I might had said so until Nigel Farage stuck his oar in by waving the flag for Reform UK, and thus ensuring that if indeed immigration was the elephant hidden in the room that is no longer the case.

I have already posted three times in the light of the July 4^th 2024 British General Election (see here, here and here) but rather than add a fourth I would like to pick up on a subject that has now become an election issue, thanks to Nigel and his Reform Party, even though there were many issues I would have liked to be debated ahead of immigration such as those that I raised in the first of my three GE blogs.

Immigration is a touchy subject that is either ignored by the main parties and if addressed it is done so unsatisfactorily in the eyes of many. Rather than call such folk white supremist, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic etc. (some of which may be true in certain cases) and thus dismiss their concerns, it is better not to ignore the Elephant in the Room, even though we cannot ignore one crisis after another – if it isn’t Syria it is Afghanistan; if it isn’t Afghanistan it is Ukraine – and we can go back a lot longer, and what to do concerning those badly affected, especially refugees.

Before I get on my soap box on the subject of immigration, I would like to give a brief resume by way of setting out my credentials on the subject and do so as one who regards myself as politically neutral who will not be voting Reform for reasons set out in the second of my three GE blogs. My first experience meeting foreigners in any number, besides that of taking part in an evangelistic crusade in Europe, was when I went to university. Many foreign students became friends; some later became immigrants, settling in the UK. Approaching middle age, I did my first visit to India. Besides making friends with many Indian folk, I married one of them who later was added to UK’s immigrant population, doing more for the community than many Anglo Saxon Brits, e.g. as a nurse. In my third career as a community activist, I did a lot of work empowering ethnic minorities, many of whom were first generation immigrants, including advocating on behalf of asylum seekers. One thing that struck me then was that the system for allowing in or not immigrants was broken. On one hand, we allowed in many as the EU expanded that we didn’t need to but gave genuine asylum seekers a hard time. Later it was allowing making entry to the UK difficult on one hand yet failing to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants, especially military aged men. I belong to a church dominated by foreigners, including the pastor who is a first-generation immigrant from Malawi. Finally, I have had lots to do with Muslim immigrants, especially in associating with our two local mosques. One of the many positive experiences was calling out an emergency plumber, who turned out to be a Muslim from Bangladesh, but also did a fantastic job getting us out of a jam.

Immigration is an emotive and divisive subject with people from both sides of the debate of who we should let in to the country having opposing views. On one hand, there are Christians, more of the woke, do-gooder variety, believing it to be one’s Christian duty to let folk in regardless, if they are from a country ravaged by war, famine or natural disaster, often ignoring the fact that those we don’t let in might have a greater need. Then there are others who argue for a lot more restriction than what we currently see given we do not have the infrastructure to support significant additions to the population and many who do come care or respect little of British customs and ways, not helped by the political correctness that dissuades those who say there are grooming gangs of largely Pakistani Muslims sexually assaulting our women or the likes of our local Christian school that serve only halal meat at school dinner time so as not to offend new immigrants who happen to be Muslims.

As I indicated at the outset, immigration is far from the most pressing issues facing the country and the issues are far more complex than we are often led to think, and this includes tackling the causes people leaving their country of origin to come to the UK. In a nutshell, I argue that we have gone further away from the Christian consensus that once existed and has led to our current malaise. While many immigrants have made a net positive contribution to national life and the host population, many haven’t and this has not been helped by the drain that has been caused on the services we expect and pay our taxes to fund.

I often use as my yardstick of what is the right response derived from the teachings of the Bible, often in unlikely places, such as the Book of Leviticus, which tells the host nation (Israel) to treat the foreigner fairly yet also expects the same foreigner to obey the law and respect the customs of the country they have chosen to live in, or else face the consequences. I can’t help feeling that while many of the new intake of immigrants settle well in the UK are give something back to their new host country, others don’t and come at the expense of those more worthy. I hope the few people who read this will bear in mind the points raised here whenever the subject of immigration is raised especially as politicians vie for our votes.