I don’t think we need to start taking the BNP seriously.  Sure, they got a coupla seats in the European Parliament (amongst the THOUSANDS) and they have been making a lot more headlines recently, mostly spread with a thick lair of condemnation from the media.  But they’re still a small party but because of their views, make a lot more noise than is proportional to their size – like any lobby really.

 

No, we don’t have to take the BNP seriously, but I think we have to take their voters seriously.  Let’s not be unfair, they clearly have concerns and it’s possible their concerns are legitimate (although I balk at the idea of some concerns being labelled as more legitimate than others).

 

For while those who vote BNP can be labelled as racists, do we actually know why they voted for them?  Do we know how many others would have voted for them if they’d been unafraid of stigma or simply felt it wasn’t a wasted vote?

 

Let’s not patronise them either by suggesting that they are either too stupid to know better or that by voting for the BNP, it is simply a dig at the current Labour government – a tactic used by those in power I am sure to down-play what could be real concerns for these people.

 

In actual fact, I don’t really have any idea what the BNP stand for.  All I have is what I have been told (by non-BNP members), which is that they are nothing more than a single-issue party whose central agenda is racially motivated.

 

But do you have to be racist to be anti-immigration?

 

To me, it seems unfair to ask.  For a start, it begs the question that immigration is a race issue.  It is a scoundrel’s refuge to hide behind the polarising effect that the race-card brings to the table.

 

Let’s be pragmatic here.  Let’s not get caught up in the romance of both sides – neither the love affair with patriotism nor the love affair with socialist dreams of free movement and universal liberty.  Both are disingenuous.

 

I believe in the freedom of movement.  All things being equal, people ought to be able to live where the heck they choose – this planet belongs to us after all.  I know if I’d lived only a few centuries ago I’d have immigrated to the US.  I’ve been to California – it’s awesome.  If I’d lived 2000 years ago I’d have left the frozen wastelands of the North and moved south into the prosperous and peaceful Empire of Rome.  It was also awesome.  See, what people often don’t realise about the Barbarians who were constantly being total dicks to the Romans was that they weren’t trying to destroy the Roman Empire, they were simply trying to get a piece of that sweet sweet ass.

But, such was their ferocity in pursuing that dream they ended up, like a couple of drunken frat boys at a house party, ruining it for everyone.  Or you can blame it on Christianity, but I’m going for the men with beards and axes.

 

But that’s just it.  All things are not equal.  Celebrating the fact that some countries suck and others (i.e. yours) don’t is unpleasant – but pretending that the inequality doesn’t exist is also dumb.

 

So let’s be pragmatic.  Britain is better than Polanistan.  We know that, but more importantly, the Polistans know that.

So, do we pretend that nobody realises this and allow freedom of movement anyway (and by freedom of movement, I mean in one direction only), or do we act like miserly knob-heads and tell everyone to eff-off?

 

Let’s say Polanistan has loads of oil.  It’s full of the stuff and it’s great.  Britain, which has loads of oil for itself decides it would like a little more.  But without paying for it.  So they build a big pipe-line under the North Sea and through the Shmaltic Sea all the way to Polanistan.  Then Britain starts siphoning off the oil from Polanistan and takes it back to Britain.  Oil in Britain gets lovely and cheap and the oil is happy – it’s being used in a way that back in Polanistan it was never going to get used as there wasn’t the facilities to dig for it, refine it, distribute it and use it as an end product.

 

I’m sorry for the heavy-handed analogy.  It’s probably quite irritating to read.  But Oil is not a country’s most valuable resource.  In fact, there is no resource quite as valuable in a country’s inventory as its people.  Which is why, when a nation is in dire straits they shut the border (China, Soviet Europe, warring African Nations).

 

Polanistan (and many other countries) are ‘developing’ (who isn’t?)  To me, it seems a tad unfair that at the moment, these foreigners, eager for work are allowed to leave their country to come and work for us.  For free.  We don’t pay their home nation a dime.  They simply go, leaving a gap in their place – and not just any gap, but a gap the shape of a plumber, or a doctor, or carpenter, engineer or any number of trades that the country they’re leaving would LOVE to have, if only they could give them the work.

 

Now, it’s easy to be sentimental at this point and consider the human element, try to empathise with the human beings who are trying to win bread for their families.  I don’t want to come across like a stone and yes, it is a common description of the Right that they lack human compassion (thanks Cheney), but there’s a time and a place for sentimentality.

 

But what’s the alternative?

 

Both sides seem to have an overall idea that “it’ll sort itself out over time.”

 

Plan A says that if we allow completely free movement from one country to the next despite their economic differences, eventually all countries will become equal.  I’m not sure how this will happen, except through the following ways:

-          the immigrants, having made their money eventually return home

-          the richer country, via the process of trickle down economics eventually ends up lifting the developing country out of its negative economic situation

-          eventually, the whole world becomes one nation so it doesn’t really matter where you live as everyone has moved around so much borders become obsolete and economic differences become non-existent.

 

Plan B says that migration should be restricted, that the economic differences between the economic zones (nations) are too great.  But eventually, all countries will become equal.  This is achieved by:

-          forcing the potential migrants to stay at home, where they will eventually pull their country out of poverty

-          trading on an equal playing field puts market forces into motion that will help the developing country to develop.

 

Plan A forgets that migration is a necessary evil for most people.  In most cases, people don’t want to up sticks and leave their home town, their friends and family and their culture.  They do it because they need to find work or to escape persecution.  Immigration sucks big time.  They’d much prefer it if they could find a job at home.

 

Plan B forgets that sometimes the conditions in a developing country are such that staying there can often mean a life of unhappiness and misery and surely it is the unalienable right of everyman to live in freedom in the pursuit of happiness?

 

Is there a third way?

 

How can we repay a country for allowing (nay, encouraging) their citizens to leave for greener pastures?