GO HOME Is the message!
It is part of a new campaign to clamp down on illegal immigrants in the UK.
Is it dumb?
My thoughts
1. Can the majority of illegal immigrants read English that well?
2. The ones that can, how many do you think are going to follow the instructions and go home?
3. At £15K per van they are not going to be cost effective.
4. Was there a similar campaign used by Nazi's just before WWII with a similar go home message. It could be offensive to holocaust survivors.
5. Considering some of these people have been threatened and maybe tortured and have possibly had a terrible journey getting here, are they really going to be worried by a van?
6. People get confused between immigrants and illegal immigrants. I have often heard "bloody illegal immigrants coming here and taking our jobs and claiming benefit" This is simply not true. Yes there are many valid immigrants who work or claim benefit. Illegal immigrants fall under the radar and simply can't claim benefits or work legitimately.
7. Illegal immigrants are often employed by unscrupulous people to work as slaves. They are not free. They get paid a pittance. Their quality of life is poor. They are victims.
8. If the government feel the need to 'target' someone, I feel they should be targeting these people who harbour illegal immigrants just so they get cheap labour.
Well OK but how to 'deal' with the problem of immigration, then? First problem is there are no current figures. Only estimates on how many UK residents emigrate and how many migrants are entering - legit or not. The government admit their own figures are not fit for purpose. I personally feel this government is obsessed with lowering net migration figures. It is bizarre then, that the figures are just very blunt estimates anyway. Instead of spending money on vans telling illegal immigrants to 'go home' i feel the money should be spent on devising a more accurate system of recording data. Many citizens here are completely unaware that the 515'000 migrants and 352'000 emigrants figure per year is not an accurate recording but just guesswork. Yet these figures are often used by UKip and the tories to scare people into thinking that the floodgates are open.
An 'amnesty' has been suggested. Not sure if this would be acceptable to a lot of the public who blindly believe certain politicians and tory rag newspapers.
However, it would be a tool to prosecute people who benefit the system by exploiting these people for cheap labour.
Slavery, even in it's most mildest form is something that belongs in history books.
