Remember when, back in 2016 before the EU referendum, Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and the 57 varieties of gammon were telling us that if only we left Europe, we could stop these pesky Europeans coming over here, claiming our benefits while simultaneously stealing our jobs? Well, sure enough, it happened. All we had to do was stop these foreigners coming over here and we would take back control. Who, then, would have been expecting a headline like this in The Times, owned by Brexit supporting Rupert Murdoch?

Huge rise in non-EU migrants to Britain

Wayne Scrote from the town of Redwall was appalled. “When I voted for Brexit,” said a visibly angry Wayne, “I was expecting immigration to stop. What I definitely never saw was seeing European migrants replaced by more Asians and Africans. Fewer Christians and more Muslims? I blame Labour because the Daily Mail and Boris told me to.”

God knows what Wayne would make of the 25% increase in the granting of work-related visas. Less than a tenth were from the EU, but there was a 161% increase of Nigerians, a 62% increase in Pakistanis, a 53% of Filipinos and a 14% increase in Indians. Although Indians represented a mere 14% increase, there were still 67,839 visas granted to them. In the whole of last year, 239,987 work-related visas were granted.

The number of foreign students also soared to record levels. 416,000 in all. That’s up by more than a half compared to 2019. Of these, barely 5% came from the EU. You don’t need me to tell you where the rest came from, do you?

Fewer Europeans, more Africans, Indians and Filipinos. I don’t recall seeing this on Boris Johnson’s fucking bus, but then he had a referendum to win, based as we know now on lies.

I couldn’t care less where migrants come from. If there are jobs to be done and we can’t fill them, then let ’em in, as Paul McCartney might say. Freedom of movement was something I always strongly supported and still do. But we voted to get rid of it and now our overseas labour comes from somewhere else. There was always going to be a need for additional labour. It’s just that your Johnsons and Farages told us that we would stop Johnny Foreigner full stop. It was a lie.

We’re not going back into the EU anytime soon and we are going to have to make the best of a very bad job. There are no benefits to Brexit, there never were any. But the main reason for voting leave for many was to stop immigration. We were lied to by liars. And the liars are still in charge.

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