Aside from economic factors, there’s so much that immigrants have brought to this country that we don’t give them nearly enough credit for. Our culture isn’t being overtaken but improved by those that come in. There’s plenty of examples where cultural imports have made our lives richer. If you think of takeaways, these are now staples of everyday British life. There aren’t many families that can resist the odd Chinese or Indian takeaway every now and again. These are fantastic culinary imports from a completely other land, brought in by immigrants. Even the British icon of the fish and chip shop was pioneered by different groups of immigrants depending on which home nation you are in. If these were all to disappear along with the immigrants that run them, there would be national disaster. What if all the footballers from overseas were to stop playing here? Would people be as interested in the game then? Our Royal Family, perhaps the most iconic symbol of Britishness around, are originally from Germany. Immigrants are central to the very things that we consider to be British, and this country would be much poorer culturally without them.
In the north of Scotland here, outsiders from other shores settling here is quite a modern phenomenon in the grand scheme of things. There are now small Eastern European communities here, whereas no such community of any note existed at all before the end of the Cold War. This immigration has attracted some criticism from some locals, who are unaccustomed to this change. I find it particularly ironic when I hear people from the Highlands complaining about immigrants. As a percentage of population, the Highlands has probably one of the largest diaspora of any race on Earth as a result of the infamous Highland Clearances – where people were forcibly removed from their homes and their land by a variety of socio-economic factors. Highlanders populated the New World, from Canada and America to South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. We were a large percentage of the people who settled massive tracts of land in these countries for our own use, even though there were indigenous people there already. You have to have a brass neck to complain about new people coming into your towns and ‘taking over’ when your surname is MacDonald or MacKenzie. I’m sure some Native Americans would have said the same about some of your relatives generations ago, and they wouldn’t have received as much goodwill or as much economic growth from the new settlers at all. They’d have been lucky to get anything more than disease, in reality. Emigration was a last resort for thousands of Highlanders over the years, and you would be a fool to forget a recent century’s worth of hardship when you criticise immigrants today.
Immigration is perhaps one of the most hotly contested topics in UK politics at the moment, especially with the European elections just weeks away. On the left, parties such as the Lib Dems, SNP and Labour all support immigration. The Lib Dems perhaps go the furthest, although their efforts in government to promote it have been drowned out by the Tories. The Conservatives aren’t anti-immigration per se, but are very much in favour of limiting it to protect British jobs and British values, to conserve our way-of-life. At the moment, net migration levels are at 212,000 and the Government would like to see this reduced to 100,000 by next year – a target that is unlikely to be met. Further to the right, the UKIP platform is heavily based on admonishing the idea of immigration – saying it is part of what is “breaking Britain” economically and culturally and that it should be stopped altogether to help our country develop and prosper.
With the economic climate that’s existed over the last few years, and the lack of jobs that has come along with it, there has been a shift to the right among the British public when it comes to their attitudes towards immigration. 3 out of 4 Brits believe that immigration levels are too high at the moment. Seeing immigrants in jobs when you are out of work is a relatively valid excuse for feeling let down by your government, who aren’t protecting you as a citizen as much as they perhaps should. I get that. But when it comes to those immigrants working difficult jobs with long hours for little job satisfaction, I don’t grudge them their chance to earn a living. Perhaps if the effects of the economic recovery were spread more evenly among our population then our attitudes to immigration would soften a little, but at the moment we have a country where many believe that we should shut our borders to those looking to come to Britain.
Immigration is a vital part of what makes our country what it is, and keeps our economy ticking over in the way it has for centuries. Capping immigration only makes our job of having a strong economy with plenty of jobs and opportunities for all even tougher, as they contribute more than they take. Immigration and its’ cultural diversity are things to be cherished, not attacked. Immigration is something we need.