Recently in Migration Category

The most family-friendly government strikes again. At the weekend, Theresa May announced changes to immigration rules which will force many families to choose between splitting up or leaving the country. What strikes me about this particular move is that it's perhaps the first time that this government has admitted that it hates both poor people and immigrants in the same breath. The Tories have a history of playing us off against each other, but in this case, we're clearly "in this together".

It's difficult to get exact numbers at this stage: The Guardian quotes slightly higher figures for the income requirement than Conservative Home, but it looks like in order to be able to settle in the UK with your spouse who is not a EU citizen, you'll have to demonstrate that you're earning somewhere between £18,600 (ConHome) and £25,700 (Grauniad). For a couple with two children the income threshold rises to up to £46,260.

For perspective, the median income of a full-time worker in the UK is £26,244. As by far not all of us work full time, the overall median income is actually considerably lower. The Home Secretary is essentially sticking up two fingers at over half the UK population and saying "Tough, if you fall in love with a filthy foreigner you'd better be prepared to leave the country." And if you dare to have children with a filthy foreigner, we only want you if your income is in the 90th percentile.

All of this is allegedly to protect the "tax payer" from having to support immigrants coming in on family visas. As in most cases only the UK citizen's income will count towards the initial assessment (unless the spouse is already working in the UK on a different type of visa), this completely neglects the earning potential of the immigrant spouse and assumes that they will never contribute to the UK economy. Insulting doesn't even begin to cover it. Add to that the requirement for the immigrant spouse to speak English and the proposed "attachment test", and we're beginning to see a certain pattern here of government small enough to fit in our bedrooms. I sat through 20 minutes of Ms May lecturing on the benefits of marriage (gay and otherwise) at the Stonewall Workplace Conference earlier this year, but this makes it clear that some marriages are more equal than others, and that having cash definitely helps make you more equal.

The Guardian estimates that somewhere between 45 and 60% of the 53,000 family visa applications a year will not be compliant with the new rules. Brooke Magnanti has some thoughts on what exactly the government is trying to achieve with this new measure. Suffice to say that's a lot of families the "most family-friendly government in history" will be breaking up.

This article was originally published on Huffington Post UK.

Apart from a ten-line blip in a seven-page speech David Cameron made back in April, whenever immigration comes up in the news in this country it is in a negative context. Ed Balls says Labour let too many of the likes of me in, and Theresa May seems to think that the country is overrun by evil immigrant cats - or something like that. Yet every day, millions of immigrants work hard, pay our taxes and try to contribute to the British economy and society as best we can - much like everyone else in the country. Here are some examples of what immigrants do for this country.

Work hard

The lady who cleans my house every couple of weeks is Bulgarian and works for an agency where the majority of the staff are from my native country too. This is not because of some Great Immigrant Conspiracy; but when I was looking for a cleaner I left voicemails for about five different companies, and by the time I got to this one I was so fed up I didn't even bother. Five minutes later my phone rang: "We're sorry we missed your call, madam. How can we help?" It was only when the proprietor turned up at my house to assess it that we found out we were from the same country.

My cleaner works hard. Sometimes she gets in at 7.30 in the morning, before I've left for work, and sometimes she leaves my house at 6pm and goes to yet another client. She puts up with all my idiosyncrasies, the constant mess that is my house thanks to my full-time job and numerous extracurricular activities, the occasional last-minute request for her to rearrange her entire schedule and please come back later. On top of that, most of the staff at the agency are doing NVQ qualifications in order to improve the service they give customers.

My cleaner and her colleagues are not the only ones who work hard. Claudia is from Germany. She works with autistic people. Michelle is American. She works as a producer and project manager for performance artists. Currently she is working on a project involving the performance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in various languages, including Sign. The nuclear physics group of a certain Scottish university is made up of 15 people of ten different nationalities. Immigrants can be found in every profession and walk of life, working hard to contribute to the economy and make a better life for themselves and their families.

Play hard

Sometimes even when we play, we work. When my Scottish friend Morna put out a call on Twitter earlier this year for developers, marketers and media professionals to help her start up her business using the unique "Sweatshop" method, I am not sure what she expected. What she got was a motley crew of 30 or so passionate professionals. While there were sizable English and Scottish contingents among us, immigrants were disproportionately represented. About a third of the Founders' Team came from all over the world: Slovenia, Poland, Italy, Israel, Australia, South Africa, Denmark. In exchange for free food and lodgings and a small number of shares in the start-up, we travelled to Dundee and put three weekends' worth of hard graft into bootstrapping a business from nothing. We didn't do it for the money, nor for the glory. We did it because it was fun and because we believed in the project: a social platform with the potential to revolutionise adult and higher education in this country.

The FlockEdu crowd aren't the only ones combining work and play. Kathryn, who is Canadian, uses her skills as a musician and composer to run her local church choir. Iman, a writer of Pakistani origin who grew up in Saudi Arabia, donates her time and skills to various campaigning groups and political publications. Even in something as British as the recent referendum on the voting system, we had a fair number of immigrants doing their bit to improve democratic representation for UK citizens.

Care in the community

It often strikes me how disproportionately engaged immigrants are in the communities I'm involved with. At the Star & Shadow, a small, entirely volunteer-run cinema and arts space in Newcastle where I occasionally help out, people from all over the world are at the heart of the community, side by side with our British friends. Stephanie from France runs great seasons of foreign films or cult British television sci-fi. Yaron from Israel puts on gigs with the most weird and wonderful local bands, giving them a much-needed opportunity for exposure. Cathy from China pulls pints like a pro behind the Star & Shadow bar.

Edinburgh, too, has its own volunteer-run arts space. After the bankruptcy of their landlord, the Forest Café is currently on hiatus while trying to raise enough money to buy the building they have called their home for over a decade. Yet you only need to listen to the voices in their fundraising video to understand the passion of all their volunteers and the important contribution immigrants make to the project.

I spoke to Margarida, a 23-year-old Portuguese woman who is a Volunteer Coordinator and member of the Forest Action Team. For her, the Forest is a home and a family. Even after her European Volunteer Service funding ran out, Margarida chose to stay in Edinburgh.

"I couldn't leave the Forest behind in such a crucial moment. Right now, the Forest needs everyone and I'm here to help bring the Forest back with everything I have to give, be it time, energy, creativity."

She wants to make sure that the Forest lives and continues to provide a unique and amazing space and service to everyone in Edinburgh. At the same time, she is making new friends, learning new skills, developing projects old and new. Margarida finds Edinburgh as a city and the Forest as a community warm and welcoming - only the British press with its persistently negative coverage of immigration worries her; though, she adds cynically, it doesn't surprise her.

Not only arts spaces but also charities which provide vital services often benefit from the contribution of immigrant volunteers. Mara, from the US, runs the Abortion Support Network - the only charity which provides practical help and funds to women from Northern and Southern Ireland who need to travel to England for an abortion. She and her small volunteer team provide a non-judgmental listening service, factual and impartial information, and much-needed funds and accommodation for women who otherwise would not be able to access safe and legal abortions. Immigrant volunteers are at the heart of the "Big Society".

An experience many of us immigrants have in common is a kind of multiple personality disorder we observe in the country we have chosen to make our home. One on one, as individuals, we are welcomed by our British friends. We find communities we can contribute to and integrate in. We find people who reach out a helping hand, like the English Language Conversation Group at the Star & Shadow. We find our contributions valued. When, however, it comes to political gain and newspaper circulations, things turn quickly to an "us and them" mentality which is healthy for no one.

Recognising immigrants' contributions to this country is the first step towards recognising how much we all have to learn from each other - and how much we can all gain from truly being "in this together".

I first realised I wasn't wanted around the age of 9. It was having to get up at 4am to be in a monstrous queue outside an embassy by 5am in the hope of getting a visa for some foreign Western European country that did it. It sticks in your mind when you have to spend most of your summer doing this, aged 9.

The next clue I got aged 10, in Austria, when I had to stay in on the anniversary of Reichskristallnacht for fear of skinheads.

Aged 12, my class mates were talking about all the foreigners and refugees from the wars which heralded the demise of Yugoslavia, who got "free food, and free housing, and even an allowance" and got to "sit around doing nothing all day". Our teacher pointed at me and asked, "What about Mili?" "Oh," they said, "Mili's not like them. Mili's different." It left a bitter taste.

More recently, there was Bigoted Woman. A couple of the days ago, it was Ed Balls lamenting how Labour shouldn't have let the likes of me into this country. In some ways, two thirds of my life have been a long series of microaggressions, based on the simple fact that I was born in a different country.

What is particularly painful is watching this trend get worse, all over Europe. From the neo-fascists in my own native Bulgaria, to policing the way women from certain cultures dress in France, and the persistent barrage of immigration scare stories in the British media, Europe is lurching to the right faster than you can say "flocking Eastern Europeans". I find it sad, frustrating, and simply unworthy of liberal, democratic Europe in the 21st century.

Maybe one day the low-level racism and xenophobia I encounter on a daily basis will drive me away from this country. Where I'll go I don't know. Where are human beings welcome these days?

It might as well be there in black and white in the Conservative manifesto: "We will play off poor people and foreign people against each other, for political gain to the Conservative Party and the general entertainment of Daily Mail readers."

Last month we had Graeme Archer, who describes himself as "a bog-standard Conservative activist", lecture us about how poor Polish workers are paying tax to subsidise all the benefits scroungers. Ping.

Today, the tables have turned, with Iain Duncan Smith pretty much calling for British jobs for British people. Pong.

Isn't it great to throw a bone and watch the dogs fight over it? You can lean back and put your feet up in the absolute certainty that in their frenzy over benefit-scrounging scum and filthy foreign scum the media won't notice some key points:

• There are now more than six people receiving job-seeker's allowance for every Job Centre vacancy. (Up from just over 5 people per vacancy in the time since this government came to power.)
• The government is in the process of cutting 600,000 public sector jobs over the next six years.
• It is also this government which cut the Education Maintenance Allowance, making it more difficult for young people from the poorest backgrounds to continue their education beyond the age of 16 and obtain the skills and qualifications employers need.
• And it was this government which trebled university tuition fees, leaving our children faced with the impossible choice between getting into debt comparable to the cost of a house in some parts of the country to obtain qualifications required by employers, or staying in low-skilled, low-paid jobs for the rest of their lives.
• Oh, and it is also this government which is withdrawing vital support from disabled people so no matter how much they want to work it becomes a physical impossibility.

These are just some highlights of the monumental structural and social problems which are likely to be this government's legacy to the UK. It is not me, the immigrant, taking your jobs - it's your government. And it is not the poor, disabled and disadvantaged who deserve your scorn for having tax money spent on them - it is your government for continuing to stick their heads in the sand and refusing to acknowledge that their economic policy is simply not working.

I woke up this morning to find I had been branded "good immigration" by the government. What a relief.

In his speech to Conservative Party members today, the Prime Minister said he believed politicians' role should be to "cut through the extremes of [the immigration] debate and approach the subject sensibly and reasonably." He wanted, he said, "good immigration, not mass immigration". He even went so far as to acknowledge that immigrants made a huge contribution to Britain. I should be happy, right?

Not so much. Cameron wants us to believe that he has a holistic, joined-up policy on immigration, but his rhetoric on the subject is as disjointed, confused and pandering to the lowest common xenophobic denominator as the next guy's.

One often-brandished key word in what passes for a debate on immigration is "integration"; and the favourite way of measuring "integration" is whether/how well someone speaks English. In the Prime Minister's own words,

when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods.

And yet, this government which claims to be so keen on us immigrants learning English is cutting crucial funding for ESL classes, meaning many immigrants will no longer be able to to afford to learn the language.

This same government, which has a stated ambition of being the most family-friendly government in UK history, is now proposing to clamp down on the family immigration route. If you are under 21, you will not be able to join your spouse in the UK; if your spouse is an undergraduate student, you won't be able to join them; if your English is judged to not be satisfactory, tough luck - you're staying at home, and nevermind the fact that you'd learn it so much faster if you were in this country! One can't help but wonder if that last restriction will apply to the spouses of people coming in on the new entrepreneur visa - essentially a "buy yourself into Britain" scheme. It seems the government gets to pick and choose which families it wants to be friendly to.

The section on permanent settlement is particularly... unsettling. Having harped on about how we should all integrate or else, Cameron suddenly turns around and says that "it cannot be right that people coming to fill short-term skill gaps can stay long-term". Combined with the stated aim to "select and attract the world's brightest to our shores", this should give you a good idea of how the Conservative party regards immigrants: not as human beings with emotions, lives, attachments to people and places, but as spare parts who can be shipped in and out of the country as and when the "market" sees fit. Huge contribution or not, we've been put on notice - we can be kicked out any time our skills are no longer deemed sufficiently rare or useful. Does this give immigrants an incentive to integrate; to form relationships and contribute to British society? Hardly, if next time your visa comes up for renewal you may be told to leave all that behind you.

The coup de grâce of the speech, however, is the assertion that

immigration and welfare reform are two sides of the same coin. Put simply, we will never control immigration properly unless we tackle welfare dependency.

And there we have it, the two mortal enemies of the Daily Mail reader - filthy foreigners and benefits scroungers - inextricably linked for all to see. Only a Conservative government can rid us of both.

How is an immigrant - "good" or otherwise - supposed to feel about this speech? Happy that our contribution to British society has been at least acknowledged, however briefly and fleetingly? Motivated to continue contributing, to "integrate"? Perhaps Mr. Cameron secretly hopes that none of us speak English well enough to understand what he said.

If the Conservative Party really finds us so loathsome, I would like their leader to come out and say it. If, however, the contribution immigrants make to this country on a daily basis is truly valued as Mr. Cameron claims, and if "integration" is truly desired, then I have a few suggestions for the government:

• Cut the anti-immigrant rhetoric. You dedicated ten lines out of a seven-page speech to our contribution, and the rest of it to how to keep others like us out and ship some of those of us already here off this island again. Either I am valued or I am not. This tells me I am not.
• Bite the bullet and educate the public. Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator - that is easy. Challenging prejudice, taking the time to explain what immigrants do, how they contribute and why immigration is important to this country is hard. But in the long run it might lead to the kind of social cohesiveness you claim to value.
• It is easy to say immigrants should integrate. Some of us find this easier than others. Reaching out a helping hand, being proactively inclusive, can only make this process of integration easier for everyone involved. That includes funding ESL tuition, but there are also other things you can do. Mr. Cameron is apparently fond of street parties. Maybe we can have some street parties to celebrate immigrants' contribution to the UK and get to know our immigrant neighbours? Go on, I'll even make baklava!
• Finally, how about creating a vision of a Britain that immigrants find inspirational and want to contribute to and be integrated in? A Britain that is open, tolerant, and inclusive? Maybe one day, I guess.

Another installment in my semi-regular "I read ConHome so you don't have to" feature...

A few days ago, Conservative Home linked to this article in the Sun. The angle ConHome chose to take on it was... interesting.

Half a million Hungarians could come to Britain

"PM David Cameron vowed to cap net immigration - currently 200,000 a year - at "tens of thousands". But the influential Institute for Public Policy Research says that does not take account of the flow from European countries. About 500,000 ethnic Hungarians living in non-EU countries could head to Britain...A Sun investigation has found that 300,000 living in Serbia and 160,000 in the Ukraine are among those who could seek to come here on Hungarian passports."

A few things strike me about this.

• Quite how the Sun has decided that the free movement of people (as well as of course the important things like capital, goods and services) in the European Union is news is beyond me. Britain joined the EU in 1973, and thus this news item is about... oh, 38 years out of date. Even if you could argue that the government's plans to cut immigration are more recent, most papers picked up on this particular point several months ago.


• I particularly like the ConHome sensationalist headline. Not even the Sun dared go with "500k Hungarians expected to flock to Britain" - that was a small part of the article. What's actually behind this headline is the fact that Hungary is extending the right to Hungarian citizenship to around 460,000 ethnic Hungarians who currently live outside the EU. So basically what ConHome is telling us is that all those people are going to claim their Hungarian passports, after which they'll up sticks from places where they and their families have lived for centuries, and all move to Britain. Now, even if we assume that indeed all of those people decide to move (highly unlikely!) the EU has 27 member states; even if we thought that proportionaltely more would come to Britain simply because Britain is one of the larger countries, there's no reason to think that more than about 55,000 would come to Britain. So basically, the assumption that all 500,000 of these people would move to Britain is about as realistic as saying all of Germany could decide to up sticks and come here next. "80 million Germans about to flock to Britain" would be a much more fun headline, and about as accurate, don't you think?


• And just in case a realistic look at the numbers hasn't stopped you from quivering in your boots with fear of all the flocking immigrants, I also love the Sun's explanation of "how citizens of struggling countries such as Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal will flock to Britain seeking work if the UK's economy does better than the eurozone." Might I point out that Germany's growth projections look quite healthy right now, and they have the lowest unemployment rate since reunification, while this government is cutting public sector jobs, raising sales taxes which is highly likely to negatively impact consumer demand, and generally doing all within its power to drive us back into recession? Now, which of these two countries looks like a more attractive destination?


• And lest we forget, the largest wave of intra-EU migration is still Britons moving to Spain. Ho hum.

Yesterday I was in tears. Today, I'm in the Guardian and on the BBC World Service. So first of all a huge THANK YOU to everyone who commented, linked, retweeted, posted my article on Facebook. I had no idea how much of a chord this would strike with people when I was sitting here pouring out my sadness and anger on to the Internet last night.

I've had nearly 200 comments here, over 800 on Comment is Free, and more tweets than I could keep up with even if I'd stayed up all night. I want to summarise and address a few of the common themes I'm seeing.

The comments I've received to this article here and elsewhere fall roughly into the following categories:

1. A lot of people came forward and said "I'm sorry I didn't stand up to this earlier, I took it as given that she was a bigot and didn't think it needed saying."

2. A slightly smaller number of people have re-iterated concerns about immigration - some coherently, others less so.

3. A small number of people tell me they're fine with me personally and with others like me who pay tax, but all those other immigrants should go home.

4. A small number of people have told me that I'm overreacting and that people say much worse things on a daily basis about immigrants.

5. And a tiny minority have told me to eff of home.

To those who didn't think it needed saying: If you don't speak up and tell your leaders that you don't buy what you're being fed by the tabloids, your leaders will only listen to the tabloids. It doesn't matter if you're a majority - if you're a silent majority it's as if you don't exist. Speak out, don't let things like this go unchallenged.

To those who say Gillian Duffy's comments were harmless and people say much worse things: You are right, they do. But most people who say worse things don't get grovelling apologies from the Prime Minister or to dominate the news cycle for over 24 hours.

To those who are fine with me personally: Thanks. I am flattered. No, not really. I've been on the receiving end of this all my life. Huge loud heated discussion about all those foreigners taking our jobs and our women, then someone turns around, sees me, falls silent and mutters how of course they didn't mean me. It comes back to this: Every human being deserves to be treated with some basic dignity and respect, regardless of whether they work hard, pay tax, speak perfect English, or contribute in some other way to society. It's easy to forget that - and I have at times been guilty of forgetting it myself. But maybe by standing up and writing this, I can help us all remember.

To the people who would like me to eff off home: Britain is my home, for better or for worse. I have lived here longer than in any other country; my partner is British; most of my friends are either British or live here; when I have children, I want to raise them here. It's as simple as that.

And finally, as it's the most complex issue, to those who have re-iterated concerns about immigration: Of course there are legitimate concerns in this area. However, the word immigration is often used to cover a multitude of sins - from unemployment, to housing, education, health care, social services. These are all complex issues, and I believe we should look at them individually and give them the amount of attention they deserve. Using immigration as a short-cut is lazy and cheap political point-scoring. I've said it once and I'll say it again: The sad thing is that the political culture of this country makes it difficult to have a real debate on those issues because presenting a balanced view on the subject would be political suicide.

Words fail me. I have been staring alternately at my screen and keyboard for the last two hours in complete and utter paralysis, while inside I am raging. At one point I actually genuinely broke down in tears and great heaving sobs.

I have been watching BigotGate unfold - mostly on Twitter, a bit on LJ, a bit in mainstream media - since around lunchtime. Oh, I thought initially, finally someone's made a gaffe in this election campaign - just what the media have been wanting. Then I actually went and watched the clip - first the short version on the Channel 4 News website which only has the last 30 seconds of the PM's conversation with Gillian Duffy and his comments in the car; then I watched the full thing, which included Mrs. Duffy's comments on the flocking Eastern Europeans.

Then I watched the comments on Twitter. Some were mocking Gordon Brown for the slip-up. (Simon and Julia Indelicate, I'm looking at you. Simon and Julia have both contacted me - see below - and for the record I never thought or meant to imply that they were racists. I really appreciate them getting in touch and publicly standing up to be counted on the anti-bigotry side of this whole mess.) Another LJ friend said "I don't believe what Gordon Brown says either. I am therefore also a #bigotedwoman by his standards. Good! #election2010". I started feeling ever so slightly nauseous. A part of me knew from the start that what Gillian Duffy had said was unacceptable, it was directed against me and people like me, and it just wasn't right. But reading my Twitter feed I thought, surely if it was that bad someone there would pick up on her actual comments, and not just go for Gordon Brown. Maybe I was being oversensitive.

I did eventually pluck up the courage to tweet a shy, self-deprecating "Flocking eastern European here. Just sayin'." No reaction. Sod it, I thought, maybe I am just overreacting. Comments about immigration are inevitable, especially in an election campaign, someone will always make them. Just grow a thicker skin, Mili.

I follow about 90 mostly left-wing fluffy liberal people on Twitter and have another 60-odd LJ friends. Given overlaps, people I don't know terribly well, inactive accounts, minor celebrities, and people in foreign lands, there are maybe 50 people there whom I could legitimately expect to say something in defence of us flocking Eastern Europeans. It took six hours for one person to step forward and say that yes, Gillian Duffy was a bigoted woman and Gordon Brown has been right to call her that. One person. Out of 50. In six hours. That person has my heartfelt gratitude. (I am aware that I have named and shamed above, and now I'm not giving credit by name, but it was a locked post and they're a public figure. If the person in question would like me to identify them, I very happily will.)

At that point I completely lost it. I'm not sure I can explain how this whole sordid affair makes me feel, but let me try.

Anger. Anger at Gillian Duffy, anger at all the people who weren't willing to stand up to her.

Shame. Shame at the realisation that I had only allowed myself to feel this anger after I had been "given permission" by the comment from the native British person who stood up for me. Blaming myself for not standing up for myself earlier, more forcefully.

A desperate need to justify myself. I pay higher-rate income tax. I contribute to the UK economy, I contribute to UK society. I probably pay into the tax system more than I get back out of it. Extending that justification to other immigrants - parts of the UK economy probably would collapse without immigrant labour; I wonder how much immigrants contribute in total to the economy; we all come here to work, and we work damn hard. A range of other economic arguments, all around contribution, all around this incredibly Tory notion of my money being the only thing that entitles me to anything like decent treatment from this society.

More anger. This time at being disempowered and disenfranchised; at being a cheap target for political point scoring because Gillian Duffy and the 60 million people like her have a vote, and I and the couple of hundred thousand people like me don't, and therefore she will always get a grovelling apology from the Prime Minister, and we won't.

A desperate attempt to reclaim power, to find some leverage: I wonder if I can stop paying taxes, if I can get some sort of campaign going for all immigrants to stop paying taxes - I bet they'd notice us then. Oh, I wonder if I can challenge Gillian Duffy to take the citizenship test.

The slow, sad realisation that the political culture in the UK is such that no politician has any choice but to grovel to the bigots. Because standing up and explaining to them instead that immigrants make a massive contribution to the economy, let alone that all people deserve to be treated with dignity and respect regardless of nationality, citizenship or contribution, would be political suicide.

And finally a profound sense of isolation, hurt, and being alone. Tears and huge heaving sobs. I've not cried like that in about five years.

That's how Gillian Duffy has made me feel today. What did I ever do to her?

I am writing this because realistically it's the only way that I can get any leverage on the situation without landing myself in jail. I'm also writing this because you need to know. Yes, you. All of you with the British passports and the huge sense of entitlement. Regardless of whether you support the Tories or LibDems or Labour or any of the other parties - none of you covered yourselves in glory today, bar one single person. And maybe making a personal connection with an immigrant, understanding how they feel, and how they see the world will help you stand up and act like a decent human being next time this happens.

So here's what I want you to do. I can guarantee you that you know an immigrant: they might be a close friend, they might be the girl who makes your decaf skinny latte in the coffee shop, they might be a colleague. I want you to go up to that person and ask them what it's like being an immigrant in the UK. Even if you think you know them really well already, you probably have never thought or talked to them about these things. How does it feel to be so far away from home? To leave your life behind and start again from scratch? To be in the middle of a general election where you have no voice? Why did they come here? What do and don't they like about Britain? What's it like where they come from? Be nice and polite, approach them carefully, explain that you are trying to educate yourself, to understand and to become a better person. Listen. Don't judge. Maybe you'll learn something.