Today, as India and China have shown, people are power. It creates a market of consumers that businesses want, while creating competition for jobs, and wages low.
That's why businesses were running out to China, India etc but gave places like Bhutan a wide birth.
What this refugee crisis allows Britain to do, is strengthen itself with people, for the hear and now, ignoring the future.
Having lost its world stage, sold off its businesses and struggling to compete with the new up and comers, places that Europe considered inferior in the days of empire, its had to launch a plan B.
That seems to be to drain people and talent from weaker places to make sure those places remain weak and cannot compete with Europe.
This is why immigrants are coming from places like Morocco, Bangladesh and Congo. Theyre not coming from Australia, UAE or Brazil as once they may have, as these places have since left Europe in the shade and their populations can enjoy a better standard of living at home than they may abroad.
Britain has an NHS which actively tries to attract doctors and nurses from developing countries for its own system. Keeping the populations of places like Zimbabwe chronically short of people specialised in medicine.
In places like Ghana, Nigeria and Egypt the British actively offer immigration programmes for entrepreneurs, taking employment and talent from areas where it is desperately needed.
In Africa Europe has a continent that it can sell a dream to right on its doorstep. The Europeans helped themselves to Africa's rubber, to Africa's hardwood and to Africa's minerals. Now its after its people AGAIN!
All of this comes at a short term gain, long term cost. Some people have a larger pool of tenants to rent their second properties, rent goes up. Some people have a larger pool of employees to chose from, salaries go down. Some people find that Europe is not paved with gold, but a place far from home filled with bigotry, unemployment and a hard life. Some people are blown up at pop concerts and some people run over at Christmas markets. The problems of the last two groups go unsolved while the first two groups are making money.
That is until the situation reaches a tipping point, which may not be in our lifetimes, but when has Europe ever worried about future generations. Until then migrants and working class locals suffer in Europe while Africans as always are exploited again. All of Europe's Macrons and Bob Geldoffs won't be able to sell this situation forever. People in working class neighbourhoods of Europe and Africans in positions of power are starting to catch on.
It seems to be the new colonialism, except now
Africans bring themselves to Europe. The aim, as we can see in Redjons post, may still be the same, you're not as good as us, but come here and you're children could be Europeans. Africans have heard all that before.
