Where does it end?

Immigration at record levels? Boo say some, but Yay say others; what’s a person to think? That seems to depend entirely on which tribe you belong to. The pragmatic tribe think we should control who comes to our country and who should be allowed to reside here, study here or work here. It appears to be a quite simple equation – insufficient builders in Britain right now? Then allow qualified tradespeople to work here for as long as we need them. But, automatic right to citizenship? That is a wholly different matter. The fundamental principle of trade has always been that goods, labour or gold are exchanged for gold, goods, or labour; the deal struck is up to the participants.

But unchecked capitalism, they say, is an evil which must be brought to heel and made a slave of the state, so somewhere along the line the serfs rose up, overthrew their despotic masters and set upon a path to a more enlightened world of cooperation and mutual benefit... in theory at least. Unfortunately power cares not how it rules; it just so happens that apparent kindness is a more cunning guise than dynastic monarchy, military might or mere monetary supremacy. Socialism is just another religion which promises that the meek will inherit the earth but never explains what they should do with it.

So back to the immigration which is the hot political potato du jour; how do we deal with it? It’s fine, say the converted: More labour = more production = higher GDP = increased wealth and everybody benefits. Ah, but wait, increased labour supply decreases wages which means more consumers are needed to absorb what is produced, thus lower per capita spending to reflect lower wages per head... So while the headline production is up (MOAR Tractors, comrades!) productivity is down; we are all a little bit poorer. All, that is, except those with means who are automatically relatively wealthier as prices dip.

As population increases at a rate that cannot be accommodated quickly – that is unnatural expansion by immigration, as opposed to entirely organic expansion by birth-rate - yet more spending is needed for infrastructure such as hospitals and schools and roads and railways and energy and of course, the homes to house the millions. Estimates of 250-300,000 new houses a year were made when the government was still peddling their ‘tens-of-thousands’ fantasy. But where is the money going to come from? And the labour? Allowing unchecked immigration in the hope that we will eventually reach some happy equilibrium is much like spending all your spare cash on scratch cards.

(I feel I should be typing all this very slowly for the hard of thinking... )

But it is worse than just the economics; there is the social cost of diversity to deal with as well. (Are we still calling it diversity? I know that multiculturalism is now laughed out of court. Should it be ‘vibrancy’ now? I lose track of which words are on the banned list.) As we usher in ever greater numbers of low-paid workers, they displace the previous generation who, if they haven’t climbed the ladder, will be propped up on welfare, possibly forever. Low wage earners find it impossible to provide for their pensions so are reliant entirely on the state. And enforced company pensions cost money, which is partly paid for by importing ever cheaper workers to produce slightly less per head than their predecessors...

It is a cycle so vicious that it generates resentment and xenophobia, which governments, unable to buy their silence, seek to quell by berating the displaced as racists and undesirables. The ordinary indigenous working man becomes a pariah in the land he can no longer afford to live in. Luckily, there is a ‘solution’. If a non-working benefit bunny can be persuaded that he can live like a king in Romania on a UK state benefit the irritating and unhelpful, non-productive British population can simply be replaced by nice, smiling, malleable new citizens, ideally ‘vibrant’ ones. No wonder western governments want the EU to prevail; soon enough the troublesome white Europeans may disappear forever, displaced to the poor eastern states.

Obviously, the previous batch of low-paid immigrants will lose out to newer, more desperate immigrants, but it’s okay, we have a benefits system and now they are here they have every right to stay. As we run out of European-born immigrants we will turn more and more to African born, dirt-poor slaves and import them in such numbers that Western Europe will eventually resemble Somalia. But by then will there exist a single person that even realises it, let alone cares?

Meet the new neighbours...

If this is what you want, fine, go for it. But if it isn’t there may be a small price to pay. Surely though, being a little bit poorer as a country – and for most individuals the changes will be insignificant if they are even noticed at all – has to be better than to be wholly governed by an ideologically driven, unimpeachable council of ex-communists intent on micro-managing every aspect of our lives. Any future ‘reform’ of the EU will only reform it quicker in the direction it is intending to go. And that is a road I just don’t want to travel. What does Brexit look like? A whole lot better than the alternative...