I hope it was a joke when I read that the government will expect migrants to the UK to be capable of passing an English A (Advanced) level before they can settle here. I spend a considerable amount of time writing in the English language and I never got beyond what was once called an O (Ordinary) level qualification. Indeed, I was so poor at school that I didn’t get near taking, never mind passing, an A level exam. I am wondering if this new policy will have any effect on my status as a British person.
When my old paternal grandad came to Britain from Norway at around the turn of the 20th century and just after the war my mum arrived here from the Netherlands, after an early life wrecked by the Luftwaffe, I suspect their grasp of English would have been limited. They’d surely have been turned away from our shores, arriving as they were on large boats.
Since I remain eligible to play sport for both the Netherlands and Norway, I am wondering whether I might too be facing deportation, especially as I am now what the Mail, Express and Sun might refer to as a ‘benefits scrounger’. (The state pension is, 100%, a social security benefit. It is the ultimate contributory state benefit.)
I would hope that in the event of my being hauled before the Home Office to take an exam to see if I can stay here, I could at least explain the difference between ‘there’ and ‘their’ and would refrain from using the term ‘would of’ when it seems that at least half of the population finds that impossible. Perhaps, rather than pandering to impure Brits, like me, we can ‘look after our own first’, as the hard of thinking tend to say when they assume, falsely, that Johnny Foreigner simply comes over here, taking our jobs while simultaneously claiming our benefits. You’d think they would of known better, wouldn’t you?
Speaking the English language is, I accept, an important requirement when coming to settle in England. If you are coming to be a scientist or a surgeon, it would be handy if you could read the language and not just guess what it means. If you are a bricky or a ground worker, then maybe a basic grasp of the language would be required.
Both my grandad and mum arrived with a better than cursory understanding of the lingo and as the years went by English became their first language. You just kind of pick it up. In my experience, the Johnny Foreigner who comes to Britain learns the language and integrates far better than the average Brit who emigrates to the British ghettos in Spain and her islands.
Quite frankly, I don’t see this as much of an issue. Sure, a lot of people who come to Britain use their birth language when with family and some friends, but with work and everything else, they speak and write in English. Go to London, which magnificently is the world in one place, and you will hear every language under the sun.
The government is simply pandering to the likes of Farage and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, trying to show they are as tough and nasty against foreigners as the two far right campaigners try to be. Big mistake.
The idea that migrants should be far better educated, certainly in terms of the English Language, is absurd. Common sense should tell the migrant that when in Rome you need to speak … well, not Roman, but Italian.
Once the British expat (migrant) in Spain can use the term una pinta de cerveza por favor, maybe we can begin to lecture the world on how they should learn our lingo? Until then, mine’s a pint of Estrella, guv. Salud!
