Xenophobia is not the right path

My dad had surgery on Tuesday (the subject of a future posting almost certainly) so I was a bit distracted when I heard about the Government's plans to charge foreigners for using the NHS. At least that is how I accounted for my confusion. But then I took a closer look and realised it was just plain confusing.

On paper it just doesn't make sense. It doesn't appear to be a huge problem.  Given the size of the NHS budget, the amount they are looking to save is pretty much a rounding error. I have been frequently asked at hospitals across London if I am a UK citizen, so there clearly is some system in place. Health care professionals appear united in their view that we should not be discouraging anyone from anywhere seeking medical help for infectious diseases (and yes I know these would be excluded from the proposed payment regime but there is likely to be a deterrent effect). And if they do want to clamp down on health tourism then why target people who are here on two-year visas almost all of whom are working and therefore paying NI contributions or married to/partnered with a UK citizen who is paying NI?

It really doesn't add up. Until you think about the rise of UKIP. And then suddenly all this xenophobia makes sense. Up against a right-wing, anti-immigration, little Englander party? Worried it is stealing votes you could normally count on? Then indulge in a little bit of Johnny Foreigner bashing yourself. It is the cheap and easy option.

It is also the wrong option. It won't stop the loss of votes to the right and risks losing votes on the centre, all those votes the Conservatives have picked up through taking a stand on same sex marriage and other socially liberal reforms. 

And it isn't just the Tories who have been tempted down the xenophobic path. The Labour and Lib Dems have also fallen prey. I fear that as we get closer to the next general election, we will see more lurches to the right, more intolerance on display, more foreigner bashing from the three main parties.

They would all do better both electorally and morally if they treated voters with a bit of respect, challenged xenophobia and celebrated the huge benefits this country has reaped from foreigners who have contributed hard work, wealth and culture to this land.  Foreigners like the most of nursing staff looking after my dad today.

Let's have an honest debate

If I hear one more person declare that we need to have a debate (often prefaced with the words "honest" and/or "open") on immigration, I will scream. The reality is immigration is constantly being debated. I have lost count of the number of immigration bills over the since 1997 and it has featured in every election since I can remember (and I am pretty old). The very people who demand the right to have the debate, have in fact been debating it all the time. And most of the time they have been debating using bogus fact and figures and plain old prejudice. 

I made the mistake yesterday of listening to Any Questions. I should have known better, even at the best of times it makes my blood boil but yesterday was particularly fury-inducing. One of the panellists, a supporter of UKIP made up a host of "facts" about the impact of recent immigration. None of them stood up to any scrutiny. But they will be repeated by her and others, quoted by the media and before you know they will become gospel. I am happy to debate the issue, I just want to have a debate on the facts. So just to be clear:

• illegal immigrants can't claim benefits in this country because they are illegal - you have to have a right to live and work here to claim any kind of benefit

• Council houses are not being given over to "foreigners" - there is no automatic right to social housing just because you are an immigrant. A survey by the Equality and Human Rights Commission showed that only 1.8% of those living in UK social housing were recent immigrants (ie had come to the UK in the previous five years) and most of these were people who had come to here as refugees. 

• there is no evidence to indicate that immigrants are less law-abiding than anyone else. 

I can understand the concern that recent immigrants are accepting low paid jobs and so distorting the local wage economy but it there is evidence that anyone is being paid below the national minimum wage there is a very easy answer: prosecute the employers who are breaking the law plain and simple. 


I should declare an interest, I am an immigrant, actually my family and I were asylum seekers. I grew up in this country with racism pretty much a constant feature of my life - some was unconscious and easily overlooked but lots was overt and scary. It has got better but it still exists and I really do worry that trying to pin our current economic woes on immigrants - for that is what is happening - will encourage racists.  We cannot let that happen. 

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Mother tongues

"Polish now the second most common language in England and Wales" proclaimed the Sun yesterday. When I heard this I was a little perplexed. I mean I live in London, in a neighbourhood with a very diverse ethnic mix, including lots of Poles, but I haven't really noticed huge numbers of people speaking Polish. So I delved into the detail.

According to the latest census data released by the ONS, over 92 per cent of people in England and Wales speak English as their main language (English or Welsh in Wales) and fewer than 0.5 per cent of people (137,511) do not speak English at all. Polish is the main language spoken by 546,000 people. They together with the speakers of the other top five other main languages (Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali and Gujarati) number about 1.5 million people, almost all of whom speak English as well. For the record some 570,000 people in Wales and England speak Welsh (but to be fair to the Sun, it is unlikely to be their main language). 

So now we know. Far from being flooded by immigrants who are diluting British culture and robbing the nation of the English language itself. Even in London, one of the world's great melting pots, 80 per cent of people use English as their main language. That is the same as the national figure for the United States. 

Immigration is not to be feared but embraced. Immigrants enhance British culture, contribute to the economy. Immigrants don't steal jobs, they aren't welfare scroungers. A National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESCR) report last January found that the number of migrant workers coming to the UK over the previous decade had had little or no impact on joblessness, with "no association" between rising immigration and an increase in unemployment benefit claims.

I should declare an interest here. I am an immigrant, actually an asylum seeker, although when my family came we were called political refugees, in our case my parents were fleeing the apartheid regime. We probably wouldn't have qualified under current asylum rules, so it is just as well we arrived when we did. We were allowed to stay, stayed long enough to acquire British citizenship and we are still here. Britain is our home.  

I think we have made pretty good citizens as well. My dad got work straight away and worked hard every day  until he retired on a state pension. My sisters do proper jobs in the public sector adding value to people's lives for small reward. And I pay my taxes (to be clear my whole family pays their taxes but compared to my sisters that is the only contribution I feel can claim). Yes, we have benefited from this country's education and health systems but I believe we have made in our own ways our own contributions to the health and well being of Britain.  

Our story is typical of so many immigrants. We come, we settle, we assimilate, we make our mark. How dull Britain would be without all of the things which immigrants have brought? I could list all the wonderful thing immigrants have contributed to science, technology, the arts and medicine but I will be obvious and list some of the food we would be without: fish and chips, curry, spaghetti, sushi, hamburgers, yams, and sourdough bread which thanks to the Poles is now available in my corner shop every day of the week.