Thursday, February 17, 2005

Diversions

Although the actual date of the forthcoming election has yet to be announced one subject matter likely to be in the forefront of the debate is immigration.
Not for the first time in British politics both Labour (Sorry! New Labour) and the Conservatives will play the race card. Each will try to persuade us they their controls will be as watertight as a ducks rear end. They will both generate and play on fears of the supposed dangers of thousands and thousands of diseased and destitute foreigners just waiting to "swarm" into Britain and "swamp" an already overstretched health-care system.
And of course we can see why it is the politicians do this - frightened people are often more malleable and less likely to ask akward questions. Questions like - who is it that staffs the health service? Of the seven doctors in the GP surgery I attend six are "immigrants" or the children of immigrants, and I suspect that this is not unusual.
Immigrants and asylum seekers are in the main workers on the move attempting to find work and improve their lot in life. As such their interests are the same as workers everywhere and those intereats lie in the replacement of the system of exploitation we all live under by a system of common ownership and production for use.

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