All over the news today is the report that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has said that fearing Europe's 'migrant crisis' is a legitimate concern and not racism as others would prefer to state:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/10/reasonable-fear-colossal-migration-crisis-justin-welby-archbishop-canterbury
Well, my dictionary defines racism as "hatred, rivalry or bad feeling between races; belief in the inherent superiority of some races over others". It's hard to see how that applies. We Britons generally don't feel we're better than say Syrian refugees unless it's to consider that when our country was last at war we didn't abandon ship en masse so to speak... Most of us don't hate, compete or resent migrants, more the overall situation of population growth and the consequent strain on our nation's resources.
One of my views on the issue is centred around our closest neighbours and one of my least favourite subjects - numbers. Figures from Wikipedia as follows:
Great Britain
Area: 80,823 square miles
Population: 60,800,000 (2011 census)
France
Area: 248,600 square miles
Population: 66,644,000 (2016 estimate)
That's UK 752.3 people per square mile; France 268.1. The UK has a population proportional to its area 2.8 times greater than that of France.
Meanwhile asylum applicant figures run as follows (from: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/migrant-crisis-how-many-refugees-are-countries-actually-taking-1519100):
Great Britain
4th Quarter 2014 - 8,155
1st Quarter 2015 - 7,335
France
4th Quarter 2014 - 15,515
1st Quarter 2015 - 14,770
So yes, applications are considerably up in France but that is ONLY first time asylum claims. That does not include subsequent claims and appeals or economic migrants or illegal immigrants or any other classification of migration. And yes, I will use the term illegal; the migration of people without all relevant permissions and paperwork IS criminal.
WHY are there massive camps of migrants at Calais? Why is France not housing them? Are the anti-immigration posts I see about refugees refusing accommodation in France in the hope of coming to Britain actually true?
Now I admit I know next to nothing about France or the state of things there but as a Briton I know that the UK is under pressure - a struggling health service, a struggling education system, a lack of affordable housing, too few jobs...and yet to criticise a further influx of people is RACIST? Sorry, no. I don't care what race / nationality / religion / whatever people have the population is getting to be a problem. If it were a home-grown problem so to speak I would expect the government to promote smaller families, boost birth control etc, although hopefully not to the extremes China went to. But the problem is multi-faceted - although it is commonly cited, from what data I am unsure, that migrant mothers bear considerably more children than the 1.9 UK average and that 25.5% of all births in 2011 were to 'foreign born women' - which of course doesn't tell us a thing about how they came to be here or whether they are ever intending to return to their country of origin - it doesn't change the fact that 53% of the population increase 1991-2014 was "due to the direct contribution of net migration"
(source: http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/impact-migration-uk-population-growth).
Claiming that being resistant to immigration is racist is somewhere between over simplification of complex issues and being entirely off base. Concerns about migration aren't about the specific PEOPLE involved, it's about LOGISTICS. It's about resources and money; considering that aspect may seem vulgar but it is necessary. For anyone who says people's lives are more important than money...well, yes but lets see how you fare without money. Housing, fuel, clothing, food, transport. The day-to-day essentials cost money. Then there's education, training, medical care...all the long term costs of resettlement and a person's long term residence. That's not racism; that's practicality. That's costs regardless of a person's origins. Sooner or later we, as a society, are going to have to take a long hard and practical look at how we're going to address the rapidly increasing population of our country, and, indeed, of the whole planet. We can't just ignore those issues because it's not considered politically correct.
What will almost inevitably happen as population increases is an increase in racism as, due to resources being squeezed ever harder, people will not entirely unreasonably feel resentment toward the 'newcomers' - for this reason these issues need to be addressed both sensitively and soon. Before it turns into something really ugly...
PS Anyone who wants to criticise my cited figures / sources etc...please bear in mind I am an ordinary mum who works part time as a cleaner - not a journalist, politician or an authority on migration or whatever.
