The twitterverse (or the 𝕏-hole) has been awash recently by far-right whinging about immigrants stealing our houses, jobs, and forcing us all to behave according to their notions of societal norms. And of course they are really spitting lettuce when it comes to the “invasion” of small boat refugees.
Really about what you would expect from a bunch of people with the intellectual capability of a syphilitic squirrel on acid.
The truth of the matter is that immigration is just a distraction from the real problems of the country and the Tories are quite happy that their mismanagement and corruption is being hidden by some extent by the ‘immigration issue’.
The ‘Small Boats Invasion’
Which the slack-witted will insist on labelling ‘illegal immigrants’; they are of course nothing of the sort. Refugees have a legal right to apply for asylum status and the sneaky Tories have very conveniently blocked every other method of seeking asylum. Leaving refugees no other way of getting to the UK other than the dangerous route of small boats.
What are they coming here for? Benefits? No of course not – asylum seekers are not entitled to benefits and are probably one of the most deprived groups in the UK. They are probably on their way here for a number of reasons :-
- The UK is a relatively safe place with a stable (if currently dysfunctional) government.
- English is a very widely spoken second language – if you were moving to a foreign country wouldn’t you prefer one where you already speak the language?
- They may well have existing connections to the UK – family, friends, or relatives.
The other thing to note about the small boat refugees is that the total is trivially small. In 2022, there were just 45,000 refugees coming by small boat (source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2022/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-december-2022). To put it a more visceral way, if you were at the back of a queue to make a GP appointment that was 10,000 people long, you could shoot all the small boat refugees and reduce it by 7 people – not enough to really make a difference. Or even 12 if you were to include all the small boat refugees from 2018-2022.
Economic Migrants
There is a great deal of confusion amongst the knuckle-dragging mouth-breathers who go berserk at the mere mention of immigration – who seem to believe all the so-called ‘illegal immigrants’ are here to take British jobs. Which is complete rubbish of course – asylum seekers are not allowed to take jobs, and they’re a tiny proportion of the population as a whole.
And indeed a small proportion of legal immigration. As an example, in 2022 ‘net migration’ reached 745,000; an unusually high number. The net migration figure is immigration minus emigration, so there were actually 1.2 million legal immigrants.
We could stop that immigration overnight – just stop issuing visas.
And the NHS would collapse. And the universities would collapse. And plenty of other industries would collapse.
We need immigration to keep the economy moving.
Is housing shortage a problem? Of course it is, but it has been a problem since the 1960s – we simply don’t build enough houses and keep not building enough houses. Way back before most of us were alive (1970), the cost of a house was 0.7 times the average salary; today it is more like 9 times the average salary.
Are NHS waiting lists (and queues for GP appointments) a problem? Of course they are, but immigrants are less likely to use them than our ageing population. Frankly the problems of the NHS are down to under-investment and Tory corruption.
The figure of 1.2 million immigrants is unusually high, but we’ve coped with hundreds of thousands of legal immigrants for decades. Almost all of the problems supposedly caused by immigration are in fact caused by government incompetence.
Is it any surprise that all this fuss about immigration comes at most 13 months away from a General Election? When the Tories want to distract from their 13 years of malicious and shambolic government?
