A point of view, albeit not a good one

In the comments at CiF, a commenter called Heyone summarises their supposed ‘non-racist’ objections to immigration:

It’s ridiculous that whenever immigration is talked about there’s always people shouting “racists!” and everybody starts debating what’s racism. This is just counterproductive.

These people have all missed the point. The majority of people are not concerned what race these immigrants are; they have real concerns about the strain that’s being put on NHS, schools, policing and the benefits system with a ever rising population due to Labour’s mass immigration policy.

No – rather, we’ve taken on the point that none of these ‘real concerns’ are, in fact, true. The NHS, schools, policing and benefits system all work well in the UK; hence why our levels of health, education, serious crime and absolute poverty as a society are all at comparable levels to other wealthy developed countries, and haven’t changed appreciably over the last 10 years of relatively high net migration.

The only way you can make a case otherwise is rely on “ooh, it’s all gone to the dogs round here” anecdotes. And yes, of course the occasional granny will preventably die in hospital; some yoofs will leave school with no skills; some stabbers and robbers will go unfound by overworked coppers, and so on, generating emotive stories. All of which would still happen if we had no immigrants at all and doubled the funding for all public services…

So the ‘pressure on public services’ case against immigration is instantly undermined by all the relevant data, and can only be defended through copious use of irrelevant anecdotes and idiotic assertions like “ooh, the numbers are all rigged” or “ooh, you can prove anything with facts”. In other words, it isn’t really a case at all.

So no, ‘it’s all about the resources’ anti-immigration people, you’re not racist in the same sense as someone who explicitly says they want to kick out the darkies. However, your premises for your stated argument are completely, demonstrably untrue. The remaining question is whether you cling onto demonstrably untrue beliefs solely through ignorance, or whether your stated argument is just a rationalisation of the fact that you don’t like to see foreigners…

*******

I probably ought to add that the post above only applies to people who use the argument above.

If, on the other hand, you think that immigration is wrong because it depresses wages for low-skilled UK-national workers, and believe that 1) a mild disbenefit to a minority of UK nationals somehow isn’t outweighed by the enormous benefits to the migrant *and* 2) the problem can’t be solved by income redistribution from the population as a whole (who benefit from immigration) to unskilled locals (the only people who don’t), then you’re deluding yourself in a completely different fashion.

3 thoughts on “A point of view, albeit not a good one

  1. Another version of this is 'it's not climate change that's the problem, it's the birthrate', which I've heard yer actual Tories use. Taken to its illogical conclusion, the problem is darkies breeding rather than darkies drowning, which is an isotope of the usual sex-based racism.

  2. The House of Lords concluded that there was no Economic gain to the country from immigration and it is certainly the case that immigrants from outside the EU use Services they have not paid for to a disproportionate extent.
    I cannot say that this is my core objection to immigration which is of course, as you imply a barely hidden wish to gas darkies, but it shows you are talking out of your flabby arse and I `m…yawn… not breaking sweat John.
    Amongst the secret racist groups who believe immigration to be too high are a majority of BEM which includes Mrs N incidentally which I have no doubt is no more than an unusually determined attempt on my part to disguise the inner Nazi.

    Education is not working well in this country, above all and New Labour`s stand against modernization is part of the reasons that most fans of immigration send their own children to prep school in Dorset .Did you go to state school John ?
    I am not sure the country ,in any case requires supercilious sermons from posh ex pats feeling lonely . Countries with comparable patterns of migration like France and Holland are considerably less tolerant than this one .Obviously the rate needs to be moderated and it will be and that will end the drama.

    PS-Do you know which group is the most racist in the UK John , the group who said thyey woulod be "disgusted" if their children inter-married with blacks ?

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