Middle-class progressives love to welcome illegal immigrants into Britain, right up until they land on their own doorsteps
Daily Telegraph 12/08/26
Let me set the scene. No 10 Downing Street. Or possibly No 10 North.
“Good morning, Prime Minister. I have good news and bad news. Which would you like first?”
“The good news, please.”
“There are no more small boats.”
“Wow! Fantastic! So what’s the bad news?”
“They’ve all been replaced by absolutely bloody enormous boats.”
Poor Andy Burnham. This week, his political honeymoon was brutally curtailed by a record-shattering 230 illegal immigrants crossing the Channel in a dinghy the size of a Viking longship. In fact, the dinghy was so huge that The Sun couldn’t fit a photo of it on its front page, and had to run it across its back page, as well.
Still, we’d better get used to it. Because, in their adorably insouciant manner, the French authorities say we can look forward to plenty more of these mega-dinghies cruising towards our shores. In the exciting world of people smuggling, it seems, this is the hot new trend.
The British public, I suspect, will not have been entirely reassured by Burnham’s response. He’s announced that, when it comes to accommodating asylum seekers, “all parts of the country” must “play their part”. And when he says “all”, he really does mean all. It’s unfair, he explains, that Channel migrants are almost invariably housed among Britain’s “poorest communities”. So from now on, he’s going to house them in middle-class areas, as well.
At first glance, this may not seem like an ideal outcome. But let’s look on the bright side. Burnham’s plan should have at least one tremendous benefit. Smug, middle-class progressives will finally receive their comeuppance because, for the very first time, they’ll be forced to face the consequences of their own idiotic beliefs.
No longer will they be able to proclaim that refugees are welcome here, safe in the knowledge that the “refugees” will in reality be deposited in the type of frightful, gammony dumps that vote Reform, far from their own charming locales. And, just as importantly, no longer will they be able to delude themselves about the type of men that the boats tend to contain.
These delusions were exquisitely exemplified by the BBC comedian, Zoe Lyons, during an edition of Question Time in November last year. Britain, she declared, was “missing a trick” by failing to take advantage of all the “talent” that the small boats’ occupants have to offer. “Many” of them, she explained, are “doctors”, “scientists” and “engineers”.
Seemingly, it had not occurred to her that, if these men were doctors, scientists and engineers, they wouldn’t be coming to Britain by dinghy. They’d be coming by plane because they would have easily secured a visa.
Also, if the boats are filled with doctors, scientists and engineers, why do the French do so little to prevent them from setting sail? Surely, Emmanuel Macron should be on the phone to the gendarmes of Calais, bellowing: “Stop the boats at once! We cannot allow the British to steal these thousands of brilliant Somali inventors and Afghan Nobel winners! For the sake of France’s future, we must keep these geniuses here! Even as we speak, one of them is probably devising a revolutionary breakthrough in nuclear fusion!”
At any rate, such imbecilic fantasies will not survive Burnham’s new plan. As a result, middle-class Left-wingers should belatedly grasp why it is that the rest of the country is so unhappy about illegal immigration, and realise that it’s not merely because everyone is a massive racist.
Of course, I suppose it’s possible that these people will stay true to their principles by joyfully welcoming the new arrivals into their neighbourhoods, and eagerly inviting them to their dinner parties. (“And will you be bringing your wife and children, Mr...? Oh, I see. It’s a funny thing, but just about all you refugees seem to be single men. Don’t women and children flee war and persecution, too?”)
Equally, though, they might respond like Rachel Millward, the Green Party deputy leader, who indignantly fought Home Office plans to house 600 male asylum seekers in a former Army training camp in her part of East Sussex. Or like Calum Miller, the Lib Dem MP, who’s been fighting plans to house 1,250 male asylum seekers in a former MoD site in his part of Oxfordshire.
Given a choice between these two approaches, I would guess that most middle-class progressives will opt for the latter. If so, it will do our immigration debate the world of good. Because there’s only one way to cure the woke Left of their support for open borders. And that’s to give them exactly what they claim to want.
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