Many people, myself included, want the rampant and unending stream of illegal immigrants, ‘boat people’, if you will, stopped. These people, entering the country illegally, are being housed and provided for, at taxpayer expense, and will likely never be deported. They are overwhelmingly men, of fighting age, and come in with no documents (often times disposing of them before getting here) and full of sob stories and tales of woe. Now, don’t think me some cold hearted person who is against helping those in need. Far from it. Legal immigrants, legal refugees, legal asylum seekers, great. We will help you. Come legally. Don’t pay people smugglers a huge sum of money to enter illegally. I mean, how they managed to come up with such sums of money to pay the people smugglers in the first place is one thing, but surely if you have that kind of money you could, I dunno, hop a flight over here with your documents and claim asylum? Buy a ferry ticket with your documents and claim asylum? Oh, I forgot. They don’t have documents and actively dispose of them more often than not, so that they cannot be traced back to their countries of origin and thus deported. If we don’t know where to deport them to, how can we deport them, goes the thinking.
Anyway, I will leave that there before I get too deep in to my feelings on the matter and instead get down to brass tacks;
The powers that be, even those in government, don’t actually want this issue to be resolved. Now, hold on a second, let me explain;
All political persuasions have their ‘sacred cows’ and their ‘talking points’. They all have ‘red meat’ to throw to the base, as it were. If you think that your particular party doesn’t, and is above such things, then you clearly don’t understand politics. For these issues to have any meaning, for them to keep getting votes, for them to keep being issues to rally the base, they must remain, in perpetuity, as issues.
Let us say that the current Government, who are supposedly determined to end this blight of illegal immigration, were to suddenly shutter the borders, nobody in, anyone caught entering without documents is immediately detained (not in a hotel but at her majesties pleasure) and boats trying to cross were turned back, regardless of how close to our shores they have managed to get. No more illegal boat people. It won’t happen, but let us for a moment pretend it did. Problem solved. And then what?
Come the next election that issue, that the electorate were so passionate about, will be a non-issue. Resolved. Gone. Dealt with once and for all. How, then, would one get the base riled up to vote? What would be the issue you rally around? You wouldn’t have one. But, the opposition, who have not been in power to get their particular sacred cows , red meat and issues resolved, would have a rallying cry. You can’t take their issues and make them your own, though you may try. No. So, you need to keep your issues, the ones that get the vote out, alive and constantly in the consciousness of the voters. Only *we* can solve the problem. But, only *if* you elect us for another term.
Every party in all countries have these issues. They know full well that it will drive the electorate into a frenzy, get people whipped up, and make them come out in droves. But, as mentioned above, only *if* it remains an issue. Oh, the government of the day may make big talk and bluster about solving the problem, and may take some small steps so as to keep the electorate on side, but they need the issue to not be firmly resolved. They need the issue alive.
And so, the issue of illegal immigration will remain firmly unresolved. While the individuals in government may want to solve the problem, politics dictates that it must remain a problem. They will bluster. They will huff. They will puff out their chests and decry the situation. They know that this will keep the electorate on side. But they won’t solve the problem. Because come the next election, only *they* can solve it. So you must give them another term.
And the boats will keep coming.
So we keep voting.
And with that, I leave you until next time.
Thank you for reading.
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