2 min read
ByJennifer Lipman, Jennifer Lipman
In February 1899, John Lowles, MP for the East End seat of Shoreditch, Haggerston, queried the "large increase in the numbers of alien immigrants.
"In view of the grave evils arising therefrom," he asked the government to "check such immigration in the interests of our own struggling industrial population?"
Lowles's extraordinary-sounding hyperbole was hardly uncommon. "Every winter, a fresh agitation against the aliens is started," sighed a JC editorial in 1905, citing headlines about alien invasion. "Immigrants have 'dangerous, contagious and infectious diseases'," decried Gerald Balfour MP in 1902.
As you read this, Ukip may well be heading for their second parliamentary win. Regardless of the result, we're gearing up for an election agenda set by Nigel Farage, with the campaign coloured by hysterical debate about curbing immigration, and scaremongering about communities being "swamped", foreign workers taking British jobs and immigrants failing to learn English. Between now and May, don't expect Ed Miliband to play up his immigrant roots as he did in his 2010 conference speech.
Recent figures suggest hostility to immigration is often highest in areas with relatively few migrants. The current debate around whether the UK can or should afford so many new arrivals is less about the facts and more about emotions. It has an angry tone and, while few might dare suggest immigrants are diseased, it is not a million miles from the one in the 1880s.
Do we want to live in a blinkered or tolerant society?
The influx of "alien" Jews back then undoubtedly posed challenges in terms of housing and jobs. But more than a century on, we speak mostly of the contribution those immigrant Jews have made to British life. We have been good for Britain, we say. Yet I'd like to feel that our contribution has been to help Britain become a more enlightened place where debates are conducted based on facts. For, while it may be reductive to say the Jewish community should support immigration because we were once immigrants, it's not reductive to say it should inform how we talk about immigration.
Firstly, do we want to live in the suspicious, blinkered country of the 1880s, or the vibrant, tolerant place it has become? Let's acknowledge that societies that are good to immigrants tend to be enlightened about other differences in faith and life-style. In other words, they tend to be good places to live, especially for Jews.
"It's rather flattering that they all want to come here," children's author Judith Kerr - herself an immigrant - told me once. Indeed.
And do we want to greet new immigrants with the prejudiced debate that greeted us, or do we want to help raise the tone?
When my ancestors made the journey, I'm guessing they would have welcomed more people challenging the misconceptions. So let's talk about the benefits as well as the downsides; worry about doctors, but discuss also that the NHS relies on foreign nurses.
Finally, let's not lose sight of the fact that we are here in spite of the prevailing sentiment, not because of it. If we are proud that our ancestors contributed to Britain and disproved first impressions, should we not grant others that same benefit of the doubt? Isn't our pride a bit meaningless if we can only be proud of our own immigrant contribution?
Yes, talk about immigration, and certainly push for newcomers to integrate as our ancestors did. Vote Ukip, if you wish (and can overlook their European chums). It's not about being for or against immigration, it's about how we talk about immigrants; whether we have a rational discussion or resort to us-versus-them language. Once upon a time, we were the "them".
We don't have to let the debate be conducted as it was in the 1880s, with MPs sneering about penurious, diseased aliens and dismissing the reasons people came. If the Rochester and Clacton by-elections are anything to go by, the coming months will be divisive. Let's make sure our contribution to the conversation raises the tone.