Immigration Policy – This is what people voted for! Or is it? Robert Braban
Whatever the protests when the fact is mentioned, Brexit for many proponents was founded on racism in its widest sense. Not hatred of any particular race, but open hostility to anyone of colour; the more obvious the colour, the stronger the opposition.
Protest all you like, but if racist sentiment had been stripped from consideration, the Brexit vote would have been dramatically lower and Brexit would have been heavily rejected.
Indeed, as the referendum campaign entered its final stages when facing a losing position, Leave unleashed a vicious campaign to stir up racial tension. It at least contributed to the murder of Jo Cox and gave cupboard racists the message that it was fine to come out, to be racist and to be open about it.
For years, the first post-referendum PM, the daughter of a clergyman, was paranoid about immigration and had waged open warfare on a wide range of people, including the Windrush generation and other immigrants who were, quite legally, permanently resident in the UK. It destroyed the lives of many.
Populist politicians elected in 2019 rode to victory on a range of promises, including a promise to cut the number of immigrants. The premise was that to do so would give UK citizens better job prospects and cut NHS waiting lists etc. Fact? Nowhere near it.
Johnson is over a barrel. He is well aware that his ridiculous immigration policy will damage the UK economy and make people poorer. Because of the false promises made to sell Brexit, he is stuck with his toxic policy.
The ‘better Brexit jobs’ will often comprise losing a well paid engineering post in a car manufacturing plant that has relocated to the EU and being required to take employment in the local care home or face removal of benefits. You’d better believe that this is where the Patel policy is going!
And what of the c8,000,000 floating work force that Patel expects to see sweep into action? They are a myth! I’m nearly 82 years of age, evidently included in the figure, but in the ‘you have to be joking’ category. Others include students, long term disabled etc.
That’s not the end of the Patel misinformation. According to the World Literacy Foundation we have up to 12,000,000 people of voting age in the range totally illiterate to partially functionally illiterate. A lot of those are in the 8,000,000.
So, what of the reduction in immigration? What Mr and Mrs Whoopshesblack of Wigan are wanting to see is a reduction in the brown and black faces on their streets. Immigrants are the people who, in their fantasy minds, are responsible for every problem they have ever had.
What Mr and Mrs Whoopshesblack are going to get is not what they want or what they voted for.
The new policy makes it open Britain for people with skills from anywhere. They will be free to enter the country and because government policy is to create those jobs in the north, to take the better jobs, push up house prices in some areas and further offend the Whoopshesblack’s
Above all, unlike the great majority of immigrants from the EU, the skilled workers from India, Africa, China etc. are going to be very obviously immigrants. The perception will be that immigration has risen and in the north that may well be true.
Mr & Mrs Whoopshesblack do not look at the immigration figures; their judgement is based on what they see on the streets. Oh dear, never mind!
