HARDLY a week passes without the Government announcing a 'crackdown' on immigration in the UK.
Last month, David Cameron pledged to restrict benefits to new arrivals from the EU and deport any EU migrants found to be sleeping rough.
It's no surprise that David Cameron is talking tough on EU migrants. This issue, unlike others such as the state of the economy or our severe lack of housing, is almost entirely out of his hands.
His proposed 'clampdown' on EU migrants will have almost no effect, but his words are eagerly lapped up by ruthless media and the people of the UK who are rightly angered by the state of this country.
The fact is, however, that anger at EU migrants is often misplaced.
Various myths have been fabricated in order to generate and reinforce anger and hatred towards migrants and it's time that we took a closer look at these myths.
One of the pervasive myths being spread about EU migrants is that they come to the UK as benefits tourists, eager to 'sponge' off the welfare state. However, as the Government who peddle this myth know, there's very little factual basis for it.
Indeed, a study by the University of London found that EEA migrants (EU migrants plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) contribute 34 per cent more in taxes than they receive in benefits.
The same study found that migrants who arrived in the UK after 1999 were 45 per cent less likely to rely on social security than UK natives and less likely to be given social housing.
Despite the Government's myth-making on immigration, there's no doubt that real concerns remain around new arrivals from the EU. One concern for people in Canterbury, particularly those on low incomes, is that EU migrants might put downward pressure on wages.
The truth is that migrants do not, on the whole, force wages down but low-paid workers can indeed suffer with an influx of new arrivals into an area.
A solution to this would, of course, be to have a properly enforced minimum wage set at a level high enough for people to live a decent life on. What politicians from establishment parties seemingly fail to grasp is the role they play in fanning the flames of immigrant bashing in the right wing press.
Their role in this is twofold. Firstly, they persistently reinforce the 'fact' that immigrants are a drain on services and a threat to society and secondly, they fail to deal with the underlying causes for people's concern.
These underlying causes of concern are very real. Here in Kent there is extraordinary pressure on our housing, a problem not caused by immigrants but by a lack of house-building and a wrong-headed economic policy.
Not only are people struggling to get on the housing ladder but wages across the UK are failing to keep up with hikes in our bills. While banker's pay is up 43 per cent and the rest of the UK is struggling to recover from a financial crisis caused by the City of London, our Government is determined to avoid responsibility by blaming immigrants for our problems.
Some would have us all believe that millions of Romanians and Bulgarians will arrive this month to live a life of ease in the UK. This won't be the case.
The vast majority of people living here, whether they were born in the UK or elsewhere, are paying the price for a crisis which they had no part in causing. Wages are stagnating, benefits are being cut and too few houses are being built. It's time to refocus our anger on the financial system which caused the crisis and on the cuts consensus in Westminster that's only made things worse.
) but I was really thinking of moving right out of the South East.
) a not particularly nice area. To be brutally honest, there's a lot of Kent (parts of Medway, Thanet, Folkestone, Dover etc.) which are run down but they certainly do not have a big immigrant quotient despite being the closest point to mainland Europe.