Why has the term ‘economic migrant’ become a pejorative? - Dr Jason Aldiss

To be British is not to be of one skin tone, one language or one origin. It is to inherit a legacy of layers — historical, genetic and cultural. The empire did not just go out — it brought people in. We invited workers from the Caribbean to drive our buses, from India to staff our hospitals, from Eastern Europe to pick our crops. They are not ‘invaders’. They are our colleagues, neighbours and countrymen.

Indeed, it is not only our streets and schools that reflect this reality — it is our bloodlines. Genetic studies have shown that modern Britons carry markers from all over the world. Our ancestors traded with Phoenicians, served in Roman legions, fought alongside Sikhs and Gurkhas, married Huguenots, and shared streets with Jews, Italians, Bengalis, and Poles. To deny this is not patriotism — it is historical amnesia.

And so we turn to today, and the controversy that swirls around migration across the English Channel. Much noise is made about the difference between a refugee and an economic migrant — the one portrayed as worthy of sympathy, the other as a cheat, an opportunist, a threat. Yet this distinction, while legally important, is often morally hollow. It is used not to understand, but to judge. The phrase ‘economic migrant’ has become a modern pejorative, as if seeking a better life is somehow dishonourable.

But ask yourself: what are we all doing, if not trying to better our circumstances?

Did not our own ancestors leave the slums of Manchester for the promise of Australia? Did the Irish not flee famine? Did the Scots not sail to Canada? Are we not all descended — genetically or spiritually — from people who moved in search of safety, work, dignity or hope?

The difference is only one of passport and privilege.

A young man fleeing a failed state, risking the sea in a dinghy to escape persecution or poverty, is not so different from the Victorian child escaping the workhouse, or the Yorkshire miner leaving a collapsed industry. They all act out of a basic human impulse — the desire to live in peace, to work with purpose, to raise children in safety.

And if we call ourselves a Christian country, we must reckon with what Christianity teaches: that the stranger is to be welcomed, not cast away. Christ himself was a refugee — driven from Bethlehem to Egypt. The Holy Family would not pass our modern immigration checks. The Gospel commands compassion, not bureaucracy.

To raise the Union Flag while shouting abuse at a migrant is to contradict the very values that flag ought to represent — union, liberty, justice. It is not an emblem of exclusion. It is a reminder that we are many, not one.

Dr Jason Aldiss BEM is the former chair of Pudsey Conservative Association.