The Left is wrong to ignore Britons’ immigration fears
FOR the pro- mass migration lobby it didn’t take long to start choking on their guacamole over a University of Manchester study which concludes that people can become unhappy when their neighbourhood sees a large infl ux of migrants. While that might seem bleeding obvious to most of us it is not, of course, what enlightened sociological research is supposed to say.
Previous studies at the university’s sociological department have concluded “diverse neighbourhoods are the healthiest” and “multiculturalism is not to blame for failed sense of community”.
It has become an article of faith on the Left that migration is such a good thing that the more we have of it, the better. If white British people are unhappy living in diverse neighbourhoods, many on the Left will conclude, then it serves them right – if only they could shake off their racist, xenophobic feelings and embrace the wonderful diversity of modern Britain, they might cheer up.
I am pleased to live in a cosmopolitan country that has managed to absorb – very successfully, compared with other countries – people of many different cultures, races and religions. The fact that so many migrants are desperate to reach Britain is a tribute to how pleasant a country it is.
But middle- class people who enjoy cultural diversity have no right to talk down to those who feel unhappy at the way their neighbourhoods have been transformed. If you are wealthy, your experience of massmigration is wholly different from that of someone who is struggling on a lower income.
HOWEVER if you are the former, migration has brought you a fantastic variety of restaurants and cheap labour to help you dig out your basement conversion. It has contributed to house price infl ation – generating you vast paper wealth – enlivened your house parties and introduced novel cultural events.
But if you are the latter, migration may well have put you out of a job or at least undercut your earnings. It may have priced you out of a home. It may have led to your favourite pub and shops being lost