Open the doors Mr Cameron

8 years ago

An article published by Business Hands on behalf of Graham Rowan - CEO of the Elite Investor Club. www.eliteinvestorclub.co.uk

2 weeks ago, a picture of a young boy’s body washed up on a beach in Turkey changed the world. Suddenly, politicians across Europe realised that sitting back, eating voulevants and ignoring the refugee crisis was no longer an option. Mounting pressure from the general population of most European countries meant that they had a duty, not just as leaders – but as human beings, to take action. Contrary to the likes of Germany and Sweden however, Britain’s approach has been muted. It seems that whilst we’re all horrified by the scenes that have unfolded over the past few weeks, we’re fearful of opening the nation’s doors to these desperate people who are so in need of our help. But why is this?

Look back through Britain’s history, particularly the post war years and you’ll see that we have a proud tradition of embracing migration. Polish migration started in the mid-late 1940s and by 1950 the UK census showed there were well over 160,000 living in London alone. During the same decade we actively encouraged migrants from the Caribbean, India and Pakistan to come to Britain and start a new life. But it was in 1948 when the true birth of multi-cultural Britain arrived with the introduction of the British Nationality Act. This gave all Commonwealth citizens free entry into Britain. The symbolic starting point of this mass migration to the 'mother country' was the journey of the SS Empire Windrush from Kingston, Jamaica, to Tilbury, Essex, in June 1948. On board were almost 500 West Indians intent on starting new lives in Britain and they were welcomed with open arms. Just take a look at this news clipping from the time.

It didn’t stop there. During the 1960’s and 70’s a vibrant Pakistani and Bangladeshi community emerged and, when the Ugandan dictator General Idi Amin booted out 80,000 of his own people, the UK also opened its doors once again to more than 28,000 refugees. All of this before we even get onto the relatively recent influx from Eastern Europe.

And look at where it’s got us. Britain is a glowing example of a vibrant, multicultural nation. We now eat more chicken tikka masala in a year than we do Sunday Roasts. There’s a Chinese takeaway in pretty much every town in Britain with a population over 10,000. Go out of a Friday night and today's young people aren’t having fish and chips after a skinful, they’re going for a kebab. Migration has brought in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people – all of which started from nothing and have worked their socks off to become citizens that really contribute to our society. Not just socially, but economically as well. A great example of this is our Polish cleaner Stefka who arrived here about 4 years ago and could barely say hello or goodbye. She has now resigned because she’s going to do an accountancy degree! Not only has she become fluent in the language she’s managed to save enough on a cleaners wage to pay her university fees.

So why are we not opening our doors once more? It’s always comes back to the same two arguments. These people are either coming to Britain to take our benefits or they’re coming into “our country taking our jobs”. The current Government line is that we don’t want to let “economic migrants” in, only those that are in fear of their lives. The reality is that whatever their motivations, they work a damn site harder and contribute far more to Britain than our very own growing population of benefits scroungers. The fear that these migrants will come here with a sense of entitlement and see benefits as a lifestyle choice rather than emergency assistance has only come about from seeing work-shy Britons do the same. The true is that without migration, the British economy would be nothing like it is today. Our culture would not be nearly as colourful and the “Great” in “Great Britain” would be a thing of the past. So open the doors Mr Cameron, let these people in. We can always kick out a few of our own benefits scroungers if we need more space.

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