Pick a side - will you continue to press the button?

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. That is how buttons work generally. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

So yet another attack has taken place by a hate-filled extremist on people going about their daily business. This time around it took place in New Zealand. A right-wing Australian with guns and hate massacred unarmed unsuspecting people going about their regular business. A few days later an attack on a tram in Utrecht appears to be people being shot by a suspected Muslim terrorist with guns and hate. Just this week we hear that devices have been placed on railway lines by Brexiters.

We can add these to the list of atrocities committed by many different individuals. Manchester concert bombings, the Pittsburgh synagogue attack, London Bridge, Finsbury Park. When you start to research these atrocities often a motive is given for the attack – Anti-Semitism or Racism or Right-wing Terror. I think it is a lot simpler than that.

Often when I write I compare events or opinions or arguments and look at them side by side and explore the differences. Lots has been written about the New Zealand attack – how it was out of the ordinary, how it has driven an immediate response in New Zealand, profiles of the attacker asking what went wrong to bring him here, how the attack was carried out.

What saddens me is how obviously similar it is to all of the other attacks mentioned above. And that we will face many more of these. The script, the background story always seems to be the same. Lone individual, possibly some contact with hate groups, obtained weaponry and attacked at a time / in a way designed to create maximum outrage and fear.

What brings these individuals or small groups to this point? A point where they decide that the only way to make an impact to further their views, to achieve success is to go out and kill people they have never met and have no connection to, on the basis of whatever motivation they wish to give? Some of these attackers have left their thoughts – either in the form of videos or manifestos or even Facebook posts. So we can state their ideologies and way of thinking with a bit of certainty.

Firstly, they all seem to believe in absolute groups. Us and them. Whoever the “them” are doesn’t seem to matter in the grand scheme of things. They could be Muslims, Immigrants, Jews, Non-Muslims. It is still very fresh in the memory that Jo Cox was murdered by one of these attackers. Her “them”? She was a remainer. Just imagine that. The line that separated people who should live and have rights and people it was acceptable to kill was which way they voted in a referendum.

These lines don’t exist. These separating lines that split us into definite groups are not real. But we do it all the time. We align ourselves to others of the same religion, the same political party, family, country, football team and use that alignment to see Them as somehow different. We have far more in common with other people, no matter how little we think we do, than we have that is different.

Secondly, They have either done some unfairness or injustice to us, or are going to and we should do something about it – because nobody else is. This is the deep-rooted belief that the threat / unfairness is obvious, that everybody sees it, but that the authorities are ignoring it OR are powerless OR weak. This is either that immigrants are taking over our country, that Jews are pulling the strings to control government, trying to steal Brexit from us, invading our countries to steal our oil / power / influence. Whatever It is that They have done or will do, It is obvious from the messages / communications / inputs the attacker sees. They are all equally guilty of It too, because they are one group solely defined by one characteristic.

Again, we have to call bullshit on this thinking. And we see it all the time. Not all Muslims are terrorists or paedophiles who trade young girls. Not all Westerners supported various invasions. Not all immigrants are trying to steal your culture and your land. What I find really scary is that often when talking to otherwise sensible people they have been conned into looking at one example and extrapolating that risk across the whole They, and unless you can refute that single example that is proof They are all like that. We have to be better than that.

Thirdly, that they are acting on behalf of the rest of the Us. They are doing it in Our name or Their name. Depending on which side of their invented line you sit. This might be the act that wakes Us up, shows Us what to do, and scares Them into stopping / giving up. It will ignite / unite Us in taking action – because we are all just waiting.

How do they get to this point? Where do these ideas come from? That they have support for their actions, some sort of reward awaits them? They’ll be seen as some sort of hero? Whilst their worldviews may be coloured by the mainstream media, or religion, or groups, and this is where their “motivation” comes from, this belief that they are supported and believed seems in almost all cases to come from social media interactions. This seems to be the only place they could possibly take the belief that there is a legion of support for what they are about to do.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

We know from the writings of Anders Brevik he took most of his motivation and ideas from other people writing on forums and social media. ISIS regularly use facebook, twitter and youtube to get their message across because they know these lone wolf individuals take succour from it. During the recent attack in New Zealand the perpetrator live streamed it on Facebook. Over and over these vile individuals take their comfort, their support, their motivation from posts of other people on social media.

It’s also important to remember – the people who do this – they think differently from us. For the vast majority of us the idea of getting so angry that we decide to attack, injure and kill people is abhorrent. More so in cold blood. But none of them are picked up in advance. They suddenly follow up on their decision making. Often family and friends are aware of their views – but not that they are dangerous or genuinely considering this action. Until somebody is dead. I am not a psychologist – I have no training to say who will behave like this. Maybe we are all capable. But I don’t know which of my friends, family, readers of this blog, and colleagues are capable of turning. Neither do you.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

We have to choose a side. Are we the person who presses this button or not? This week as an example videos emerged of British Army soldiers shooting as an image of Jeremy Corbyn. If you support this – can you be certain that won’t be seen as a message to someone to take out his old service revolver and do it? After all Darren Osborne (who attacked Finsbury Park) was looking for a way to kill Jeremy Corbyn. That post decrying Tony Blair as a war criminal who got away with it? Posting videos calling remain supporting MPs traitors? Linking Leave supporting MPs to violent racism? Do you really know the impact of the language of hate on people around you? Perhaps you do. Strangely I reckon the families and friends of the people mentioned as carrying out these attacks felt comfortable sharing hate, and bile, and anger. I wonder if they do now.

There is a big red button on your phone. If you don’t press it, nothing happens. But if you do press it, it might tell somebody else to kill someone. How often would you press the button?

Tragedy, and the human response to it

So, I guess that really we all knew this day would come again. Once again a terrorist attack has taken place in the UK. This time driven by someone who has taken extremist Islam as their reason for pointlessly murdering innocent people on our streets. It is truly terrible that 4 people who had no idea what was going to happen or choice that day had their lives taken by a coward who attacked them hoping he would never have to live with the consequences. 

There is no singular normal, typical or expected reaction to this sort of news. It is rightly so alien to us that we will all decide how to react - and it is not the right of society to enforce "norms" on us. That reaction is made up of our initial emotion, and then the judgements, conclusions and responses we then show. Many people have tried to use this attack as a weapon to whip up further hatred, anger and division. I want to consider whether this reaction stands up to close scrutiny. This is not to shame or insult people, but to offer them an alternative reflection to consider. 

We have had almost a full week since the terrible events that claimed the lives of a policeman and 3 random members of the public. Enough time for every possible shade and shape of human opinion (no matter how vile or incredible) to have made its way on to social media. Certainly an initial reaction from a lot of people (and we can't know if it is a majority, a large minority or simply the most vocal) was that this attack showed why we should "send them all home". Those angrily opposed to migration into the country certainly believed this was an opportunity to finally show how Muslims flooding into the country were a danger to our very lives. Of course, the problem with that was very quickly it was found out that the attacker was British born. 

But the leap from there having been an attack to this snap reaction is an obvious, if flawed one. If a Muslim coming into this country has carried out an attack, then there must be more coming in to do the same - this is finally the evidence of that. Of course, that sentence belies the incorrect thinking behind it - those people who are afraid that immigration makes us less secure ALREADY believed that before this attack. That the attacker was British born will do nothing to stop them thinking that. In many cases no amount of evidence will stop people thinking that. The term used by psychologists is "unsubstantiated conclusive" thinking - where you jump to a pre-determined conclusion irrespective of the evidence. It is easy to understand this thinking - particularly when it is reinforced and fuelled by so much of the media establishment in this country and parties like UKIP. 

From there, the next opinion or perception that came about was that actually all, or a large section, of the Muslim community in this country were dangerous. The proposed answer therefore is either to kick out all Muslims or to start a process for internment for them. Again, the logical flow behind this seems to be straight-forward. There is a danger from a particular community, we should therefore lock all or some of them up to keep everybody else safe. If you break that down, there are actually 3 separate ideas to consider. The first one is that there is a danger from an identifiable group (Muslims), we can spot those likely to be dangerous, and that internment will reduce the danger and make us safe. 

Well, if we take the first point, that there is a danger from an identifiable group (Muslims) then we have to look at the terrorist attacks in recent memory. The definition of a terrorist attack "means acts of persons acting on behalf of, or in connection with, any organisation which carries out activities directed towards the overthrowing or influencing, by force or violence, of Her Majesty's government in the United Kingdom". That would then seem to equally apply to 2 recent terrorist attacks - this one and the murder of Jo Cox MP. Jo Cox was killed by a man who had links to extremist organisations (the National Front, EDL and the National Alliance). Certainly 2 of those groups have openly tried to influence the government through violence. He was a lone attacker, who took inspiration from those groups without being directed by them to carry out an attack. He used weapons he had to hand to carry out a targeted but unsophisticated attack to create a feeling of terror in the political establishment. He had a troubled existence with a history of sporadic behaviours. All of those things apply equally to the recent attacker. 

There is one difference however, ISIL, following the attack claimed that Khalid Massood was now a soldier of ISIL. Many have hung their hats on this fact to differentiate the 2 events. However, that does not hold up. Khalid Massood, as far as we know at this point, had no contact or direction from them. To hang whether someone is guilty of a terrorist attack or not based on what somebody else does after the fact simply doesn't make sense. Equally, to the victims of the attack, I am sure they would have scant regard for this distinction. So we are left with not one group of terrorists to worry about, but 2 - Muslim fanatics and right-wing fanatics. 

If we look at the proposed solution to this, internment, then we would have to, from that, apply it equally to both of these groups. Of course, all of the available evidence, from whenever internment has been tried points to 2 very clear conclusions. Firstly, that it doesn't work and in many cases is counter-productive in that it acts as a recruiting sergeant for extremists. Secondly, that it will always lead to innocent people being unfairly imprisoned. These are clearly both very strong reasons to refuse to see internment as the answer. 

Clearly, this is not to say that nothing should be done to combat terrorist attacks. From every attack we need to learn what we can do to stop the next one. But currently, from what we are told, in this country we have been successful in stopping a number of attacks. To go further than we have so far we must challenge the radicalisation of any individuals in any group, ensure we have appropriate policing, security and intelligence strategies, and the tools and resources to carry them out. But internment is not one of those, and it never should be. Something must be done can not turn into the worst possible response must be done.

One of the very shameful events that cropped up in our reactions was that of the shaming of a Muslim woman, walking past an injured person being treated immediately after the attacks, ignoring what was going on and chatting on her mobile phone. For those that wanted yet further evidence of the inhumanity of Muslims, this seemed to be a "smoking gun". The picture very quickly spread across social media platforms - evidence (as if it was needed) that Muslims were against "us". When I initially saw it I too believed that it showed a woman on her phone near the scene of an atrocity. 

Again, we should break down the mindset that leads to this point. Firstly, we are attributing how somebody should react when something like that happens. Some people will rush to help, some will run away, and some people, in shock will try to pretend it hasn't happened. We can not judge how others react because we don't know what their reaction really says. Secondly, on the basis of a still photo shared on social media, this ladies actions and thoughts have been guessed at and then shared as if a clear and undeniable truth. If she was on her phone near the scene, could she not have been calling the emergency services? Telling her family what she had seen but that she was OK? Could she have been so wrapped up in her day she hadn't even realised what was happening? Anyone who has been to London will know that plenty of people in that city do walk around in that mode. Finally, there was a leap from her not reacting according to some decided norm, then on to her not caring or even being happy this had happened to that, somehow, being evidence that all Muslims are bad. I can't even believe I am writing this - but that is the logic that some bought into and shared - within 24 hours of the incident itself. 

Of course, the photo was then shown to be of something quite clearly different - the lady in question was not on her phone, but holding her face in shock and horror. But for people who wanted to believe the first interpretation because it supported their view - this wont matter. My point is that it is easy to be mistaken, or see one thing as something else. But we must be careful before being led to logical leaps and bounds by people on social media. It is natural (and uncontrollable) to have an emotional reaction when something like this happens. We all do it. It is easy to jump to conclusions - in fact in more dangerous times jumping to a snap decision is a survival strategy. But we should all be able to look at that conclusion, or flow of thought and ask ourselves - does my conclusion stack up - or does the conclusion have more to do with what I already believe? Because if we start making snap judgements on how our country protects itself, and treats us as citizens on the basis of our reactions - we bloody well have to get them right first. 

Some Leave voters have every right to be angry. They just need to work out who with.

So quite an extraordinary act took place last week. 3 judges from the High Court in London made a decision on a technical point of law and sent the news and the political sphere into overdrive. This doesn't happen very often, but given the topic they were ruling on this was hardly surprising. They were passing judgement on a case brought by a group of private citizens against the UK Government on the specific legal steps the government must take to invoke Article 50 of the EU - that is to start the formal process of Brexit.

This has been jumped on, by members of the public and experienced politicians alike as an attempt to derail the democratic will of the UK - that we want to leave the EU. The majority have spoken, and here are a bunch of bremoaners trying to stop that from happening. Is that the case though? Our democracy that has been hard won and hard protected now under attack? Certainly during the Leave campaign much was made of our governance, rights and democracy tying back to the Magna Carta and being uninterrupted since then. Is someone trying to run roughshod over that?
I believe the answer is an unequivocal yes. Should Leavers be angry? For some of them, I think they have every right to be.

Lots of leavers voted that way for lots of different reasons. I think it is a real shame that so many have wanted to tar them all as racists. Some Leavers had decided, long before any cases were put forward that they wanted to Vote Leave. That is absolutely fine. It is a democracy. We don't get a right to limit the vote to only people who consider issues in the way that we do. It is the system we have. But over the course of the referendum campaign, there were really 4 key issues that were used to push the Leave vote. Firstly, to take back control of unchecked immigration. Secondly, to take back control of our laws and rulings. Third, that we would be able to create new and better trading relationships with a wider range of partners. Finally, that we could save money paid in to the EU and use this, for example, to give the NHS an extra £350 million a week. 

These 4 issues, when combined and brought together, spoke to the very heart of the issues a large group of people care about. It spoke to our national pride and national strength. Anyone arguing against this could easily be derided as not patriotic (I know this, because I took this claim fairly regularly). But I can see the emotional flow of that argument. These claims were pushed very strongly, not just by the official campaign, but by UKIP and the majority of the British press too. 

It's quite easy to see, when someone is faced with this level of emotional argument, and see a set of factors that are so clearly wrong and unjust, that they expect everyone else to see it too. I actually wonder why there wasn't more aggression and violence. But also, if you have been given this story, you would assume that once through the referendum, this horrible situation would be remedied quickly. No more EU, no more money paid, no more immigration, control back in your hands.

Unfortunately, they have been both badly let down, and badly lied to. Firstly, David Cameron has let down not only Leavers but everybody in the country. This referendum was only ever meant to kill off UKIP. There was never any intention within government that Remain would actually lose. For this reason, there was never any clarity or honesty as to what would happen if they did. The government didn't even make contingency plans for that outcome. Just imagine that, a government not planning for a possible outcome of a binary referendum. Leave was never on the cards. Why else do you think the PM immediately resigned?

The other effect of this is that there was never any clarity given on how we would or could leave and what leaving would free us from. Had government departments been allowed to work on both outcomes then a clear option would have been given. Stay, and you get A. Leave and you get B. Unfortunately, this was taken away from the electorate. Instead, the Vote Leave campaign, UKIP and press barons were allowed to fill the void where official government guidance should have been. 

A really good example of this is shown by the reaction to the court case last week. The legislation which allowed the referendum was quite clear that it was advisory. Any decision was always going to be subject to British laws and British government - in the shape of the houses of parliament. But if you have been told for three months - you, personally - that you were taking back control, wouldn't you be shocked to now hear that? I would be. 

But this belief that people were given, came quite clearly from UKIP, Vote Leave and the press. It is therefore not at all surprising that all of those bodies have immediately come out and attacked the judges and the law of this country. Not because they ever believed it. But because the alternative is that this raw emotion they have unleashed turns on them to hold them to account for selling them a fairytale. 

Indeed, the judges had not made any ruling on whether we could or couldn't or even should or shouldn't leave the EU. They were purely ruling to say that British Law must be followed. However, social media and the mainstream media were awash with this attempt to stop Brexit by these judges. Never mind the fact that reading of it is completely untrue - UKIP, The Daily Mail, The Express all presented it as an attempt BY THE JUDGES to stop Brexit. In fact, in ever more dangerous behaviour Nigel Farage has called on people to march on the Supreme Court. Because nothing says respect for the rule of law like attempting to intimidate judges. 

Of course, this is just one example where a lack of planning and honesty is going to cause problems. There was never any decision or agreement on whether we would have any future relationship with Europe at all. This was not covered in the referendum. We were given a binary choice between the status quo and whatever the Leave campaign wanted to sell us. So it is far from certain whether our final leaving deal will include: Trade tariffs, freedom of movement, single market access, accepting some European rules. But the Leave camp have already sold all of these things. Given the level of emotion they have plumbed and brought to the surface, this could lead to even greater anger in the future. 

If you voted or now want to Leave, I would not expect any other outcome. But it is time to look at what you have been sold, and whether you actually want it. And if you do, what should it look like? The problem is that other Leavers might have a different view from you. There is no way you can all be kept happy. So, you have every right to be angry. But be angry with David Cameron for making a mess of such an important democratic process. Be angry with those who have lied to you. But don't be angry with the courts. Once this is all over, it is likely they will be the only ones left to us. Do you really want to damage them to the point that they can no longer hold the government to account?

If Immigration is your answer, someone has given you the wrong question

                Well, there are only 3 weeks left (ish) until probably the biggest vote any of us able to vote will take for the next 50 years. The EU referendum. As a topic, for a lot of people the single biggest turn off since the first time they realised that their parents had sex. The reason for that disengagement is varied, and consists of several strands according to various insights and polls produced for our delectation. For some people it is a lack of hard facts, for others it is the language and behaviour of both sides of the argument – spurious figures, absolute certainties shared, fears mongered. There is also some concern over the topics that the debate seems to now centre on – immigration, the economy and control / democracy.

                Now this is only a little blog, so I am going to focus in on just one of these areas – and the one that still a lot of people feel uncomfortable talking about – immigration. It is probably the most pertinent and divisive of the areas. After all, where were all these democracy warriors when the referendum on proportional representation was happening? Probably best to set a few ground rules for myself though. Firstly, talking about immigration, and the volumes of immigration, and the process for managing immigration is NOT racist. Some views might be, but the subject itself isn’t. It worries a lot of people, and so is well worthy of consideration. Secondly, in any discussion about remain or leave there are a limited number of hard facts. There is only evidence and expectation, assessment and opinion. But where possible I will try to bring in what facts there are.

                A lot of the arguments about immigration really focus on one thing – the sheer VOLUME of inwards migration of people from Europe and our ability to control it to suit our needs. Indeed the UKIP Leader Nigel Farage has gone so far as to claim that Britain “is in the grip of an immigration crisis” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-34348834 ) and that we can’t do anything about it until we leave Europe – as they set our immigration policy. But we need to pick this apart in to chunks that we can consider, and see what stacks up.

                So, we should really look at whether immigration has increased to the UK firstly, and whether Britain is particularly special in this. Next we need to define what a crisis would be and whether what we are experiencing is one, and if we are, is it being caused by immigration. Finally, we should look at specifically the impact of Europe on that migration level, and whether leaving the EU would help.

                So, is immigration higher now than historically? Well, almost certainly. Various studies have been done on long term trends on migration. Just between 1960 and 2000 the growth in the number of people living outside of their birth country is 100 million. That is 100 million more migrants in just 40 years (http://www.jstor.org/stable/27645348?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents ). Clearly, that is a huge amount. But is this particularly surprising? Simply factoring in advances in travel, our economies (and how we work) and the increase in the middle class, you would expect more people to be living, working and settling overseas. So it is not unfair to say that we are seeing more immigration now than before. But this is part of a global trend. The problem with trying to put barriers in place for inwards migration is that those same barriers then go up for outward migration too.

                Are we taking the brunt of this immigration (from a European perspective) in the UK? Certainly there has been an ongoing attempt by the media to create a “moral panic” about Eastern European flooding to the UK to either steal our low paid jobs or live off our benefits system (or from some people, confusingly, live off our benefits AND steal our jobs). Actually, when we look across Europe we are pretty much middle of the pack in how many immigrants we have living in our country. This graph is from 2009, but is a good indication:

( http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/sep/07/immigration-europe-foreign-citizens ). So whilst the overall average level for the EU is 6.4%, for us it is 6.6%. Hardly evidence that we are an outlier in this case.

                Still, size isn’t everything. It is still possible this is a crisis. What should really decide that is the impact it has on the receiving country. So even though we are not receiving lots more immigrants than other countries it is how they are affecting the indigenous populations that can really have costs (and in some cases benefits). In fact the official Vote Leave campaign points out two areas in particular – the  NHS and schools ( http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/our_case ). But also in other areas people genuinely have concerns – availability of housing, access to jobs and the impact on our culture. All of these have been raised as problems of uncontrolled immigration.

                It is a quite simple supply / demand question. You have to do one of two things - either increase supply or reduce demand. "Get control of our borders" rhetoric is about a belief that you can reduce demand (but there are strong arguments it wouldn't have any impact). The alternative is to increase supply of all of these things.

1) The majority view of experts is that just in order to stand still in terms of housing we need to build 250,000 new homes each year. No government has achieved that since 1980. In fact, since the economic crisis in 2008 housebuilding has tanked (https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/live-tables-on-house-building table 211). And I am not suggesting we concrete over the green belt – there are £12 BILLION of empty homes in the North West alone (http://www.mancunianmatters.co.uk/content/070811937-housing-crisis-%C2%A312billion-worth-homes-lie-empty-across-north-west-according-report )

2) When the last coalition government had an opportunity to secure the NHS and pump extra money in, they instead pushed ahead with a costly top-down re-organisation. One which makes the NHS much more privatisation-ready. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-31145600 )

3) LAs are no longer allowed to open new schools where they are needed - these can only be opened at the mercy of the open access academy system. This is purely to break the link between those dangerous left wing county councils and school leadership.

4) LA funding and social services funding has been strangled on the back of an austerity drive which has ADDED to the national debt, not taken away from it.

5) We are currently told by the government that we have the lowest unemployment figures in a long time at 5.1% and holding (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36320028 ).

So really, this crisis is not one made from too much demand, but one created by too little supply. Quite simply, our governments have created this issue. And migrants are a handy scapegoat for us to blame. Of course, all of these things have to be paid for, and have a cost to the economy too. How can we do that?

Well, migrants are actually net CONTRIBUTORS to our economy (http://www.cityam.com/213058/eu-immigrants-contribute-463-second-uk-economy ) – in other words having migrants actually means we have more money to pay for services even after taking account of the cost of providing services and benefits to them. Where has this extra money gone? Over the period of tory-imposed austerity that has led to many of these cuts the government have managed to find the space to cut corporation tax to 18% - even though there is zero evidence base this brings more companies and employment. The real pressure on services has been created by the recent governments this country has had – none more so than the coalition and current governments. I don’t deny that there are crises in all of these areas – but the cause is much closer to home.

So, a fairly fact informed consideration of immigration (I hope) and we haven’t yet mentioned EU Brexit OR been racist (I REALLY hope). We should probably turn to one of those two topics now – Brexit. How much of our immigration comes from within the EU as part of freedom of movement rules? Again, trying to arm ourselves with the best facts available, the ONS reckons that EU migration makes up less than half of our inwards migration (https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/may2016 ). Not only that but MORE of the EU citizens coming here have definite jobs to go to than ever before (about 60%). So most of our migration comes from outside the EU, and those from within the EU come here with definite jobs. So if we could stop EU immigration we would only be stopping half of the inflow – and a half with a good track record of helping our economy.

Maybe that would be enough? Perhaps cutting immigration in half would allow our underfunded services to get back to an even keel over time, house building could pick up etc. Well, there are still a couple of major challenges with that suggestion.

The first is that a lot of those services (particularly the NHS) rely on European immigrants to fulfil their staffing requirements (http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/26/nhs-foreign-nationals-immigration-health-service ). A lot of other areas do too – construction being another. Not a great idea when you are trying to increase housebuilding.

The second problem is that leaving the EU does not guarantee that we would be able to refuse rules on freedom of movement if we wanted to trade with Europe. All of their other local trading partners who are NOT members of the EU have had this stipulation placed on them. It is almost certainly one that the EU would place on us too. So Brexit would not in any way guarantee us the ability to stop EU migrants, whilst at the same time carrying lots of other risks. Quite simply, Brexit do not know what would happen with free movement of Labour.

So, there you have it then. It is not racist to be worried about the crises in public services, in housing and in jobs. The problem is that you have been given the wrong cause of the problem by political parties and media alike. It is much easier for you to be told the problem is economic migrants (and by extension the EU). Actually, the problem has been our own leaders. So if you are still not sure which way to vote (and that will be many people given the way the campaigns have run) do think carefully. But do one thing right – don’t make your decision based on immigration. It is the wrong argument to be focussed on.