I have one opinion in common with Nigel Farage (that I know of, anyway. I mean, I've never asked him if he agrees that 1989 is one of the finest pop albums of recent years, or if he thinks coriander tastes like soap). We both believe that while the UK remains in the EU, we will not be able to put a limit on EU immigration. But, unlike Nigel Farage, I don't care.
There are still some people who insist that "we're not allowed to talk about immigration". I don't know which rock these people have been living under, because it seems that that's all we've been talking about for years. And God, it's been depressing. Brendan Cox – widower of Jo Cox, the Labour MP who was so brutally murdered last week, it seems for being a "traitor to Britain" – wrote recently that mainstream politicians have been "clueless on how to deal with the public debate". How right he was. After years of allowing the idea that immigration was definitely a Bad Thing to flourish unchecked, the politicians in favour of Remain are now finding out exactly how badly this is biting them on the arse. They find themselves forced to undo the perception they themselves helped to foster, by throwing around numbers and figures about how much immigrants contribute to the public purse. But if I've learned anything about public debate in this country, it's that facts don't win arguments. There's always another number, somewhere, which aligns more closely with what we want to believe. Years of abuse and misuse of statistics by politicians and the media means that it's so hard to discern fact from near-fact from fiction, so we just don't bother.
So instead, let's go back to basics. Let's stop talking in numbers. Let's stop reducing human beings to net contributions. Let's talk about the principle of the thing.
I believe in freedom of movement. It's a beautiful thing. I love the idea that we are not trapped by the circumstances of our birth, the idea that we are free to make our own destiny, in a place of our choosing. Where we are born says nothing about out choices, only those of our parents. It says nothing about the kind of person we want to be and the way we want to live. Many people, probably most people, feel a tie to where the place they were born, and are happy there. Many people feel the pull of elsewhere, but within their own country. And then there are others. The people who feel that their future lies elsewhere. The dreamers. The risk-takers. We probably all know at least one – that person who upped sticks and went to Canada, Australia, France, Spain. I wish I was that brave, we say. Living the dream, we say.
I believe that people are people, all over the world. You get unpleasant people, nasty people, downright heinous people, but the vast majority are good people. People who just want to live, love and work in the way, and in a place, that will make them happy.
It's not racist or xenophobic to talk about immigration, as we are constantly told. And it's not. Look, I'm doing it right now. But the way we talk about immigration? When we cannot extend the same benefit of the doubt we give to the person who wants to leave Britain to the person who wants to come here, when we instead imply that their purposes are less wholesome, more sinister – can we really say that there is no prejudice there?
Immigration is going to keep happening. The world gets smaller every day. We are only ever a click away from someone with whom we might not share a continent, but we can share ideas, support and cat memes. I can get to Paris more easily and more cheaply than I can get to Plymouth. Ideas and people cross borders and barriers, and we cannot stop it. And we shouldn't stop it.
When we open our eyes and our arms to people with different experiences of the world, we become richer for it. And yes, communities change. But communities change because communities change. Nothing stays the same. Our lives are influenced by so many things, it is ludicrous to lay all the blame on some people who didn't used to live here but now do. Change brings us new experiences, new ideas, new traditions to love. Perhaps some of our old ones are lost. But we can always protect the things in our culture that matter. We protect them by shouting out loud, "Here are the things that we love. Come and celebrate them with us!". We don't protect them by putting up big spiky walls.
Yes, freedom of movement can cause problems. But most things cause problems in some way or another. When we find something that causes problems, but we think it's worth having, then we need to do our best to mitigate those problems. This is where our successive governments have failed us so badly. Our infrastructure is not some fixed, finite mass that can only cope with so many people. It can be grown, invested in. And it hasn't been. Our public services are not crumbling under the weight of a load of foreign people. They are crumbling because they have been left to rot. Our communities are not divided because people were born elsewhere. They are divided because it suited those in power to turn us against each other.
There has been so much ugliness lately. I don't know if there is more to come. I can only hope there isn't. Let's build bridges, not walls.
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