AS an immigrant, I have overheard many conversations which include anti-immigration rhetoric. I moved to the UK nearly 20 years ago, but these instances still have an impact on me.
Things like blaming immigrants for housing shortages, blaming immigrants for crime, blaming us taking jobs and simultaneously living off benefits. Attaching blame to my very existence.
Once I heard: “There they are in Tesco, shopping just like normal people.”
“Nicola just wants to turn the country into Somalia! They shouldn’t be coming here,” I heard on the train to Glasgow the other week.
What is clear is there is a narrative from some which says immigrants are unwanted. I always tell them: “I’m standing right here, I can hear you.” To which the response is usually: “Oh, we don’t mean you.” Indeed.
Although I’m every bit “taking” a job or house that a UK-born person could live in, they don’t mean me because I’m white. Because I speak English. Neither of those things are things that I can help.
Suggestions that I am a “good immigrant” or a “we don’t mean you” type of immigrant are racist, and there has been a distinct lack of conversation about racism in the UK. No wonder racism and hate crime has risen in recent years.
Jobs and homes must not be talked about as limited resources. The more people there are, the more need there is for goods and services, which means more jobs. Immigrants don’t drive down wages, government policy and a deregulated economy does.
For example, the Blair/Brown Labour government implemented tax credits to reduce poverty, but it let employers off the hook, cementing low wages in while the government picked up the slack.
The minimum wage festered below a level that people could live on, then the Cameron/Osborne Tory government had the audacity to re-brand it a “living wage”.
It is the fault of governments who set that wage and the companies that pay that wage if people are on low wages, not immigrants.
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Meanwhile, the lack of housing is not concurrent with a lack of houses. Homes lie empty, buildings lie derelict and brownfield sites lie barren while developers are encouraged to build new “luxury” estates alongside motorways.
Thousands are priced out of rents and have no capital to buy, yet policies still favour people who own multiple houses.
“Rabbit hutch” housing in commuter towns is far from the kind of system which allows families to cheaply plan and build their own homes, which is commonplace across Europe.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported last week that Scotland’s poverty rate is lower than elsewhere in the UK, and the main reason they gave was housing costs. But the Scottish Government needs to step up its commitments on social housing if it is to meet its own child poverty targets.
It is the fault of governments and developers if there is a housing shortage, not immigrants.
The language around immigration at the very top has been appalling. Boris Johnson’s racism has been overt, with his comments about “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles”, but his policies are too.
Describing people on low wages as “low skilled” is offensive, and places economic value on them based on where they are from.
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The Labour Party, with its immigration mugs and open discussion about how to win back the loss of support in working-class communities, is not helping. Indeed, it is a party covering up its own failures. Instead of investing in and protecting the communities who voted Labour for generations, the party failed them by focusing on winning middle England. By the time Jeremy Corbyn was trying to win them back, their heads had been turned by those who were scapegoating immigrants.
This is fascism 101: don’t blame us, the people with the power and the money, blame those people over there, the people who look a bit different from you.
Last week the BBC posted, without critique or commentary, a clip from an openly racist woman in the Question Time audience.
So now as well as eavesdropping on conversations that make me feel unwelcome, the same lines are being promoted by our state broadcaster.
Our EU citizen neighbours have had to join a register. We’re up against it, but we need to keep speaking the truth.
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But its also about doing what Labour failed to do to prevent the spread of ignorance. That means empowering and investing in our communities. It means giving councils powers to take control of local public transport and empty homes.
I’m proud that the Scottish Greens this week pushed the SNP to reverse its cuts to local councils, to provide universal free period products, to invest in community safety and, most importantly, to provide free bus travel for every single young person in the country.
These are measures to provide equality and cohesion in our communities, but we can do so much more. We need to keep saying that immigrants bring youth, energy, skills and contribute more than they take. We need to demonstrate that we judge people by their actions, not the colour of their skin. There is no “us and them” – there is only “us”.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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