You might not be able to read this article, as it is in the American edition of The Huffington Post, but it makes interesting reading.
One of the main reasons for the marginal – and let’s not forget that it was very marginal – vote to leave the EU was because the Leave campaigners had convinced themselves that if we left, all those filthy foreigners would have to go home or risk being burnt at the stake.
The Huff poses the question “which of the 28 countries in the European Union has the most citizens living abroad as immigrants?”
During campaigning, the Leave camp certainly implied very strongly that it was the Poles and other Eastern Europeans who had allegedly parasitized the UK who held this honour. Of course, they couldn’t campaign directly on the subject since it would have automatically been racist – they therefore had to leave it to The Sun and The Daily Mail, both of which already existed in the cloaca of British society, and whose readership was happy to live down there with them as they pushed their lies and prejudices concerning EU membership and the benefits of leaving.
In actual fact, Britain has the highest number of people living outside its boundaries, but within the EU’s. Furthermore, it is only 14th out of 28 in the list of EU countries in terms of the number of non-UK nationals per capita.
This is not quite what “Leave” and the gutter press were telling everyone running up to the referendum, is it?
The article then proceeds to discuss the difference in meaning between the word “expatriate” (or “expat”) – as Britons like to refer to themselves when they move overseas – and “immigrant” – which they like to call everyone else who does the same. Take a look at these two definitions:
expatriate
noun
1. a person who lives outside their native country.
immigrant
noun
1. a person who comes to live permanently in a foreign country.
The article points out that in general usage, the term “immigrant” applies to those who move from a poorer country to a richer one seeking a better life, whereas “expat” is applied to those from rich countries who work abroad.
I’m sure that any Brexiters reading this will already be formulating their weasel replies, but anticipating their thought processes – which isn’t difficult when you’re dealing with racists – that distinction between “immigrant” and “expat” is very accurate, and that word “permanently” is spurious. There are many Africans and Asians who are only over here to either study or work, and yet who are freely regarded as “immigrants”, in spite of the fact that once they’ve completed their studies or whatever are likely to move either back home or to another country (I’ve taught several trainee doctors from those continents who had every intention of going back home to practice once they’d qualified). Likewise, many British “expats” will never – and have no intention of ever – returning to the UK while they are alive.
The source of the Huffington Post article also has some more interesting comments and statistics. The author, Max Galka, says:
…public opinion about immigration has become a deciding factor in some of the most important geopolitical events in the world.
Views on immigration have shaped the world’s response to the refugee crisis, our policies on the war on terror, and this year’s U.S. presidential race. Yet, the basic facts about immigration almost never come up at all in the debate.
He then shows how the UK population believes the number of immigrants to be double what it really is (all countries overestimate this figure, some more than others). Perhaps even more worryingly, the UK population overestimates the number of Muslims it carries by a factor of more than four!
Without doubt, immigration and an underlying trend towards racism swung the result of the EU Referendum by just enough for “Leave” to scrape victory. It’s scary when you consider that stupidity and a deeply disturbing desire not to recognise facts about immigration were at the root. But it was a victory that was so frighteningly and obviously wrong that you wonder why someone isn’t doing more to pull a second referendum at the earliest opportunity.
But then again, perhaps the idiots who voted to leave the EU need to see some shit hitting the fan before that happens.