Enoch Powell must be chuckling from beyond the grave..

That was the amusing text someone had sent in to BBC News 24 after the question time debate. Immigration has become a hot issue again, with parties scrambling for the most subtle ground to voice concerns, whilst simultaneously fomenting that 'talking about it isn't racist'. Well there is obviously a racist undertone which is if isn't there in reality, is certainly there in perception, otherwise politicians wouldn't be so extra careful when discussing it.

The notion that immigration must be restricted rests on the premise that this territory belongs to a certain people and no-one else. In which case we're moving towards the mentality of Israeli settlers which is unequivocally racist.

The fact of the matter humans should retain the right to freedom of movement, immigration and migration have been with us from time immemorial. The UN estimates that "over 4 million" Iraqis have been displaced by violence in their country, 1.5 million are now living in Syria, and over 1 million refugees inhabit Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Yemen, and Turkey. Even Darfur, Sudan, which has no border control, is facilitating refugees. Syria for example is providing as much humanitarian aid to its refugees as possible while maintaining the strain on services for indigineious citizens.

All this whilst people are talking about a strain on the NHS because of immigration, the NHS simply wouldn't function without immigrant workers. What's at the root of politicians braving a potential smearing by talking about this issue is simple, there is an ignorant section of the electorate, prepared to accept a scapegoat.

Dividing the working class amongst eachother in this country will not achieve anything. The government has failed to invest properly the huge economic gain from immigrant workers to improve the efficiency of public services, their failure to acknowledge housing requirements caused by immigration even now has badly affected local councils, which rely upon an accurate assessment of their "population in order to qualify for Whitehall grants", and has obvious "knock-on effects" on other services such as education and healthcare.

if we had a truly free market economy the illegal immigrants would not be the scapegoat, we would probably need them and they'd be accepted, but because of economic conditions, they have become the scapegoat..