Few things more grotesque than seeing Priti Patel falling over herself to deny that we have ever disparaged ‘low-skilled migrants’ when we have been doing exactly that shamelessly for years and years.
‘Low-skilled’ in the discourse of British politicians, and in much of the rightwing press generally carried all kinds of unspoken meanings. Low-skilled = people of no value/poor people/people from poor countries/people who don’t contribute anything of value/disposable people/
Low-skilled were people we had ‘concerns’ about/people whose ‘low skills’ meant they were only one step from criminality (remember the hysterical tabloid/Ukip response to the Bulgarian/Rumanian accession in 2013 anyone?)
Low-skilled people didn’t/wouldn’t speak our language - they often did, but never mind. Labour & the left also prone to the same dehumanising stereotypes with talk of ‘unskilled labour’ being ‘shipped in’ by ‘bosses’ as if the migrant workers who came here were a herd of cattle
For years we blamed them for coming, claiming they ‘undercut’ our low-skilled workers. We wanted only the ‘brightest and the best’. Oligarchs, hedge fund managers, speculators looking to park their money in Kensington or Chelsea properties? Yes please.
But those low-skilled workers who cleaned hospital floors, picked fruit, prepared our food, worked in our hotels, looked after our mums and dads, set up shops & delis and small businesses? They were stealing our cultural identity. Our houses. Our NHS. Flooding us.
So we came up with a ‘points-based’ immigration system to keep them out. Introduced spousal reunion thresholds to keep out their wives and husbands. Called for ‘control over our borders’ to stop them ‘invading us’. Now it takes the coronavirus and what happens?
We suddenly discover that they were useful after all, more useful even, than the likes of Johnson’s pal Alexander Temerko. We find that we actually need these low-skilled workers after all to prevent our society from falling apart.
So maybe - not before time - we ought to get over our classism, our snobbery, our xenophobia, and our racism, and reflect that these ‘low-skilled’ people - because they really are people, helped keep society from falling apart all the time we were heaping contempt upon them.
@threadreaderapp please unroll
