Immigration
and the EU referendum: the angry, frustrated voice of the British
public
Up
and down the country, voters feel let down, misled and neglected by
politicians who ignore their fears about the effects of EU
enlargement
Anushka Asthana
Monday 20 June 2016
07.00 BST
The blaring sound of
the Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go crashed out of speakers
precariously attached to the upper deck of Ukip’s open-top bus. An
activist held on to her hair in the wind as the purple bus sped
across north-west England to the sound of horns, mostly supportive.
The driver pulled
into the market town of Leigh, and Chantelle, a local woman whose
daughter is playing nearby, smiled towards the towering image of
Nigel Farage painted on the side of the bus.
“I’m just
fighting for my little girl to get a place at primary school,” she
said, as she articulated – almost apologetically – why she will
be voting out. “It’s all the foreigners, there are too many.”
A Polish accent cut
in to warn of “the consequences of all these millions of people
coming to this little island”.
A blonde woman in
sunglasses nodded in agreement. “The rape’s gone up, the deaths,
the crime rate, it’s all gone up.”
The scene, in an
ordinary northern town on a sunny weekday, felt raw. Views that might
once have been considered controversial were slipping freely from the
tongues of not just local white British people, but black people too,
and even from first-generation immigrants from eastern Europe.
Immigration has
become the most talked about issue in this referendum, as people
grapple with claims and counter-claims about how British society is
changing and whether there is a need to take back some sense of
control of the country’s borders and, perhaps more so, people’s
lives.
The death of Jo Cox
last week, on the same day that Farage unveiled a poster of fleeing
refugees under the banner “breaking point”, triggered a fierce
debate about whether the language being used by out campaigners had
become toxic and dangerous.
Not that the thorny
issue of immigration was one that Cox ever sought to dodge. As
recently as last week, she wrote a piece for the website Politics
Home arguing that Britain had reaped many benefits from welcoming
skilled immigrants. But she also acknowledged that, across the
country, people faced “everyday worries about job security, school
places and GP appointments”.
Cox had heard the
kind of worries being brought up in Leigh, as well as those in nearby
Nantwich, Cheshire, where a teenage boy held up a sign as he chanted:
“We want our country back.”
She argued that
“legitimate concerns” had to be dealt with but said the answer
was not Brexit, which she warned in the article would not bring down
immigration.
It is not the sort
of argument that has won over a woman from Wirral, who converted from
the Tories to Ukip because she said that local people felt they were
always at the back of the queue in the north-west. She claimed a
child died waiting for an ambulance when 11 were dispatched to an
accident involving foreigners, and suggested a school application
form in her area had “priority for immigrants” at the top.
Asked about the
proportion of immigrants in Leigh, Chantelle replied: “I’d say
80%, maybe 90%.” In fact, the most recent census (admittedly a few
years out of date) suggested more than 90% of people in the area are
white and UK-born.
And if there really
is a school form that puts immigrants ahead of British people, it is
not online and the council has no knowledge of it.
But highlighting the
low number of foreigners in the wider area seemed meaningless in the
face of genuine fears about how society was changing, and genuine
frustrations for Chantelle regarding a school place. And even if
immigration was serving as a proxy for something else, it was
something that people like her were desperate for politicians to
address.
“I work full time,
my husband works full time, I pay full rent and I can’t get
anything,” said Chantelle.
The local MP is the
shadow home secretary, Andy Burnham, who said whatever the migration
rates, Leigh had changed dramatically, from a mining town with “solid
employment” and tight communities to a place where work was
“massively less secure” and wages lower.
And he also warned
that “blanket statements” about immigration often jar with people
because regional or national statistics don’t tell you what is
happening in their lives. Maybe Chantelle, he said as an example,
lives on a road with a majority of immigrants. And even if
perceptions are wrong, there is still a feeling of insecurity and
inequality that needs to be acknowledged.
“This debate has
been so dysfunctional for so long, it’s depressing,” he argued.
“Most people are not xenophobic or racist, but life’s not easy
and it doesn’t feel like people listen enough.”
Views like those
expressed in areas of relatively low immigration in the north-west
are echoed across the country in higher immigration areas, by
migrants themselves in London, and by young people in Oxford.
But perhaps they are
sharpest in Peterborough, in the east of England, where the streets
have visibly transformed as the number of European migrants has
increased. Here the percentage of people who are white and UK born is
down to 71.1%.
Emily Fisher, a
former youth MP and now a Conservative out campaigner, walked along a
road lined with Polish, Portuguese and Turkish shops. Amid the clash
of accents and the smells of foreign food, she pointed to a man
sitting in an England shirt, gripping his pint, who said he too would
be voting out.
Fisher argued that
it was nothing to do with race. Peterborough just “can’t cope”
with the pressures on its schools and hospitals, she said.
Is she right? There
is no consensus among academics about the impact of immigration, with
studies drawing different conclusions. One piece of research by
University College London looked at taxes paid and benefits taken,
and found a net contribution by European immigrants of more than
£20bn over 10 years. But once the cost of public services is taken
into account, that number is squeezed, with some concluding that the
overall impact is, at best, neutral.
At Beeches primary
school in Peterborough, where 26 languages are spoken, the
headteacher, Tim Smith, admitted there were pressures, but also spoke
of a strong culture of tolerance in his classrooms. Besides, he
added, this is nothing new.
“Peterborough has
been a reception site for immigrants for at least 60 to 70 years
since the second world war. The school logbooks at the time say,
‘What are we going to do about all the Italian children?’”
At a health centre
in the heart of the most changed part of the city, Dr Esther Green
also talked of challenges. “Appointments can take longer, sometimes
due to language issues,” she said. “I think there are great
advantages to people coming in, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have
an impact.”
Vote Leave has
focused heavily on NHS pressures, arguing that a decision to leave
the EU would reduce waiting times by cutting patient numbers.
But at the John
Radcliffe hospital in Oxford, Dr Petar Dimitrov, a consultant
anaesthetist from Bulgaria, warned that stricter controls could
squeeze the NHS by taking away doctors and nurses who come from
Europe.
“Have a walk at
three in the morning in the hospitals and look at who is cleaning the
hospitals and looking after the patients,” he said, arguing that he
finds it upsetting that Bulgarians are now so stigmatised in Britain.
Dean, who runs a
carpet cleaning company in London, argued that most eastern Europeans
come for work, not for benefits, a point backed up by the statistics.
But it is also true
that, as a Bank of England study has suggested, rising numbers of
immigrants in low and semi-skilled sectors, including bar work and
cleaning, does push down wages slightly.
And whatever the
numbers, anger and frustration at the issue is causing Labour a
problem in its heartlands.
Deborah Mattinson,
the founding director of Britain Thinks, warns there is a risk of a
backlash for Jeremy Corbyn’s party. “When you hear Labour
politicians talking about the leave campaign they use language that
doesn’t just denigrate the campaign, it denigrates people who feel
concerned about immigration,” she said.
As the referendum
approaches, pro-remain politicians are trying to sound tougher on the
issue of immigration. Their sense of urgency is palpable, and it is
clear why.
Back on the Ukip bus
in north-west England was Steven Woolfe, the party’s mixed-race
migration spokesman, who grew up on a council estate.
“There is a new
class war being developed,” he said. “This referendum is making
clear to me that it is between the rich and the poor.”
But there is an
alternative vision too, being presented by the campaigners like the
effervescent Amina Lone, whose job it is to reach out to minority
voters.
At a market in
Dalston, London, her message to first, second and third-generation
immigrants, many of whom also feel alienated, was that breaking ties
with Europe was not the answer.
“People are scared
of a world that is changing, of losing influence, of politicians they
don’t trust. I understand that. I am from the same community and
wanting someone to blame is understandable.”
But she said Farage
was making promises that he could not keep.
Lone’s arguments
were echoed by Cox before her untimely death.
She, too, took the
sentiments being expressed seriously, but came to a different
conclusion from her political opponents. In her maiden speech, Cox
spoke of the rich diversity of her own Batley and Spen community,
arguing that “we are far more united and have far more in common
with each other than things that divide us”.
Those are words that
will never be forgotten. On Wednesday, when Cox should have been
celebrating her 42nd birthday, her friends and family will come
together with tens of thousands of others in London, Yorkshire and
across the world to try to bind her legacy with the words of that
maiden speech.
Under the banner
“more in common” they will hope to articulate Cox’s vision of a
better Britain: one in which people’s worries about jobs, schools
and the NHS are addressed, but immigration and diversity also
celebrated.
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