We need immigrants in this country – that's a clear and simple fact

Enough is enough. This was the phrase that first took hold in the days after the monstrous attack and murder of children in Southport. Online misinformation deliberately claimed the attacker was an asylum seeker and Muslim who had stolen into the UK on a small boat. Though that was quickly proved wrong, the original spark was all that was needed to embolden the few who would go on to wreak havoc on
the many. As if that would have been justification anyway. As if the storming and torching of a hotel used to house immigrants until their asylum application was heard was therefore fine. As if beating up a Black man in a public park for having the audacity to be Black was then fine. As if targeting immigration lawyers was fine. 

A common line that has emerged in recent days goes something like this: we don’t support the violence, but we all have to recognise that there are legitimate concerns about runaway immigration to this country. 

However, concerns, fanned and given wings by those with platforms who either want to foment disorder, or simply want to increase their influence for their own personal gain, do not make an issue an absolute fact. The nation is not being overrun. It is not immigrants who are causing issues with key services, rather at core are years of chronic underinvestment. There is a price to pay for austerity. Now, after the poorest in society paid for it, the outsider is under attack. Fingers are pointed at those with brown skin, those who ‘swarm’ in.  

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There is clear underlying anger in some places that still feel left behind, who are yet to see any benefit of the twin false dawns promised by Brexit and levelling up. But that is no excuse for turning anger to racism. Not everybody in left behind communities riots.  

Some senior politicians now claim the scenes are shocking, but they are the very people who had previous influence, who created hostile environments and poisoned the discourse, the people who turned to point at those seeking a better life in order to blame them.  

Many of these leaders still persist with whistle calls like the claim of two-tier policing. Which suggests that if police show empathy with anybody not white, but arrest a white rioter, they are somehow part of the degradation. 

We need to start with facts – simple and clear facts. The volume of people arriving in the UK, particularly in small boats, is not at the crippling levels that some claim. The places that warehouse them – while they are not allowed to work – are not plush quarters. Many, who have skills that could benefit society, want to work and not wither and waste. They do not want to burden the state.  

Essential services in this country would simply cease to exist if immigrants didn’t arrive. They are not taking jobs and replacing ‘native’ people. They are doing the jobs that people in the UK can’t be found to do. That might change in time but without them now, people in the UK would die. There would be quite an irony if the man who was clobbered, by his own broken-brick-tossing mob, on his sensitive area as he baited cops in Southport, needed hospital treatment from a Muslim immigrant nurse. 

At Big Issue, we have a number of Roma colleagues who sell the magazine. It provides them with income, it allows them to earn, to help their kids grow and to become a wider part of the fabric of their communities and of the nation. They frequently face abuse and this has increased recently because they are easy targets. We stand with them, supporting them and letting them know we will look out for them. 

We also need to look at the reality of Britain. While a number of malevolent people carry dark threats, the majority show up and clean up. This cuts through class. They want to do what is objectively right. This is a truth worth repeating. 

At Big Issue, for decades, we have offered opportunity for those left behind, or marginalised. We understand the plight of those who are seen as ‘others’ or less or not fully accepted. We proudly offer them a chance to make their own futures.   

More than this, we draw from across society for all Big Issue staff. Our colleagues number immigrants, people of multi-ethnicities, people of differing classes and religious beliefs. Our spouses and partners and wider family and friends increase the diverse palette that makes up what makes us. And that is just a snapshot of one organisation among hundreds of thousands.  

That is the reality worth speaking for and defending. It is true – enough is enough.  

Paul McNamee is editor of the Big Issue. Read more of his columns here. Follow him on Twitter.

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