Immigrants! A letter to an MP a year ago.


http://www.newzimbabwe.com/FCKEditor_Images/Migrants%20Mediterranean.jpg

Tim Veater

September 7, 2015 · 

How FB loves to bury any thing with the word I****l in?! So I will try again to post this one.

Derek Thomas. MP.
House of Commons.

Dear Mr Thomas,

'MIGRANTS'

Thank you for your E-mail on the subject of 'Migrants at Calais'. I think it is a good example of 'not seeing the wood for the trees' or perhaps more oppositely, quoting text without context, arguably making it into a pretext, for doing little or nothing to help desperate people in their hour of need.

In 1972 I played a very small part in the resettlement of some of the 30,000 of the Asians expelled from Uganda. They were initially housed in disused army camps, one being in Honiton where I worked. Why can this not be repeated now? And why not regard such an humanitarian response as temporary and conditional on a presumption of resettlement to the country of origin when stability returns?

But perhaps more importantly you fail to acknowledge, though you surely must appreciate, that this is not an issue primarily of 'illegal people smuggling' but the result of British foreign and military action (with others) over at least the last decade and a half. The desperate refugees flee from the death and destruction we have directly and indirectly brought about in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, to name but three, in which both Labour and Conservative administrations are deeply implicated. To talk about 'migrants' without acknowledging this fact, in fact denying it as Mr Cameron and Mr Blair do, is deeply disingenuous.

Nor can it be ignored that Britain has followed an essentially American/Israeli policy to destroy all the countries in the region that might pose a threat to I****l. This continues with illegal raids by British air and ground forces in Syria, so-say targetting 'ISIS' assets but actually aimed against the Assad regime. So I****l has not only achieved its objective vicariously with American money and military power, but it is now rubbing its hands in glee as hundreds of thousands of displaced persons land on the European financial doorstep. It repeats the strategy of 1948. Mr Cameron's stated whole-hearted support for I****l's devious and inhuman policies of domination and expansion, particularly against Gaza and the Palestinian people, put him on the wrong side of history and Christian morality, of which I understand you are an active observant.

Your forerunner may well have been fairly ineffective but at least he showed glimmers of independance from the party line. We have all witnessed the recent and unexpected phenomenon that is Jeremy Corbyn. He articulates what I believe to be the true feelings of the British public to both domestic and foreign policy, so long unrepresented by Parliament and its MP's. Independence of mind may not bring political favours but with luck it may bring respect and a clear conscience, which are the only things that really matter.

Yours sincerely,

TIM VEATER.