Of all the British government initiatives, the most bizarre must be the plan to mount an advertising campaign in Romania and Bulgaria to deter would-be immigrants to the U.K.. Hinted at by a minister last weekend, the idea is to "correct the impression that the streets here are paved with gold" and thus avoid a mass migration of impoverished Balkans to Britain when curbs on employment rights for Romanians and Bulgarians are removed in January.
This could be the first time that a nation has invested tax dollars in trashing its image. Instead of Cool Britannia, we might look forward to Crap Britannia with images of leaden skies, rain-stained pavements and gangs of racist skinheads patrolling housing estates.
Weird, but it's a measure of how seriously David Cameron's coalition government of Tories and Liberal Democrat is taking the threat of a new wave of unskilled job-seekers from the East. No details have been forthcoming but there has been plenty of public assistance in what the advertisements should look like. The Guardian newspaper invited readers to design a poster; offerings include one with a grey background and the explanation: "The sky in Britain is this colour for eight months of the year. Try Miami instead." Or a mock-up of a war-time propaganda poster with a royal crest and the command: "Come Here and Clean the Loo."
If the U.K.'s Home Office is even contemplating anything half as embarassing, it is because it fears political fall-out, not the financial cost of immigration. The recent precedent is the accession of Poland to the EU in 2004. Then, the Labour government reckoned some tens of thousands of Poles might make the journey; the last census found that more than half a million Poles were living and working and setting up home in Britain.
The population of Poland declined by more than a million following accession. Politicians on the right, including UKIP, the party that has been stealing Tory votes with its anti-EU rhetoric, are predicting a tidal wave of Romanians and Bulgarians. But the anxiety is more widespread – it is the success of the Poles that is feared most of all, their willingness to work hard at dirty jobs on building sites and farms has made them popular among employers. UKIP is drawing support not just from disaffected working class white youths but Asian and Afro-Caribbean Britons who fear job competition from the new and white Europeans.
There is a silver lining to the immigration threat and the government's deterrence campaign. If the worst that can be said about the U.K. is that the weather can be a bit dreary, the cities a bit dirty and the politicians a bit silly, surely Britons have little to complain about? And if almost half of the Poles who left their homeland after 2004 chose to live in Britain, rather than Germany, France or Benelux, surely that is a compliment?
Carl Mortished