The debate on ID cards has not had much resonance with the people I have spoken to across Southend. The common concern about identity is not so much about the loss of an individual’s personal data but the perceived loss of a common identity across the town and across the country as a whole.
For, apart from issues such as the state of public services and tackling antisocial behaviour (on which Labour still gets decent credit), the issue that is most raised is the effect of immigration. It is cited as the root cause of several social ills, including: higher levels of crime; congestion on the roads; poor service on the NHS; fewer housing places; higher unemployment levels. The list goes on.
Whenever I can, I try to ask people if they have direct experience of immigrants causing such problems. Most of the time it is hearsay, usually picked up from the scaremongers at the Daily Mail and particularly the Daily Express, though often I am told that a new group of unnamed foreigners has recently moved in down the street and are playing music or leaving too much rubbish outside. I then ask if they work with or know well anyone recently arrived from abroad. Usually the answer is yes and I have not yet heard anyone complain of the behaviour of any immigrant that they are personally familiar with.
My first response is usually to point to the dramatic drop in unemployment in the last 10 years (in Southend by over 60 per cent), whilst at the same time the number of people in employment has continued to rise to record levels all happening despite and also because of immigrants doing necessary jobs.
My second response is to explain steps being taken to make immigration policy fairer for both our residents and would-be applicants, through integrating the various agencies responsible for monitoring our borders and moving to a points-based system of accepting applicants.
But economic benefits and fairness are not enough to dispel a much more innate anxiety: the feeling that a common identity is being lost. This is particularly so in Southend, many of whose citizens are migrants or their children themselves, often from working class communities in east London, who left for better work prospects or because the East End’s own communal identity had changed beyond recognition. Now, many Southenders feel the same about their town.
But I think the cause of this feeling is much more profound than immigration. It is the growing atomisation in our society, spurred on by globalisation and the focus on the individual consumer, which loosens the ties of community to such an extent, that many people don’t even know their own neighbours.
The answer of course is to rebuild and create common identities. This cannot be done overnight. Insisting that new migrants speak English is a necessary start, but the answer will ultimately lie with our children. As part of Labour’s plans for universal education up to 18, we should consider community service for all in their own communities. In that way, those who serve and those who are served can gain an appreciation that we belong not to some impossibly homogeneous race, but to a living and ever changing community, be it our neighbourhood, town or country.
Kevin Bonavia is Labour PPC for Rochford and Southend East