I have very little right to speak (or write) about immigration. I grew up in a part of the country where non-British born people and non-white people were practically non-existent. Perhaps my own views are coloured by that, although they are in fact different to those prevailing in my home county. Then I moved to York, again predominantly white, although with a sizable Asian population (mostly Chinese). But my friends over the years have included people from Finland to Japan, the Netherlands to the USA, and friends and acquaintances of mine have themselves gone to live and work in Japan, Bangladesh and Denmark.
David Cameron has once more waded in to the debate to say he is in favour of 'good' immigration (although exactly what that is is still unclear to me, but perhaps that's just me missing the point). It disappointed me that he was still lumping together economic migrants, asylum seekers and other forms of migration together in one speech, without seeming to acknowledge the differences between coming here in search of money or education; and being forced to flee your homeland because of violence or persecution. I'm sure he's aware of those differences personally- at least I hope so- but to lump them together as 'immigrants' (which to many people in Britain is a negative term) in his speech helps confuse the debate.
But another question has been interesting me recently, ever since a debate I saw about Europe with UKIP's Nigel Farage, when he refused to acknowledge that for some people questions of nationalism have emotional elements. I don't think that feeling emotionally attached to your country, or your currency, or your history and traditions, is wrong. It can be wrong if you let things that are unjust (eg not giving women the vote can be defended on grounds of 'tradition') continue on that basis alone, but the sentiment itself isn't necessarily bad.
I think there is a similar emotional element to immigration. And this has been influenced by the media and by our fears. If someone says the word 'immigrant' you probably think of someone from Pakistan or India, or perhaps the stereotypical Polish Plumber. Most of the criticism seems to be aimed at them. And so Cameron's speech made me wonder. What would our reaction have been if all (or most) of the thousands of people coming to Britain each year were French? Or Italian? Or from Canada, or Australia?
They would equally be immigrants, equally 'coming over here taking our jobs and our houses and our healthcare'. But I'm not sure we'd see such vitriolic attacks in the media. I can't quite picture youths in balaclavas painting 'Frogs go home' on the wall of a French restaurant. And that leaves me wondering why. Is it because these are countries we see as our equals, in terms of wealth and international influence? Is it because they are predominantly white? (although so, of course, is Eastern Europe). Is it because we think we understand their culture, that it's not so different to ours, even if the language is?
I don't know. But I think it's an interesting question. This debate isn't just about numbers and facts, it's about people's perceptions and emotions. As I started by hinting, even in my white, rural English childhood home local people dislike immigrants. Probably because they don't know any. If they did, they might realise that there are people, individual stories, behind the numbers, and the question is not as simple as it sounds.
