Around the world people living in fear are on the move. Let's not pretend there is no refugee crisis: there is.
And similarly let's not pretend that millions more people have been so persuaded by the story they have been sold of the success of Western economies that they want to be a part of them. If you advertise the merits of increasing consumption for long enough people will be persuaded.
The trouble is that the Brexit debate is far too much about these two issues.
It appears to view all migrants as equals, and they are not.
It appears to view all migrants as responsible for their own condition and that is blatantly untrue.
I accept that there is a case for limiting economic migration: the rate of change that might otherwise be created could be too great for a society to sustain. But what worries me about many who support Brexit is that if you can contemplate leaving those from outside at the now literal gates, come what may, and whatever their reason, then at some point you can consider leaving those inside those gates outside of society, come what may.
That there is evidence that some would wish to do so is clear. This is a very dangerous path to tread.
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The parallel you draw between the callous disregard for refugees, and the contempt at home for people in need of benefits is very apt. It is deeply shaming that a country proud of its tolerance, its internationalism and its culture should descend to the crass demonisation of “the other”.
I blame our political masters for sowing fear and envy, and I blame our media for feeding it, and yes, I blame our people for buying into it. I always thought we were better than that.
We need, as an ageing population, some levels of immigration. Why we can’t accept that Globalisation combined with Geo-political wars for resource control masquerading as the ‘export’ of democracy has created this migration crisis beats me. Again, the Left’s failure to articulate a proper argument for Brexit ( I suspect Corbyn is keeping his hidden) allows it to be appropriated by lowest common denominator thinking of the neo-lib financialised Right. This is exemplified by what Helen says above:
“I blame our political masters for sowing fear and envy, and I blame our media for feeding it, and yes, I blame our people for buying into it. I always thought we were better than that.”
“We” are clearly not better than that and if ‘we’ don’t look into the mirror soon we won’t notice how ugly ‘we’ have become.
Well, you know Donald Trump is going to build a wall, and make the Mexicans pay for it themselves. We of course have our moat (but I’m somewhat surprised the refugees outside Calais are not buying inflatables to get across the Channel, like many of them do to get to Italy or Greece).
When climate change kicks off in earnest, and agricultural yields in many areas drop significantly, the pressure is going to become impossible to resist.
There is an optimistic story to tell – it is possible to have a good standard of living, using less energy and fewer material resources – but no one wants to hear it yet. Arguably it is too late to do much about it now – we are heading for 4 degrees or more of global average temperature change with no practical way of stopping it.
I am also surprised there is no inflatable armada to the UK
Anyone know why not (apart from the hazards en route)?
Pure speculation and thinking of the difficulties from looking at Google maps but would guess distance plays a big role, the Greek islands are only a few miles from the Turkish mainland.
Secondly the French and British coast line is much easier to patrol and prevent such attempts. Straight coast line in the world’s busiest shipping lane is already massively patrolled. Compare that to rugged inlets of Turkey with little or no reason for their to be such patrols.
Third there is not a mini industry yet in providing life jackets, inflatables, outboard motors etc to those looking to cross.
Some have tried to make the crossing, some even tragically tried to swim. I imagine given the desperation involved and the life threatening risks taken that if it was feasible to simply sail across then that would already have been attempted on mass.
Richard, yesterday I followed a link from the blog you link to here to an excellent analysis of why it’s appropriate to equate the policies of this government (and the previous one) toward the sick, disabled and poor to some of the policies of the Nazi’s. The blog in question was by Sue (Kitty) Jones who I’d not come across before. Unfortunately I suspect it’s a bit of a long read for a blog that might get circulated widely, but it certainly should be.
It should also be used to shame any Lib Dem who continues to insist that their pathetically weak showing as a coalition partner to the Nasty Party was in the “national interest”. Far from it. You enabled a poisonous political party to remain in power long enough to establish the foundations for policies that have delivered pain and suffering to millions and will continue to do so for years – even while that party tears itself apart over Europe.
Ivan
This was the blog
https://kittysjones.wordpress.com/2016/02/28/adam-perkins-conservative-narratives-and-neuro-neoliberalism/
And it is good
I like the chart that starts it
Richard
Ivan – the fundamental problem is that we ARE a one-party state. As regards the hideous Dr. Perkins -he unwittingly revealed his own ideological slant and state of myth-bedazzlement when he revealed his motive for publication:
‘‘But I felt I owed it to the taxpayers who are funding the welfare state to publish these data.’’
So we can see where he come from:
1) He assumes that Taxes are Taxpayers’ Money (Richard destroys this myth in ‘The Joy of Tax’).
2) He thinks that benefits don’t contribute to aggregate demand and therefore form part of the taxes that Government receive.
3) He thinks taxes ‘fund’ public spending.
And this man assumes a state of scientific objectivity?
Simon, as someone said yesterday on the blog that noted Perkins’ work, he should go off and carry out the same form of analysis on those who tax dodge. I’ve no doubt he’d find a generational and socio-cultural link there as well, which would then (following his logic) suggest there’s also a genetic element. The again, as tax dodging is a form of free riding, it may well be the same gene that’s supposedly possessed by those who (allegedly or otherwise) free ride the benefit system. What a shock that would be to those who think the wealthy a different – much better (economically, socially culturally and genetically) – form of human than the poor.
I love that logic
It is also worth pointing out Ian that the Government’s own fraud statistics find that the losses from “benefit fraud” can be anything up to 15 times less than the losses incurred from wealthy individuals and large companies avoiding and evading their tax responsibilities in the ways that are regularly detailed on this blog site.
Moreover, thae figure of benefit fraud is often found to be close to or less than the amount that of benefit entitlements which are not claimed.
I watched a news item last night about the increasing use of Philippino doctors, nurses and other health workers here in the NHS. Oddly the Philippines trains far more medical students than it employs nationally (thereby creating a valuable export in a similar way that Cuba does).
It strikes me we are now entering a world of global insourcing of labour, whereby countries that can educate/train lower cost high value employees will benefit not just from outsourcing low value jobs into their countries but also from exporting their higher value people overseas (lets call it state sponsored economic migration).
The fact that this seems to be actively encouraged by the UK government at the moment raises some questions about the actual (somewhat opaque) long term economic plan. If it is cheaper to import qualified labour rather than educate/train domestic labour into public services, then I do not see this logic will be restricted to the NHS.
I have no idea what happens to things like pension entitlements of these imported workers, but I imagine there is so much money to be saved that Georgy boy will have not missed the obvious perverted Tory mindgame of working out how they get away with it!
Am I missing something here?
No
But you open an interesting line of thinking
All this is very worrying-like Richard I have a teenage son-what are we supposed to do-encourage them to prepare for financial services?
I don’t know
But I know he will have to work until 75
That is if he can find work. I have two over 25 with three degrees between them still looking for employment which utilises their skills, knowledge, expertise and qualifications which over a five year period cost us over £50k between us in living support costs not counting the fees which have still to be paid off.
Meanwhile I recently had the annual report from the company pension trustees which tells me that in the space of two years (2013 – 2015) the ratio of contributing members (ie people at work) to those drawing their pensions has gone from 4.62 pensioners per contributing worker to 5.38. If you add in the numbers who have deferred their pension over the same period the ratio moves from 6.51 to 7.31. What is sobering is that the contributing members have now fallen to below 40,000 as work is contracted out on lower rates and high grade employees are made surplus, de skilled and performing lower grade work. The fact that they retain their higher grade pay rates does not detract from the fact that the higher grade jobs are disappearing with a knock on effect all the way down the grading structure.
With the so called fourth industrial revolution taking off via intelligent systems the chances of someone currently in their teenage years having any work at age 40 never mind 75 looks increasingly less likely than Torquay United ever getting into the Champions League.
You share all my concerns
Except on Torquay
You really should have mentioned Ipswich Town
I think it would have been most impolite on my part to do so as the only time I saw them play was Saturday November 27th 1971.