Bloody foreigners!

Bloody foreigners!

England has more than one boundary. Apart from the obvious of Ireland, Scotland and Wales there is also the additional inclusion of...The M25.

Every time I travel around the country I always feel as though whenever I cross over the M25 border I need to get out my passport to enter into another world, a world of anyone and everyone from outside of the UK. Now as I have stipulated in my introductory to the side of this blog I am fortunate enough to be well travelled and have been across most parts of the globe so I can hardly spout my mouth off when it comes to others visiting this country, when I have been doing it myself often enough the other way around.

The well known and far too often used phrase in this country is "Multiculturalism". We are a multi cultural society. In 1953 England opened up its doors to the outside world and said come on in, do our jobs, get paid a wage and live well. The masses heard our cry and came...in droves, taking the jobs and setting up shanty towns. Enoch Powell said at the time to the UK Government that there are now too many coming in and that all the foreigners will take over but he was shunned at the time and metaphorically shot down in flames.

Before moving to London I used to live in the New Forest not too far from the south coast. Englands green and pleasant land where the ponies and deer roam freely, the air is rich with wildlife, life is pleasant, relaxing and slower paced. The view of a person from outside of the UK other than on a mini break is rare and to have someone live next door even more so. But in London, when it comes to immigrancy, life is a whole world away and just simply could not be further. Interestingly enough a Spanish couple who I know that both live and work in London asked me a question which I found very difficult to answer. They said "why are there so many foreign people in London?" I found this to be an amusing paradox by someone who is residing here from another shoreline asking this type of question. They were viewing our country from the outside looking in and saw what appeared to be an alarming rise on non UK residents.

So why is there such a large volume of people from other shores coming here to live and work in the UK? To try and answer this question in part I was going to quote a few statistics from the UK Home Office website showing the number of visitors we had in 2011. However as always in these kind of cases nothing is ever straight forward when accessing a Government website and I was taken from one link to another with headings, sub headings, catagories and even more sub catagories with no straight forward answer. If you really want to see some figures then you can have a look for yourself here http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/  

Now at this point I have to say that those who live outside the ringfence that is the M25 - in particular in this case The New Forest there is a quite typical view that these bloody foreigners are coming in, taking our jobs, living in our houses and generally taking over. They claim "asylum" when in reality life is actually quite alright for them back home but all they want is an easy ride, a free loader riding on the benefit gravy train that the UK so seemingly freely gives. However, whilst this does happen, we know it happens, I can now say that I've also seen things from the other side of the coin.

Within all parts of the UK there are people who have come here from foreign lands. London, Manchester, Glasgow and in-between you will see someone who's ancestory was not that of the pure thoroughbred which we call "Saxon British". Generations of individuals from the early 1950's onwards are now born, grow up, work, pay taxes, live their lives and die. They live in their own communities, have their own ways of expressing themselves, eat how they eat, drink how they drink, attend their own type of religious institutes and generally get on with things. The clashes however come to light when they try to instigate their own views with a narrow minded cynisism onto that of others, and since the birth of the internet 25 years ago, their views have expanded expotentially. And so the problems have grown.

Two days ago I was talking to a student from Estonia. He has come to the UK to study and improve his knowledge in his chosen career. We talked at length of comparisons between the two countries ranging from educational establishments through to money, careers and even who has the most evil serial killers (which sadly the UK won on this one - citing the likes of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, Fred and Rose West and the biggest one of them all - Harold Shipman). However, he told me a story of a friend of his also from Estonia who is living and working over here as a waiter. Nothing unusual about that you might say until you hear that in Estonia this particular individual used to be a senior detective in the Police force!

For the waiting detective (see what I did there) you have got to ask yourself the question why would someone who is in such high authority, leave the country they grew up in and move en masse with their wife and child to go to another land so far away with no certainty of their future to end up working as a waiter? The answer is simple. Money and lifestyle. In the UK a waiter can take home their monthly wage as well as tips, and then depending on how their daily timescale works out, maybe even another part time job to fill in the gap between. And still they will be better off than that of the senior detective who will work all hours and slave away in the hope of catching their man for just a fraction of the wage. In this case, the detective really has come for a better life for he and his family.

And he is not on his own, tens of thousands of individuals are coming over to the UK for a better life than that of the one in their own country. And for any one of those who are willing to work hard, play hard, pay their taxes and contribute to British society then why not let them come in. Unfortunately the problem lies with the freeloaders that we know exist, and for those who are caught by the officials I say kick em back out again. For the narrow minded Brits all they will see is that all foreigners are the same and will tarr them with the same brush. Right or wrong, this will be one of those things that will carry on and on. Whilst the UK Government keeps handing out benefits in the form of money, houses and aid to the asylum claiming freeloaders then the world will keep on knocking at our door.

In my opinion we should stop the problem at its roots. Stop throwing cash into the endless bottomless pit that is a freeloader and come down hard on those who feel they can cheat the system. Show the world that actions like this will not be tolerated and let everyone know we are no longer a soft touch. Sadly, the ones that weild the power in this country often show signs of being spineless when it comes to instances like this. They play the political game of will you be my friend, hoping that if you scratch my back then I'll scratch yours. And whilst this continues the freeloading outsiders will just keep on coming.

Wingwalker.