Immigration, 21st Century Style

First of all, I wish to apologise for not blogging in over a month. I have been heavily involved with a council by-election in Folkestone which has taken up a lot of my focus and effort. The experience was enjoyable and I learned a lot about local politics and the mechanical side of elections from a whole bunch of knowledgeable people, not least of all from our local agent, Darren Briddock; thank you the Shepway Team, I look forward to the next by-election.

It is therefore, with great vim and vigour, I return here to tackle the Goliath of all political subjects in Britain today, immigration.
Immigration is not only the most controversial topic of debate in today's Britain, but also the one that seems never to go away. With the rise of UKIP, failed Tory immigration targets and a looming referendum on Scottish Independence, border control and the quantity of people entering our country, and by extension, membership of the European Union, are constantly at the forefront of the socio-political debate in this country. Immigration, as a political hot-potato, is as persistent as the presence of boy-bands in the world of pop music.

What really concerns me, here in Hellfire Corner, is the rise of Nigel Farage and UKIP. This political party has done more than any other in Britain to stoke up feelings of xenophobia and mistrust of the outsider. In times of economic hardship and large amounts of unemployment, people start to question why they have no job and/or why they are hard up for cash. Rather than look at the drastic restructuring of Britain in the 1980s and 1990s and the laissez-faire approach of government in the 2000s which, combined, left the British economy unable to fully withstand the blow of 2008, Mr Farage and his colleagues would have us believe that Britain is under threat from great surges of immigration from the EU and other world nations, and that also, as a result, the country is now in the throes of degeneration and suffering from a malaise of self-liberation.

Now, if such arguments made economic sense, then the areas of Britain that took in the greatest influx of immigrants and/or areas with substantial minority communities would be where the UKIP vote would find its base, because conservative WASP*-like people in those constituencies, still in the majority, would recognise UKIP's argument and crave the salvation of Farage's "people's army". This is, however, not the case, certainly in terms of immigration.

A recent study by Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck College, shows that "The typical UKIP voter has little experience of immigration" and that the polar opposite of the logical stipulation, stated previously, is in fact true. It shows, in essence, that UKIP's votes come from areas that contain little racial diversity and pertain to the image of what many would call "Little England". That is not to demonise these people; many of this demographic, as displayed in the article, are fiercely patriotic. The tenth paragraph does, however, encapsulates the point clearly:
"The party has tapped into local resentment regarding immigration, despite little evidence of dramatic change. But ill-feeling often veers into overt hostility."
 The quote that swiftly follows these sentences really makes the point empiric:
"'The colour of people has really changed a lot round here,' says South Ockendon resident Leslie, 43. She adds: 'I'm not racist, but when I first came here, there were one or two in my son's school; now you're looking at eight or nine in a class.'"
All of the above only serves to confirm that UKIP's success is based on successfully instilling a sense of fear into people, and stirring up any resentment towards change at both a local and national level.

While what the people of Thurrock and elsewhere fear is not justified, the reason they do fear it is! When unemployment, in June, was at a rate of more than 2 million out of work and more than 1 million of those on JSA**, people will naturally hold concerns about their job security and who their competition is for that job. Sadly, what is happening is that people are being led to believe that the competition for said jobs is foreigners. Well done UKIP, way to make people feel uncertain!

Rather than take this route, what people should be questioning, especially if they are a historian of modern Britain, is: What ever happened to Full Employment? What happened to that Beveridgean, Keynesian task of having zero unemployed? Because the task seems Herculean, no party says they will push for 100% employment. However, if peoples' job prospects were healthier and joblessness was not such a terrifying pit of no-escape, then Britons would have little cause to turn their heads towards immigrants as if all their worldly possessions were at stake.

People may also begin to remember that they, almost certainly, have ancestors who hail from somewhere other than the British Isles. I myself will never be anti-immigrant, because three of my eight great-grandparents were foreign! People may even begin to be thankful for the efforts of past immigrants; the motorways and underground tunnels built by Irish labourers, the thriving markets in Hull, York and the East-End of London that grew containing a large Jewish contingent and all those other aspects of British life that, due to immigration, we should be thankful for.

My advice to those right across Kent, particularly in Thanet, who may sympathise with people like Leslie, 43, from South Ockendon, is this:
So what if there is more diversity in your child's school or down your street? It doesn't make that School or Street any less British. Lets encourage these newcomers to our communities to be a part of it all, by keeping calm and actively welcoming them, not fearing that they may steal our livelihoods, because, as our compatriots in the big cities, student centres and other non-UKIP areas of Britain will tell you, actually, immigration is not all that bad!

* = White Anglo-Saxon Protestant
** = Jobseekers Allowance