You may be aware that several countries joined the European Union on May 1st. This had led to a deal of idiotic speculation in certain British newspapers about the flood of refugees (from these countries) who would be arriving in Britain to take advantage of welfare benefits, the great weather and the marvellous food. Or something like that.
This seems to be a peculiarly British delusion. Some people do really believe that there are millions of foreigners who are desperate to come to Britain for one reason for another, and something has to be done about it. Never mind that there is precious little evidence of it happening before when other countries (such as Spain, Portugal and Greece) joined the European Union a few years back. Now the floodgates are open, and of course there is indeed no evidence of a large influx of immigrants from Lithuania or wherever, as David Aaronovitch points out in The Guardian.
The reality is that the poorer countries that have joined the European Union over the years have generally done extremely well out of it, and the general trend has been for their nationals to return home as the economy has improved, not for people to leave! Ireland is probably the best example of this.
Nevertheless, immigration remains a sensitive subject in the UK. This led to one of the one of the most disgraceful decisions made by any British government in recent years, when Hong Kong people were denied British Citizenship in the leadup to the Handover. This was based on the wholly irrational fear that millions of people might leave Hong Kong and move to the UK. Of course it was never going to happen, but there is this strange idea that (1) large numbers of people will want to give up everything and move to a foreign country, and (2) that most of them would choose Britain as their destination. No, I don’t think so.
Ordinary Gweilo 
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