Today’s CityAM:
Brendan O’Neill, editor of Spiked Online.
The way people are talking about the Calais migrants, you’d think that they were a chapter of Isis. They’re trying to “storm” Britain, papers say. Tory leaders have held Cobra meetings, basically putting Britain on a war footing. All in response to a measly 5,000 migrants across the Channel, a few hundred of whom have crossed in recent months.
Some desperate people, from dirt-poor African countries or war-torn Syria, get to Britain, and we lose the plot. New York famously asked the world to give it their “huddled masses”; we see huddled masses and virtually declare a state of emergency. What illiberal meanness.
Much of Britain was built by Irish sweat, is nursed with Nigerian care, and has hospitality provided with a Romanian smile: migrants make this nation tick. We shouldn’t send soldiers to keep out the Calais hopefuls; we should send a welcoming committee. Let them in to do what they long to do: be safe, work, live.