Thread by @ZoeJardiniere

Right, here is my BIG THOUGHT for today: Yes, radical, transformative change in our immigration system is 100% achievable and we can convince the country of it, too. Sorry for the long thread.

Here is why:

People have views on immigration. People, who in most cases know nothing about the facts of it whatsoever.

Opinion does not fluctuate with facts or policies. Not with the number of immigrants, nor with the strictness of the system they face. These are almost entirely unrelated.

In surveys measuring people's perceptions, people hugely overestimate the number of immigrants in the UK. They also hugely overestimate what percentage of immigrants are made up of any group they're asked about.
So if you're talking about asylum seekers...

Not only do people think there are far more immigrants than there are, but also that a lot of them are asylum seekers.
When we talk about Free Movement people hugely overestimate how many of the overblown number of supposed immigrants are Europeans, too. This is normal.

This phenomenon applies across almost all studied countries and is not limited to immigration. People overestimate the proportion of Muslims in their countries and vastly overestimate rates of knife crime in the UK. Meanwhile we underestimate rates of violence against women.

None of this is to say we should ignore people's opinions because they're wrong, quite the opposite: we should recognise that people's opinions can be changed on matters of material fact by their feelings.
Opinions have been manipulated, we dont have to accept them as they stand.

When people were told we'd "take back control" immigration fell off the list of concerns despite no change in policy and continually growing numbers.
When people saw nothing but small boats arriving in Kent concern shot back up, despite asylum seeker numbers staying stagnant.

When people were housed in hotels people got angry at the luxury, despite these hotels actually being inadequate for asylum seekers' needs.

A trusted voice telling you something that fits with your cultural world view is much stronger than mere reality.

We've seen a hundred thousand examples of people supporting tough measures in theory, but feeling pretty unhappy at the human impacts when they hear how it affects their neighbours, people who are real to them, not part of the imaginary migrant hoards, oh we didnt mean THEM...

So after all of this, where are we?

I think we need 2 things, one of which is in "our" as in campaigners, experts, academics & activists' control. And one which is in "our" wider culture's control, which we are part of as are many others, some on our side, some not.

1. We need to tell the stories of an immigration system that works, without worrying about how far it is from what we have.
Describe the prize: empowered, fulfilled, financially stable communities with a sense of pride & completely ignore the numbers, because no one knows them.

Would I just cancel all deportations? Yes, I'd have families kept together, people supported to get their lives back on track, people able to grow up and grow old in their neighbourhood where they feel safe and loved and where they are culturally at home & can thrive & contribute

Now there's the part not entirely in our control: the cultural change.
This is something we are all responsible for shifting. Every TV show, every book, every celebrity and every trend is a chance to reflect a set of values. There is currently a culture of migration wariness.

Migration is understood as a thing to be controlled, a driver of crime and of "changing city centres" or whatever the latest dog whistle is.
Most people dont think asylum seekers are invaders, but they dont think they should "all just come here and get benefits" either.

The fact that they dont all come here and get benefits is so very, very far from the point. We need a cultural feeling about migration that doesnt focus on benefits at all, that sees migration as fundamentally normal & fine & migrants as just as trustworthy & relatable as others.

We need more foreign accents on TV that belong to characters whose story arc doesn't revolve around them as migrants. It means more story telling as a whole in our culture about migrants as part of the fabric of our lives. Mixed migrant/British families, people putting down roots

It means a lot of things that I dont have answers for but it sure as hell doesnt mean conceding it's ok to punish black men with banishment. It doesnt mean accepting that asylum seekers be detained en masse. It doesnt mean accepting one single aspect of the hostile environment.

This has been a long thread but it's been blowing up all over migration twitter these days so that's what I have to add. We dont need to concede to false perceptions on migration. We can and must build other narratives.

We have a long way to go, no shuffling sideways, now.

Heres one link to a study showing how little people fundamentally understand statistics and reality, but theres countless ones ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-…

I'm going to add that we're looking at a really grim economic time ahead. Migrants are bound to be blamed & Patel cling to her job & slash rights.

If you call yourself a migrant rights advocate now would be the time to get to it, rather than policing which rights are "too much".