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Yet the political theatre continues as if the data never arrived. Immigration remains the ultimate litmus test, the issue on which every faction must prove its manhood by sounding harsher than the last.
There is an old British habit that refuses to die. When the public finances look awkward, someone reaches for the national costume box, pulls out the Union Jack, and declares that the only patriotic course is to ask the people with the least to tighten their belts a little more. The word of the hour is always “austerity.” The justification is always necessity. The result is almost always the same.
It wants to celebrate Britain as the greatest country in the world while simultaneously proposing policies that would make large parts of Britain less British.
There is an old British political habit which deserves rather more scrutiny than it usually receives: when governments want the public to accept an uncomfortable policy, they wrap it in the Union Jack and call it national security.
When a political movement cannot quite explain where Britain should go, it apparently finds comfort in explaining where Britain used to be.
