Until the precariousness of life in Britain is addressed,toxic myths about migration will trump the truthThe terms of the debate are established: vote in whether you want things to be cheaper; vote out whether you’re worried about immigrants, particularly the ones who migrated for the benefits. Over the decades, or we have seen some pretty unpleasant things in the immigration debate: politicians as a matter of routine attaching the word bogus to the phrase asylum seekers,casually criminalising a generation of the dispossessed for a fillip in the polls. But it was only as David Cameron marched into his meaningless negotiations in Brussels on Thursday that I realised what a discursive swamp we’re in.
I was in Uxbridge, asking Boris Johnson’s constituents whether they wanted in or out. I went to one man in his early 30s, and dressed like Colin Baker in Doctor Who; I thought he might have an eccentric view. “I mediate immigration is out of control, he said. “People who arrive here without a job, with no intention of getting a job, or have a bunch of kids,expect to be supported.” It wasn’t eccentric, but it was incongruous: he was Canadian.
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Source: theguardian.com