An Open Letter to Nigel Farage

Barcelona, 19 May, 2014

Dear Mr. Farage,

I am following your party’s rise in popularity with some disdain, because from what I see and read here (I’m living abroad as one of the millions of British citizens who do so, but we’ll come to that later), I am finding it difficult to associate UKIP policies with a fair and open minded society – in fact I am finding it nigh impossible to understand the function UKIP serves in modern Britain.

Let me explain.

It must be really liberating, fantastical even, for you and your supporters to live in a world where they suppose that crime did not exist in Britain before mass immigration. Immigration from the European Union and other countries around the world has been proven in no uncertain terms to bring massive benefits to Britain, and to its citizens. With many family members and friends who work in the NHS, it is evident everyday that the service could simply not run without workers from outside of our country who dedicate themselves to keeping one of our finest institutions afloat.

As someone born in the USA to an immigrant father from the Commonwealth, and a mother from Kent, who met in London, I am a proud product of a multi-cultural Britain. As well as being a British Citizen, I have been an immigrant myself, moving to the UK aged 11 and residing there for 20 years. The Britain I arrived to in 1993 was very different from the Britain we have now, and I have seen many positive changes as our society has grown, been enriched and been influenced by the movement and exchange of people, ideas, foods, cultures and customs. Sure, there’s tension sometimes. But having lived in one of London’s most diverse boroughs, Lambeth, for nearly 10 years (and during the riots in August 2011), I have witnessed first hand that it is the startling inequality that persists in plaguing people’s lives, and a sense of working increasingly hard for increasingly little gain, that leads to unrest, not someone’s nationality. As if that matters to the people of London, who have and make friends and family from all corners of the globe. 

Let’s move on to your assertion that we should leave the EU in order to be able to control our borders. Last year I moved to Spain to live and work. Even as an EU citizen, I was asked to provide evidence that I could support myself financially and that I had a healthcare package, so as not to immediately use or abuse public services intended for locals. Given the state of the Spanish economy, and the fact that I am still a visitor here, I feel those are fair requests. But I am still delighted that I am able to live and work here, and furthermore that local services benefit me, such as community centres providing subsidised classes (so I can study the language, for example, or exercise, or learn a new skill). When I go back and forth to the UK, my EU citizen status allows me freedom of movement, and I am reassured that if I were travelling more widely in Europe and I fell ill, I would be able to take out my European Health Insurance card, and be cared for, from France to Romania.

Restricting movement for Europeans coming to the UK would go both ways. There is no picking and choosing, particularly if you decide to leave the negotiating table in Brussels altogether.  How on earth would you ensure that the millions of British citizens, who are living, working or retiring in Europe, would retain their benefits and their freedom of movement, rights to own properties, claim pensions, vote, or have a say in their communities? Under your proposals they would cease being citizens of Europe, and for the 1.8 million Britons living in Europe, I suspect this idea will be as hated as it is misinformed.

In your open letter published in The Telegraph today you said of Romania: "When I visited the country I was truly shocked by the living conditions and social exclusion of a large Roma minority. It is difficult to believe that such discrimination still exists in Europe today.” Indeed it does, as you have so aptly shown us by singling out Romanians as your target. There is nothing inclusionary about your ideas, despite being married to a European.

You go on to say that “The other huge problem in Romania has been the growth of organised criminal gangs for whom EU memberships has meant greater opportunities. Under free movement rules there is absolutely nothing the UK authorities can do to stop such people from entering our country. We should not be in a political union with Romania, with an open door to all of their citizens.  We must take back the power to stop criminals from entering our country by taking back control of our borders. The only way to do that is to leave the EU."

Increasingly as I look at what is happening in UK politics I feel a divide, not just between people within the UK (Scotland won’t agree with you, that’s for certain) but also between the UK and Europe that is in danger of becoming ever more pronounced. One day, if your ideals hold water with the people of Britain, I am afraid I will see a small island, floating away from trade, commerce and cultural growth on its own in the North Sea, flanked by neighbours who want nothing to do with its small-mindness and petty crowing about feeling hard-done by. I am afraid I will see a place where people have hardened against those unlike them and meanwhile whilst they were trying to find someone to pin the blame on for their social ills, their society degenerated to a point of no return. 

I see dark hearts, and anger, and no real answers in your policies, Mr. Farage. I see a return to rhetoric to match Powell’s rivers of blood speech, and no hope in the way you view the world, let alone Europe. If the day comes that I won’t be able to move freely in Europe because my UK passport won’t allow it, I’ll see that as the final nail in the coffin for Britain. If, under your watch in a brave new UKIP world, places then became limited to live and work in the UK, I’d withdraw, and someone else could have my spot. 

In fact, I’d gladly give my place to a hardworking Romanian.

Sincerely,
Burning Up in Barcelona

We Are What We Eat

We spent the past weekend in northern France, in the picturesque town of Montreuil-sur-Mer, with the Mister’s relations. His step-mother has a cousin in St.Remy Au Bois whose family have lived there for 20 years and now run a successful jam-making business. Their high fruit content jam is organic and delicious, delicately packaged up in little jars and sent off to the crisp white linen-covered tables of The Dorchester, Claridges, and St.Regis hotels, amongst others. They live and work in a lovely barn conversion with huge windows, open fires, and lots of dogs, in a bohemian whirlwind of paperwork, packaging and sticky jam spoons.

Long before this visit I had been itching to visit and see the jam farm idyll for myself. I was secretly hoping that we would be able to proffer our services in getting in up to the elbows in jam in exchange for bed and board for a summer (or longer).

This is something how I imagined our future might go: we’d prove ourselves to be confiture-confiseurs extraordinares, lending our marketing and new media savvy to the operation, and the distant step-relations would soon realise that we were utterly indispensable. They would start to plan for early retirement, knowing the business was safe in our hands. We could do all of the grunt work, thinking we were living the good life, and they could retreat to St. Barts or Martinique or wherever, living off the spoils of their genius idea to move to France and entice these poor overworked cityfolk to do their bidding and ensure a steady stream of income into their sizeable pension fund.

And you know what? I wouldn’t mind one bit. I would happily work my fingers to the bone to have what they have. Their peace, their independence, their knowledge of working for something they created and love and believe in.

As it was, the distant step-relations were utterly charming and had thrown their doors open to all of their friends that weekend, both local ones and those from their lives in the UK. They listened sweetly to our excitable chatterings about how well their jams would do in food festivals and markets across London, and nodded politely at us, even though I suspect they already knew what we were telling them. They blanched a little at the sound of an idea of ours to sell some jams for them in the newly revamped Brixton Village, but they took it pretty well, considering they probably haven’t visited Brixton since the 80s, and might still think of it as a hub of iniquity. They even invited us back to stay, so who knows? Maybe that pipe dream isn’t so far away. Of course, there’s still  the learning how to make jam bit to cover…a minor detail, mind.

The strawberries I tasted there were the sweetest I have ever eaten. Maybe, just maybe, it was a taste of freedom.

Zakynthos 1, London 0

12 days on a Greek island, and I'm a changed person.

We stayed on Zakynthos, one of the Ionian islands, the next one over from (maybe) the more well-known Kefalonia, which attracts an altogether more middle-class kind of tourist. Zakynthos is definitely the smaller, poorer cousin who has, around its southern coastline at least, in the town of Laganas, decided to give up its day job and embrace a life of beer, football, sunburn and chasing tail.

We arrived not in Laganas, but in Alykes, on the north eastern side of the island, sandwiched between two holiday resorts very popular with Brits. Although vastly preferable to the resorts frequented by beer-swilling, strip bar clientele, sporting custom-made 'LAGANAS STAG DO 2010' t-shirts and surviving on a varied diet of both McDonalds fries and kebab shop chips, it was still not what we were expecting and was somewhat annoying to begin with. We had come to see Greece, not Blackpool on holiday. Although not as developed as other parts of the island, nor were there any fairground rides or penny-slot machines, it was enough to remind us that learning to drive, and the independence that comes with mobility, is important. Especially when trying to find The Real Greece and escape the package tour and 'egg and chips, please' Brits that favoured the island.

Luckily for us, the place we stayed was a delight - quite a haven in the midst of the resort of Alykanas, the larger and more brash of the two towns we straddled, complete with bars called 'D.N.A.' or 'Two Fit Birds' or whatever. Alykes, the smaller and more serene of the resorts, was still replete with full English breakfasts and more world cup screens and England flags than you could shake a stick at.

We managed to ignore most of that. We'd planned to see the best the island had to offer - nesting beaches for endangered loggerhead turtles (caretta-caretta), incredible blue caves made by the erosion of soft limestone cliffs around the island's north coast, framing perfect azure waters, and to try as much authentic greek food as possible.

Look! A real live caretta-caretta swam under our boat!

The studios we chose to reside in were called Anna Studios, run by a marvellously friendly couple from Dagenham and Suffolk, Ian and Sarah, (who met whilst working in the prison service), and were utterly unlike anywhere else I've been. Once you've stayed there, with Ian, Sarah, her son Fraser and their dogs, cats, chickens and geckos, you feel a little bit like one of the family.

We've certainly never experienced such warmth and hospitality that seemed so effortless. From our first email exchanges, to being met by Sarah at the airport, to being asked to sit and eat with our hosts at an evening barbecue, we've never felt so completely welcomed by any other place we've stayed.

The studios themselves were clean, well-appointed and comfortable. Ours was stocked with bread, some jam and butter, teabags and milk upon arrival. Sheets and towels were changed regularly and we were given a fan as soon as the temperatures started to climb. The rooms were suited to couples or small families - private but close enough to chat with your neighbours if you wanted to - and the pool was big enough for a proper dip, with pretty gardens surrounding it.

What we liked most about the Anna Studios, however, weren't the gardens, or the pool, (or the truth bar by the pool), or the fresh eggs from the roaming hens, or even the great location a 10 minute stroll to the wonderful beach at Alykes. It was the feel of the place, which encouraged you to do those things that we find are so often lacking in our busy modern lives - talk to other people, make new friends, and find the opportunity to truly relax.

In those last few days there, I felt my limbs lengthen, my heartbeat slow, and myself opening up to the many possibilities of alternative futures - that with 'one auspicious and one dropping eye' - no longer include London.

I'll let the pictures speak - they're better than words in this case.