The UK will not be here, as a place where people can come to seek refuge/asylum, if there were no rules during those years gone by…

I feel very strongly about this. I can see the perspective of those who try to argue that Britain and some other countries were built on the back of the empire and other acts in years gone by. I am also someone who strongly believes in the need for human beings to accept that we are only here temporarily and we don’t take anything with us, when we die. BUT, and it is a capital ‘BUT’, for goodness sakes! There should be a modicum of gratitude! The hundreds of thousands of people, over the last century, who have come to Britain, be it fleeing war (loads came here during & after WWII for instance), or seeking a better life. Yes, there are some sad realities of hardship faced by some e.g. the Windrush generation – including extreme instances of intolerance & hate, which some still have to put up with today. But some of this should have been a 2-way street. There must be some degree of gratitude for getting a chance in a relatively safe environment.

Even with the alarming spate of stabbings in recent years, particularly in London, I am not sure there are many places around the world, safer than the UK.

There appears to be a great deal of a sense of entitlement these days. People come in and expect a lot. But I would hope that a little bit of gratitude goes with that.

There would be no Britain to run to, if some rules were not enforced over the years. Rules that every Brit follow (so, why shouldn’t others coming to Britain do the same?). I have said this before; the government should consider an arrangement where benefits provided to newcomers, to help them settle in, can be recouped over several years, in a comfortable manner (via a tax code applied to those folk), so that they are no longer seen to be a burden. And we can speed up integration and get newcomers into jobs etc. And they can start paying back into the same welfare system that helped them when they came in. This may unburden the NHS and other services.

The language used by those calling for change, is what is simply awful and unacceptable. Leading to terrible moments such as the Summer 2024 riots. We must deal with this, with decency. We are decent people. There is absolutely no need for the horrible language and dehumanising words. Things can be done with decency.

Our laws, our way of life, the need for people coming in, to come in and be the way we are, is the only way we can still have a country that people can flee to, to seek refuge. If we let go and allow the country become a cesspit (with littering every where, stabbings etc.), not only will resentment grow – leading to more intolerance and hate – but along with that, we will very quickly become a similar place, to where people are feeing from.

As a son of a son of immigrants, I will forever be grateful to Britain, for being a place that my grandfather was able to come to (he wasn’t fleeing anything, he came to work) and regardless of some of the hardship he & others like him, who came over to work, faced back then, would they have been better off where they were? Obviously not! But back then, and with my father’s generation, they were very grateful for the opportunity, regardless of some hardship. And this is not just about people who migrated here, everyone in the UK should be grateful for what the country means and what we have! Everyone came from somewhere. The Saxons, Normans, majority of Brits descend from people who came here from elsewhere. We all have a duty to keep the place going and to retain some of what makes it that country where so many people, over so many years, have been able to flee to, or go to for economic reasons etc. If we let it sink down to the cesspit, that is not to anybody’s advantage is it?