Thanks for this, James. I've found that its only after you move out of the UK that you realise how much Britain has internalised "the cruelty is the point" as a core dynamic of dealing with immigration. Canada is far from perfect but they at least pretend that the response to immigration should address the issue not just make people miserable. It seems like years since politicians in Britain have seriously attempted to do that.
Very well said. It’s quite astonishing, really, that a government of any hue, let alone a *Labour* government, should seek to indulge the prejudices of a small minority of people who, as you say, are never going to vote for them anyway.
My mother came to the UK from Germany in 1949, to marry my former-squaddie dad. You might expect her to have had a hard time from her new neighbours, given that her country of birth had been ‘the enemy’ only a few years previously, but she always maintained that she encountered nothing but kindness and generosity, of spirit at least. So I will always ‘stand up for migrants,’ because without immigration into this country, I simply wouldn’t exist.
And, despite the fact that I was a member of the Labour Party for over 40 years, I cannot see myself ever voting for them again.
An honest question, as I’m in the USA & my familiarity with G.B. politics is limited - if not Labour, who would you vote for who’s better on immigration? Or are any of the parties better on it?
The Liberal Democrats, a liberal social democrat party, talk a good game on it. In reality, as part of the coalition governments they oversaw the introduction of the same hostile environment and spouse visa rules I lament in the article
Thanks for this, James. I've found that its only after you move out of the UK that you realise how much Britain has internalised "the cruelty is the point" as a core dynamic of dealing with immigration. Canada is far from perfect but they at least pretend that the response to immigration should address the issue not just make people miserable. It seems like years since politicians in Britain have seriously attempted to do that.
Very well said. It’s quite astonishing, really, that a government of any hue, let alone a *Labour* government, should seek to indulge the prejudices of a small minority of people who, as you say, are never going to vote for them anyway.
My mother came to the UK from Germany in 1949, to marry my former-squaddie dad. You might expect her to have had a hard time from her new neighbours, given that her country of birth had been ‘the enemy’ only a few years previously, but she always maintained that she encountered nothing but kindness and generosity, of spirit at least. So I will always ‘stand up for migrants,’ because without immigration into this country, I simply wouldn’t exist.
And, despite the fact that I was a member of the Labour Party for over 40 years, I cannot see myself ever voting for them again.
You don’t even want to live in the UK but you think your views should override those who do whose lives are worsen because of mass immigration?
As the piece makes clear, my views are in the minority. And I've lived in the UK the majority of my adult life.
An honest question, as I’m in the USA & my familiarity with G.B. politics is limited - if not Labour, who would you vote for who’s better on immigration? Or are any of the parties better on it?
The Liberal Democrats, a liberal social democrat party, talk a good game on it. In reality, as part of the coalition governments they oversaw the introduction of the same hostile environment and spouse visa rules I lament in the article