Brexit. I’m for it. Immigration I’m for it. And I have damn good reasons for adopting both positions. Oh yes. Come with me, reader, and I’ll square this circle for you.
I’m a Leftist. But unlike all these lily-livered, soft-left/liberal, hand-wringing, virtue-signalling, Guardian reading remoaners (I prefer The Morning Star and independent media which doesn’t cheerlead for illegal oil wars) I understand that the EU is a profoundly anti-democratic, neoliberal project designed to protect corporations’ interests not citizens’ and whose institutions have zero accountability. Just look at the TTIP negotiations which were, like all decisions of any importance in the EU, conducted in absolute secrecy.
This is why the likes of Tony Blair is pro-EU, and surely one’s moral compass should always be set to: ‘want the opposite of what an avaricious, self-serving, war criminal wants’. That’s just common sense. Now, if you’re even thinking of piping up with, ‘Tommy Robinson is pro-Brexit so if we’re lumped in with Blair look at the racist you’re keeping company with’, that won’t cut it, because causing the deaths of a million innocent civilians in the Middle East is about as racist as you can get I would contend, and just because it’s done with a rictus grin rather than a primal scream of hate doesn’t make it any less so.
Also, unlike the ridiculous Robinson I’m pro-immigration. Oh yes, ‘they’ can’t be simultaneously claiming benefits and taking our jobs can they? Despite the sewage stream of propaganda spewed out by hate-mongering right-wing rags, immigrants, in the real world, pour money into the economy through their taxes in sums dwarfing what they ‘take’ — that pejorative simply translating as having the right to use the public services they, themselves, are helping to fund. And as for the ‘immigrants depress earnings’ whine — show me the study that has found a scintilla of evidence for them causing an undercutting of wages. I dare you! No. Let’s put the blame for the dire circumstances so many in this country find themselves in squarely where it belongs shall we? On austerity; that ideological collective punishment that has zero to do with balancing the economy and everything to do with crushing the poor and vulnerable for no other reason than that they are despised for being so.
But there’s another plus to immigration as far as I’m concerned — a constant supply of sexy foreigners to date. Think the charismatic Bulgarian, Viktor Krum, who sweeps Hermione off her feet in the Harry Potter films and you’ll know what I’m talking about. Frankly, I’ve been on cloud nine these past few years as a parade of unfeasibly hot Eastern European men have passed through my boudoir bringing some much needed Slovak sensuality, Grecian grace, Hungarian hutzpah, and Romanian romance! Yes, racists! They’re oversexed, over-endowed, and over here! And they’re fucking your women. As if I wasn’t enjoying the sex enough, reveling in that thought provides just that little extra satisfaction.
But why not date non-racist British men I hear you cry? Oh dear. Where do I start? British men in general are such a disappointing, and often downright distasteful, assortment of ‘manhood’ it amounts to nothing less than a national disgrace. What’s a girl to do but turn to Europeans for her pleasure? I’m not joking. I’m London based so what are my choices? I can be flattered by the attentions of the ‘allo darling!’ brigade, a species encountered in various pubs and bars around the South East barking loudly about how their football team ‘done good’ and having farting competitions; or should I get wet over some reality TV clone with more bleached teeth than brain cells? Perhaps an educated middle class boy would rock my world? Sorry to disappoint, but just the term ‘middle class’ dries my vagina faster than a water-logged i-phone in a bowl of uncooked rice. Any further up the social hierarchy and you’re in foxhunting circles, and I’d rather set myself on fire than associate with the likes of that braying, bloodthirsty mob.
The truth is I don’t really like British culture as it manifests today, and so the men it spawns I don’t much like either. They are tainted by its neoliberal tang; they are children raised by casually indulgent yet ultimately uncaring parents. And the few that aren’t terminally conditioned zombies? Well, they haven’t got a sexy accent have they? They can’t make me writhe in ecstasy like Jamie Lee-Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda begging the stiff upper-lipped John Cleese to woo her in Russian. No. I want the exotic, the ‘other’, every time. I like being surrounded by ‘etrangers’ in the UK and I take pains never to go on holiday anywhere I would be in danger of bumping into Brits abroad, whether they’re gorging on fry-ups in Benidorm or sipping cocktails in Dubai. They carry their Britishness like a badge of honour when it’s more like a malignant tumour. I don’t see what they’re so fucking proud of? The history of Britain, despite what the sanitised schoolbooks say, is a trail of despoiling and bloody murder spanning the centuries. The recent exposing of Winston Churchill, the staunch patriot’s go-to emblem of British greatness, as a racist mass-murderer should be enough to tell you that this cult of Britishness is rotten at its core.
But let me end by admitting a downside to dating a man from foreign shores, one which I will illustrate with this short anecdote: my current squeeze — a half Greek, half Russian Adonis so handsome, and with a six pack so defined, I sometimes weep before we fuck — was flicking through the TV channels one Saturday and happened upon an episode of The Voice. Looking quizzically at the legend that is Tom Jones he turned to me and enquired — ‘this old man, he is a singer?’ Ah well, a small price to pay.
Alison Banville is co-editor of BSNews, a singer-songwriter, performance poet and some-time stand-up.
