Letter: Immigration Was The Issue That Has Unearthed Scary Nationalism

Published on: 1 Jul, 2016
Updated on: 1 Jul, 2016

From David Pillinger

Remain campaigner

In response to Chris Ogle’s letter: Our ‘Liberal’ Society is Now Showing Its True Racist Qualities

Immigration was the issue.

Economy contracts, we export people, economy grows, we import people. If we need a nurse and can’t find one in England he or she will have to come from another part of the UK, or abroad. EU or non EU.

I would hate, for example, for the cancer ward at the Royal Surrey to be understaffed because of the rants from people about there being no space left in England. There is lots of space, just look around.

Some have been writing in The Dragon during the referendum and we have had to suffer a certain amount of their vitriol about foreigners and the fact that we didn’t fight a war 70 years ago for this.

The effect of this has been to unearth the sort of scary nationalism that we in fact went to war to fight in the 1940s. If people are concerned about overcrowding, we need to talk about building infrastructure, not about maintaining the status quo.

The world moves on.

Responses to Letter: Immigration Was The Issue That Has Unearthed Scary Nationalism

Bernard Parke Reply

July 1, 2016 at 1:32 pm

Guildford is to shortly to receive the first Syrian family.

Let us hope that they, and others that follow them, are able to settle at last to a peaceful life.
John Armstrong Reply

July 1, 2016 at 3:04 pm

Maintaining the status quo you say? It’s on the skids now I venture.
C Stevens Reply

July 1, 2016 at 3:52 pm

Immigration was a part of the issue – it always is to a greater or lesser extent – as was the economy.

But it seems to me that people had become very tired of the feeling that control of our destiny had passed to other hands in Brussels. It says something about where we stand as a nation when we may have to borrow trade negotiators from New Zealand because we have too few of our own.

If you’ve wondered why President Obama pronounced on the referendum or why John Kerry was in Downing Street with our PM last Monday, search online for TTIP.

If the UK’s exit avoids the more pernicious effects of that – including the chance of the Royal Surrey being owned by some offshore outfit – we can count ourselves extremely lucky.
Jim Allen Reply

July 1, 2016 at 4:37 pm

There’s nothing scary about shameful about being a nationalist – what is shameful is people running down their own country in the name of liberalism.

Instead of stealing people from countries around the world, who can ill afford to loose such highly trained personnel, we should be training our own.

As for building infrastructure – a quart don’t fit in a pint pot. There is a finite limit to how many gallons of drinking water we can draw from the ground and amount of oxygen we can draw from the air to use in the internal combustion engine.

At what point does Mr Pillinger think it’s a good time to suffer from hypoxia – as we steal the last nurse from the Philippines or when the last car stops running through polluted atmosphere?
Terry Duckmanton Reply

July 1, 2016 at 5:17 pm

Let’s face it, if the current situation continues for much longer the economic migrants will no longer want to come here.
Mary Older Reply

July 1, 2016 at 5:28 pm

Totally agree with all you have said.
A Tatlow Reply

July 1, 2016 at 6:25 pm

I am amazed at the number of people who persist in telling me why I voted as I did over a week ago.

Only I know that and they are rarely correct.

We need to move on.
Stuart Barnes Reply

July 1, 2016 at 11:34 pm

The world moves on. Correct.

The result was decisive and all the complaining about how unfair that is will not change that fact.
David Pillinger Reply

July 2, 2016 at 9:49 am

Thanks to all for the various comments. Points taken and understood.

If anyone fancies a drink one day or a coffee in a spirit of reconciliation, The Dragon has my email address. I look forward to hearing from you.