safety pin in The Manifesto

There is a post brexit campaign to wear a safety pin to show solidarity with immigrants already here. It started off as being a way of showing your support for immigration before the vote, and has evolved since then into being a safety pin of society where people know you will stand up to racist behaviour.

Now firstly here’s my personal stance - I voted remain for lots of different reasons mainly related to trade and industry. I don’t work with anyone in Europe, I have no interest in trading internationally, I don’t reckon we do half as much business as people yack on about with Europe. But uncertainty screws my business - people get cautious, they spend less, they don’t launch new businesses. So i voted remain.

On immigration - we need immigrants. They keep the whole country working. But free immigration from the EU was an excetipionally stupid idea, because our benefits are so much more generous and easy to get than any other country. I’d be all for open borders if we had a European wide benefits system - but that means saying goodbye to the NHS and our free education system. We need immigrants but the right kind of immigrants. We need ones who work and ones who speak the language properly and ones who abide by our laws. (And that should be the same for Brits going abroad too!).

If I lived in my old flat, I’d most probably have voted out to get rid of the Roma who nick everything not nailed down, live 15 to a 1 bedroom flat, wreck house prices, dump rubbish everywhere and then claim not to understand when they get told to clean it up, beg, hiss at you in the street, rape women on their own (because they are asking for it being unchaperoned), claim benefits and send all the money home because it let’s them live like kings there. I get why people voted out if they live somewhere like that. I really do.

The reason these issues exist though are mainly because no one has been prepared to have the conversation for fear of being labelled racist. The council need to crack down on overcrowding and littering. The police need to nick people hissing at women in the street - it’s not acceptable. They should be fined or locked up. Had these things been done, we would not have had an EU exit vote and people would feel that common sense was prevailing - a lot of the votes were “fuck you” votes because they never thought it would be a reality as they never got listened to.

But the attacks on people and open racism… absolutely deplorable. The way to stop them is to solve those issues though - why do people feel their jobs are being stolen and that living next door to an immigrant isn’t pleasant? (We live next door to some and get amazing food when they have a party!!) The practicalities need dealt with… and that is what isn’t happening and breeding resentment.