younger people. It is the attitude of the left, whether that is Gordon Brown or whether it is Jeremy Corbyn that concerns me.
Corbyn says immigration is good for this country. He said: “Britain has been greatly enhanced by the work done by people who have made their homes here, paid their taxes here, worked very hard here and given us this amazing cosmopolitan society that we have.” That’s not an argument about immigration and it’s not a policy. It’s a statement, it’s a position. And what does Corbyn mean when he refers to a “cosmopolitan society”?
My dictionary describes the term cosmopolitan as being “free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; at home all over the world.” I worry about the ‘prejudice’ being part of the adjectival description, but I rather like the idea of local, provincial and national identity. And whatever you do, it’s best not to mention the ruinous concept of the ‘multicultural society’ which I would argue has served as a barrier to integration over the years. Some cultures include female genital mutilation (FGM) and slavery as part of their cultures. What a nonsensical term it is.
With Corbyn’s statement, that’s the end of the debate on the left. The leader says immigration is all good, so just get over it. And what happens to the ordinary woman and man on the street? Hers and his concerns are left to fester and grow. And when the prime minister of the day refers to someone who dares to even raise the subject of immigration as a bigot, who can be surprised when people’s anger grows?
There is huge concern in the country about immigration. It does not matter if some of the concern is not really justified because the concern is there and it’s not being addressed.
Let’s be honest: the vast bulk of people’s concern is about muslim immigration. There is a fair argument which goes that we don’t so much mind the migrants when they look and live their lives like we do but many muslims often don’t always look like us and live their lives in a very different way. During hard times, the immigrant often gets the blame for society’s ills and politicians like to exploit people’s fears; politicians like Nigel Farage.
The subject of immigration will never go away unless ordinary folk like you and I are allowed to say how we feel and that we have some kind of power and influence over the country in which we live. The subject will not go away and we can either address it and deal with it through the democratic system, or we can hide it under the carpet and hope it goes away. There is real anger and fear in our country right now, as we see the huge influx of refugees, migrants, asylum seekers – call them what you will – all over Europe.
Our leaders do us no favours by stifling debate keeping it to themselves and if they carry on like this, one day the wrong kind of politicians may emerge and who knows where that may end?
