So, they arrive all around the calendar, any time of year. Small groups of a few dozen here and there do add up. Whether or not it is a major incident is up for debate, it is of my understanding from watching police reality shows (which I happen to enjoy) that groups of a dozen or so people get into trouble regularly. When they're foreign, poor, and at risk of drowning, it's at least major for those involved. Major for me and you? Well, let's look at that for a moment.
Sure, every now and then a criminal finds their way into this country. Muslim or not, of all the caliphates in the world, there is one particularly famous one which has a nasty reputation for fascism. We've all seen the headlines. So there is a risk of that, just like there is a risk that your friendly postman might be the next Peter Sutcliffe. I am almost certain that the odds are around identical for people of any faith. If a person is wired up in a way that permits them to commit crimes of this magnitude, then they'll find a rationale if they can or else they'd just do it anyway. It's also worth noting that these types of people are incredibly rare.
So what else is there to be afraid of? Maybe it's a claim for benefits that you're worried about. I don't know if you've ever been on benefits, however, it's not easy to save any money. When we get a minimum allowance, we only really have enough for the shopping and the bills. Often, it's one or the other as well. We learn to eat less and to do less in order to save food and energy. So this money being handed out to an individual is only in their hands for a day or two before it's spent. Where is it spent? In our shops and our post offices. These tax-paying organisations who employ countless people from this country then use this to invest, pay wages, and issue dividends. This is where the money ends up, in our own system. Putting it another way, a benefit payment is a payment to society. Ok, so there might be a fraud or two out there, working and earning, then claiming to not be working, but I think we can all agree that the government has done a lot of work to make this increasingly difficult. Again, like with any criminal activity, the odds of it happening are about the same no matter where we were born.
So those are the two biggest fears out there, but there's another one. What if they do everything right, get jobs, and become members of society? Some people don't want that either. They fear their jobs and way of life are at risk. How one person lives their life doesn't reflect on your way of life, only the way you live your life does that. Way of life as a holistic ideal that everyone lives by is not actually something tangible and real. For generations, individuals choose to adopt their own way of doing things. A way that originates from abroad is not really any different to a way that doesn't. It's just not yours. I appreciate that it can make us feel uncomfortable when the way we do things is not being reflected back to us, however, it can help us to look at why we do things a certain way and understand it better. It's actually a good thing.
People are customers, they're not just employees. So if someone comes along and takes a job, they're also filling the role of the customer in several businesses. If these people come from abroad, that's extra custom we'd not ordinarily have had. That's a good thing, the more custom we get, the more profit we make which reflects on tax paid, wages, and lots more. People, on the whole, are a good thing, and it's only their behaviour that causes issues. I think we're quite capable of handling a few extra people and taking care of the issues that arise. We do it year on year with our own so what's wrong with adding a few from elsewhere to that list? I can't see a reason.
Rowan Blair Colver
