If Britons were asked to make one wish that, if fulfilled, would make Britain a better place to live in, most would opt for it to be rid of immigrants. An “immigrant-free” Britain is the “Big British Dream”, according to an authoritative survey of social attitudes conducted to mark the Queen's diamond jubilee celebrations.
Asked to “imagine a British dream”, a majority said they “yearned” for fewer immigrants who, they believed, were “letting Britain down” along with “welfare scroungers and yobs”.
Peter Kellner, chairman of the Royal Commonwealth Society and president of YouGov polling organisation which conducted the survey, was startled by the findings. “Down the years, people… have been stirred by dreams of, variously, a low-tax society, an end to class divisions, greater tolerance, and a clean, green future. But when YouGov invited people to imagine a ‘British dream'… we found that these came down the list of today's national ambitions,'' he wrote in
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Immigrants topped the list of what people thought were the “worst things about Britain” with 53 per cent wishing they had a magic wand to wave them away.
But what would an immigrant-free Britain look like given that vast areas of British life — hospitals, public transport, hotels and restaurants, shops and supermarkets — are run practically by immigrants? Who would want to live in a country without cleaners, plumbers, builders, nannys, babysitters, waiters, waitresses, shelf-stackers, bank clerks, taxi drivers…?