The right wing media (supported by the political ruling class) are forever telling us that immigrants are stealing our jobs, homes and prosperity as well as putting massive strain on our NHS, schools and other public services. Along with the likes of UKIP, Britain First and the Tories they would have you believe that immigrants are akin to some kind of invading army. Well to be blunt it’s all bullshit! And here’s why.

Divide and rule

Let’s clear up the most common misconception straight away, immigrants ARE NOT stealing jobs from British workers! Many studies have been carried out on this subject and all have found that migrants are in fact doing jobs that Brits simply will not do nowadays such as cleaning and farming. In a financial services based capitalist economy such as ours these jobs are deemed ‘below us’ by many in society, however that does not mean that they do not need to be done. Many employers have reported that they always advertise these jobs widely and many say they never receive a single application from a British worker, as they would rather work in a call centre to be frank. With nobody to fill these vacancies employers have no choice other than to employ migrant workers, often on far less money than they would employ a Brit. This is the other issue, some employers use migrant labour as a way to cut their costs because they pay migrants less than a Brit for the same job. Working class migrant workers are actually amongst the most exploited groups in society, we should be sympathising with them rather than vilifying them. But as a society we do vilify them, because it is rammed down our throats that we should do so by politicians and the media. This is done for a reason so basic and obvious that its frightening to think that the majority of the general population is blind to it. It is divide and rule, the oldest trick in the book for those in power. While ever the masses are believing that it is the fault of migrants that A+E waiting times are dangerously high, or that our schools are over crowded, or that the council house waiting lists are stretching into decades, people are not seeing the real reasons for all these things. The government has destroyed the NHS, it has privatised the schools and it sold off all the council houses. They are the ones to blame. But they keep getting away with it time and time again by giving the public a scapegoat in the form of immigrants. First it was the Irish, then the Indians, the Jamaicans, Pakistani’s and now its the middle eastern and eastern European migrants that are apparently to blame. Only when the general population wake up to this can anything actually be done about the issues that drive the anti immigrant rhetoric. Concerns about the NHS, schools, housing and other public services are important issues but nothing can be done while ever we are pointing at a tiny group within our communities and blaming them for all the ills of our country rather than blaming those in power who actually control these services. The truth of the matter is that every study ever undertaken has found immigrants to have had an economically positive impact on Britain, if we removed their tax contributions we would still be in recession. And besides this fact another study found that nearly a third of NHS employees were migrants or the children of migrants, if we ‘sent them all back’ as the BNP and other racists would like the NHS would literally collapse and cease to function over night. Migrants are not the enemy of the working man, the political system is. And it is the enemy of the migrant too, and the student, the pensioner, the small business owner and everyone else in the 99% of society. If only people could realise that we might be able to get somewhere.

We all bleed red

When all is said and done we are all human. Whether a person is black, white, or brown should not make them the victims of hatred within society and nor should the country in which they were born. Borders only still exist in the modern world in order to preserve privilege by stopping those in 3rd world countries seeking a better life in richer nations. By doing this the world super powers ensure that poorer nations remain available to be readily exploited for cheap labour and imports. Nationalists say that immigrants are taking our jobs, well we are taking their lives! People come to Britain from places in the middle East, places destroyed by years of western intervention and wars. From Eastern Europe, where western economics force wages and living standards to stay low to suit their own capitalist needs. They flee from their countries, from their families, their friends and all they have ever known for one thing. A better life. A life they cannot have in their country because those with power will not allow it because it doesn’t suit their plans for the world. ‘Globalisation’ is a term used often in the media and business circles. What this term actually means is all I’ve just described, the rich and powerful few controlling the politics of the world to suit their own ends and exploiting billions of people in the process. At the end of the day we are all citizens of the world, and the problems of this world are too numerous to mention. We can only build a better world if we are all pulling in the same direction. So ask yourself, after all I’ve said, does it really matter whether the family next door are from Margate or Mumbai?