WhichWayForward

There are not many aspects of the present government in the UK or the last one in the US that I agree with. In fact the list is so small and inconsequential it’s hardly worth mentioning. On the other hand I don’t disagree with everything they did nor do I think they were or are entirely evil.

The single biggest mistakes they both made was to try and make facts conform to their political theories and if not, to force a fit. As an example I am convinced that one day in Britain we will discover that virtually unrestricted immigration was a social political experiment.

Don’t get me wrong, I am virulently opposed to both the hard left and hard right, and in fact every ”ism” appalls and scares me. But I just don’t believe it could have been possible for literally millions of foreign nationals to enter this country illegally without at least the tacit connivance of those responsible for our borders.

Either these officials are criminally inept or they wanted this to happen. The results are the same and in the present economic circumstances could prove catastrophic. I say this in the knowledge that less than one hundred years ago my grandparents and their siblings arrived in this country and America, penniless refugees.

The numbers of immigrants then allowed in was in direct proportion to the needs of their new host countries. Put another way, the bargain suited both sides of the equation. It made some sense.

Now there are a huge number of new immigrants in our countries and our economies are in free fall. If the economic migrants were to simply go home there wouldn’t be a problem here, but there would be a huge problem in their countries. The new reality is that there are new camps being built in France for all the new migrants fighting to get into the UK, and the net numbers in the UK are growing so fast that the UK is forecast to overtake Germany’s population having once been far smaller.

What will happen when the indigenous population can’t get or keep jobs but the new migrants stay and prosper? This will potentially lead to problems that could lead to substantial civil strife.

America has different but related problems. Of them all I believe that the most immediate and affordable will be remaking the economic model of the USA to re-emphasize its ability to manufacture its way out of most problems when taken together with its huge capacity to export raw materials. This must be achieved and the education system re-engineered to produce what America needs so that it can compete.

The UK has to re-imagine itself and recreate its ability to deliver great products that are brilliantly designed and engineered. That was what worked in the Anglo American economic model and we simply walked away because we became besotted in making money out of thin air and betting on futures. The so called “knowledge economy” only works if you have something worth saying.

The key problems are, as ever, related to our wallets and sense of well-being. As this becomes progressively more problematic there would be a cycle of action and reaction in proportion to the desperation of the population. We could see either Fascism or Communism become a power again and with it a major, equal and opposite, probably violent reaction.

We must address educational necessities, fixing the economy and immigration as matters of equal priority. No one of these fixes is going to be sufficient, we need them all.