We, migrants, are an easy scapegoat and the perfect distraction from the real issue
Police officers scuffle with demonstrators during a protest at Castle Park(Image: PA)
In the past couple of weeks, the news agenda has been making me feel sick again. Sadly, as a foreigner living in the UK, this is starting to feel familiar – it is certainly not the first time this country, which I have called my home for 12 years and has given me countless opportunities to grow, has made me feel unwelcome.
As I have written about in the past, before the Brexit vote, I never really thought of my immigration status in the UK. Up until that point, living in the UK as an EU citizen felt easy and worry-free; I knew I wasn’t British, but that didn’t feel that relevant.
And now, millionaire Nigel Farage has again succeeded at bringing the migrant issue to the front of the news agenda. However, this time his focus are asylum seekers, rather than EU citizens.
The Reform UK leader is saying he would deport hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers if his party won power at the next election, and Bristol has recently seen several far-right, anti-migrant protests. This comes after the widespread riots last summer which saw more than a thousand people being charged.
As one of more than 4m EU citizens living in the UK, I feel terribly sad this country seems increasingly unable to have a healthy, positive and constructive debate on migration. Racism and xenophobia dominate the debate, and not even the Labour Party seems to be able to stand up to Reform or the Conservatives.
Keir Starmer himself has said he wants to speed up the closure of asylum hotels, stating: “I want them emptied”. We seem to forget who asylum seekers are – most often people fleeing awful situations in countries such as Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iran. No one leaves their family, their country, easily.
Then there is the old-time, weak and boring argument that “I” (a white migrant from a Western country) am different; I am not. All migrants are the same – we are all people looking for a better life.
Estel Farell-Roig is a Barcelona-born reporter living in Bristol (Image: South Wales Evening Post)
We, migrants, are an easy scapegoat and the perfect distraction from the real issue. When we are talking about migration, we are not talking about poverty, social mobility or tax evasion.
I am reading a lot more about asylum seekers than the tax controversy involving Angela Rayner, for example. The Deputy Prime Minister has come under fire in recent days over her tax arrangements following the purchase of a £800,000 seaside flat in Hove, in East Sussex – but we should try and move on from that.
We don’t talk about the fact that more than 40 per cent of displaced people across the world are children, or choose to ignore the fact people seeking asylum are often living on Home Office support equivalent to under £7 per day.
I am ready for all the racist, xenophobic comments that will undoubtedly be below this article; I have been a journalist in this country for 10 years, and have written about these issues in the past, so it is certainly not my first time at the rodeo. Closing down comments sees us being accused of “censorship”, and there is still the scope to spend some time writing a personalised email to go directly to my work inbox. I do not care.
Day-to-day, I feel welcome in Bristol. I own a home here, I am raising a child in this city, my friends make me feel they want me here. Nevertheless, identity can be tricky when you have lived abroad for a long time (over a third of my life in my case) and you are sometimes left wondering where you belong, feeling like an outsider everywhere.
These days, I see my identity as multi-faceted; I am a mum, I am a journalist, but also Catalan, European and an adopted Bristolian. Most importantly, I am a proud migrant.
