Climate Change Refugees

In the past month or so there have been a couple informative documentaries on British television regarding immigration into Britain and Europe. Even before the banking collapse and the recession that followed, there was a strong anti immigration undercurrent. A major part of the problem was that there was no distinction being made in most of the media between economic migrants and those seeking asylum

Add to this mix the fact that within the European Union, workers are free to work anywhere within the EU area, and some people were complaining about “These Eastern Europeans” coming over and taking our (British) jobs. This mix allowed racist and prejudiced people and groups to gain a voice.

The reality regarding the guest workers from Eastern Europe was simply that these people came over here with a solid work ethic and were willing to work in jobs where British workers would not take the jobs. Often in jobs such as agriculture, fruit picking for example, and were often far better skilled and qualified than many of the people who are unemployed in Britain are.

Then on Thursday there was a report on the news that one council were going from door to door to discover what were the issues regarding immigration that caused many of the people to vote for the Neo Nazi party, the BNP. Taking that one council estate (housing Project) as an example, the average reading age was only seven, and the people are effectively functionally illiterate.

I have long held the view that the majority of the people who foster racial prejudice are ignorant so while the statistic regarding the functional illiteracy is shocking, it is not surprising. The problem must have been that these people were let down by the education system. Therefore these folks need extensive help to learn to read and write before they can even be helped to find work. Over the years governments have failed these people, and in recent years the guest workers from overseas has partially hidden this. These overseas workers have done jobs that these functionally illiterate British people could have done, they are unwilling to undertake these jobs.

Therefore while the British economy benefited from this before the recession, the social problems of this significant minority of British people who are unemployable was always there. Further these social problems were being blamed on the immigrants rather than our own ignorant and often lazy indigenous people. Even sections of the mainstream media have ignored this and blamed the migrants rather than looked at the real problems of these socially deprived people.

I know that I may be accused of stereotyping people here, and not all of the socially deprived people on council estates will be functionally illiterate or work shy, but I have met far too many people who are like this. Also if they can not read properly that makes them more susceptible to the lies and propaganda of the far right. Its far to easy to look for scapegoats when there is a problem, and sections of the mainstream media will panda to the image of the migrants being the cause of the unemployed and deprived rather than looking at poor parenting, lack of aspiration, and the failures of education.

As well as government failures, the employers have failed to provide the apprenticeships or training for the workforce, abdicating it to the government and creating the skills shortages that require the British economy to need overseas workers with the skills.

The media, or at least large sections of the media have, also created many of the problems for migrants by failing to distinguish between economic migrants and those seeking asylum Here we are talking about the illegal economic migrant who does not have the right to reside in Britain or work here. As these people have no settled immigration status they are often exploited by employers who fail to pay them the legal minimum wage and are often treated like slaves, the media should be kicking up a stink about that. But no they like to portray them as a drain upon the economy and the social systems in Britain. Personally I think if the media told the truth about how illegal migrants were treated here, exploited and abused, it would do more to stop economic migrants than anything else. As simply the news would filter back that it was not the path to a steady well paid job, or opportunity entering Europe or Britain Illegally.

However for those seeking asylum it should be a different matter. As the UK along with the rest of the world, have obligations under international law to offer refuge to anyone who has a well grounded fear of persecution.

With the numbers of conflicts, wars, civil wars and oppressive regimes across the globe, there are many more than there should be. By this I don't mean that there are to many coming here, to Britain or to Europe, but that we should be doing more to stop the wars and end the conflicts. Equally we should stop supporting the oppressive régimes that frequently generate the refuges that come seeking asylum

Across Europe there is a crack down on immigration and the recession has turned the EU into Fortress Europe. While this is stopping the economic migrants getting into Europe, it is also stopping the asylum seekers from getting the opportunity to claim refuge status. This is breaking international law.

The problem of immigration will not end until we help boost the economic position of the economic migrants. If they were not lacking opportunities and were escaping poverty they would not be coming. Equally if we stopped the support for states where wars are raging and we in Europe worked genuinely towards peace across the globe then there would be far fewer people needing to seek refuge.

There is a hidden reason behind the shutting down of Europe's Boarders, that is the effects of climate change. There are predictions of the effect of climate change that will create the greatest movement of humans ever seen on the planet. By closing the boarders now, we in Europe will stop the people fleeing the effects of human induced climate change from getting in.

This is not speculation as recently I was contacted by a man who works for Customs and Excise and years ago used to extract the urine from me for believing that “Global Warming” was real. To him it was akin to believing in Aliens. He contacted me as he had been given a briefing of the emergency powers the government would enact when climate change creates a crisis. Be this a continent wide famine in Africa or Asia. Or a sudden rise in sea level.

When I used to know him, we drank regularly in the same public house (when I could afford to drink), and he was always hostile to the concept that humans could effect the whole planet. That was over ten years ago and I never thought I would ever see him again when I stopped patronising that public house.

When he attended the briefing regarding the government plans for dealing with climate change, he asked if this was just a theoretical plan, as he still did not believe in climate change. He was quickly disabused of this as the British government as does Europe, knows that we have gone far to far to stop the effects of climate change. Even if we stopped burning all fossilised carbon today we would not stop the impacts of climate change happening.

Therefore he decided to contact me if he could. This he did, via friends. I feel that he had to tell me more than he was comfortable with revealing, but what he was told by his employers, our government, convinced him that climate change is real. I wish that our government would tell all of us what they really know as if this can convince an arch sceptic then perhaps it will convince us all to make the changes needed.

Europe closing its borders will not stop the effects of climate change and it will do us no good if we refuse to help the rest of the world when the damage of climate change befalls the planet.