We need more immigrants. Not just a few more, we need as many as can get their butts to a Channel port or an airport.
We need them to come over here and take our jobs, because (haven’t you noticed) we aren’t doing them very well ourselves. We have crops rotting in the field, we have hospital waiting lists, and we have big queues in shops.
Also, on a personal note, I’m tired of Chinese and Indian food – once I’ve worked my way through the Thai menu I’m going to need something new.
I love Covent Garden – two hundred types of restaurant within an area you could throw a Blackberry across. One day I want every medium-sized town in Britain to be like that – rather than being overstocked with mediocre pseudo-French up-themselves brasseries.
Also two hundred languages and as many religions. I want my country to be diverse – who says the answers to our problems will come from European philosophy. Maybe the Latinate languages don’t have a word for everything we need.
We can’t offer much to the first-generation of immigrants – they’ll probably have to do some really crummy jobs, the welfare state is likely not to support them, and there will be some unpleasant people who don’t want them around. But even this will be paradise for some, with the extra incentive that their grandchildren will likely be hospital consultants and IT managers if the Indians are anything to go by.
We also need them to join the army and the police – if Islamic terrorism is ever to be beaten it is likely to be beaten with the assistance of Islamic men and women of principle.
I’m not saying we allow everyone in – but let’s set the bar way down low so that all but the dregs can clamber over.
Am I worried about being put out of a job by an immigrant ? Worried about my daughter marrying one ?
Not in the least – I’m not much of a man if I needed my government to handicap my “competitors”. Also I’d be somewhat inadequate if I had a preconception of what kind of man my daughter is likely to fall in love with.
Immigration is required to keep our country moving along. Can you imagine what this country would be like without the Jewish, Afro-Caribbean, Asian and other immigration of the last century ?
Scary thought.