Controversy on Immigration on the Highstreet

Today I was on the Highstreet in Ashford talking to local people about the forthcoming election.

Being in Kent, one subject comes up again and again and I feel I ought to address the issue here.

Eastern Europeans.

People enquired what the Liberal Democrats were going to do about immigration.

But what they actually meant was what were we going to do about migration.

There is a simple distinction between the two that I find the public, predominately Daily Mail and Tabloid readers, get confused.

In the UK Immigration is the term used to describe those moving from another country to the UK and the EU to live and claim residence. The predominate nature of migration is assylum seekers and refugees.

However, the term Migration refers to people who move within the European Union and are entitled to work and live within any EU country and come and go as they please.

Ultimately, no party in power is going to prevent economic migration, whether Eastern or Western European, as it would be going against European Legislation.

As the corridor to Europe, Kent suffers from a flow of both migrants and immigrants. The latter is now dispersed accross the country following the UK Borders Act 2007 and subsequent legislation surrounding the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 and UK Borders Agency.

However, when chatting, canvassing or debating with residents, I often find they confuse the issues.

Comments and sound bites are generally thrown at me such as "British Jobs for British Workers" and "floodgates had been opened to mass immigration".

If someone is generally talking about immigration, my favourite response is "do you know any immigrants?". I generally find that the response is "well it is all in the papers". The answer is clearly no, and they are responding to a media pandemic of scaremongering and illogical concepts.

The paticular incident today was about European Migration and the people cited a number of local incidents of assaults in Ashford.


Whether Eastern Europeans were responsible or not is not the issue to me. The issue is, we do not have enough police on the streets.

It would be interesting to see a demographic study of crime in Ashford and see if there are predominate migration issues, but I would hazard a guess that it is an irrelevant issue.

The issues that come with migration are tackled by other areas. If there are assaults, then it is police. And the Liberal Democrats are the only party to pledge an increase in police numbers and a dedication to preventing crime.