No, Mr Prime Minister. No.

I was listening to NPR this morning and I heard a snippet about how David Cameron believed that the public was 'on his side' in his desire to renegotiate the British EU treaty, that he wanted to restrict immigrant flow from within the EU (and, of course, from without), and his usual xenophobic rhetoric.

Unsurprising? Definitely. However, this is more than just the usual conservative nonsense; this takes the ire of the press and populace away from the spying infrastructure, with its flimsy arguments for 'national security' and incessant dissemblance, and onto an issue that nationalists and racists everywhere can agree on: that immigrants are bad.

No matter who they are, what their credentials might be, what their economic situation is, immigrants are bad. Except, you know, when the majority of immigrants to the UK are students.

Besides, stopping the flow of migrants to the UK won't precisely help the UK's economic situation, especially with Cameron's rhetoric about renegotiating the entire treaty. The UK has a large enough outflow of citizens and migrants as it is (check the statistics), and besides, if you want to solve a problem that originates from a distant (or not so distant) place, the problem must be solved at its origin, not at its periphery. If you want to stem the tide of immigrants from Romania or Bulgaria, then you encourage them to grow economically and develop a home structure that can support vast swaths of skilled and unskilled workers.

Cameron has always struck me as a man whose sight oversteps his reach. Perhaps he's pandering to the right-wing Tories in his party, or perhaps he's trying to convince himself that his protectionist and overtly illogical bunk is, well, not bunk; or, maybe he just wants to think that Britain is still in a partnership with America that somehow extends its empire and affords it to stand on its own in the international system.

Whatever the case, I hope that most Britons are keen to his style of equivocation and realize just how much of an obdurate, narrow-sighted man he has made himself to be.

That's all for now,
Das Flüg

P.S. I'm trying this social media sharing thing now. I have no idea how it works, but click one of the thingies and something might happen. There might be a free car in it for you, who knows...

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