…to solve the UK’s immigration problem

1

What is the UK’s immigration problem?  It is that some people already resident in the UK think that too many people, currently not resident, are being allowed to come and stay.

The indigenous people (some of whom are just the previous generation’s immigrants) would appear to be wrapping up xenophobic ideas in dubious economic arguments, such as “immigrants take our jobs”.

Anyway, enough of that.  However the problem is defined, there clearly is one.  So this is my proposal, derived from years of thought and analysis.  It goes like this:

Only nice people should be allowed to live in the UK permanently.

2

The beauty of this proposal is that noone could argue they don’t understand it.

Tribunals would be set up to judge the niceness of anyone who came before them.  If the person is judged not to be nice enough, they would be out on their ear.  They could be a jihadi terrorist, or they might be able to trace their ancestry back to the first hominids that walked north east Somerset.  It wouldn’t matter.

Another beauty of the proposal is that it is self correcting.

You might argue that a tribunal could be set up to eject people—based on prejudice, dislike, or any other reason—who were, in fact, very nice,   But that wouldn’t be a very nice thing to do, and the members of the tribunal who did it would soon find themselves up before another tribunal for not being very nice.

Likewise, members of the public who tried to shop someone would also be up before the tribunal, if it turned out that the victim was actually rather nice.

3

The punishment for not being nice would be harsh.  Out on their ear would mean literally out of the country.  It’s possible that they might be given asylum in, say, the US or Australia in which there is plenty of land and, at least in the case of the US, plenty of people who are already not very nice.  Of course, it wouldn’t be nice to dump these people on other countries without fully negotiated treaties, so it may be necessary for the UK to use its dependencies, such as Rockall for the purpose.

4

The criteria for niceness would be defined by me, in consultation with a broad range of academics and “thought leaders”, all of whom would discuss the subject with me very nicely.

Appointments to the tribunals would, in the first instance, be by me, though I would expect a common practice to emerge quickly.  The attributes needed for members of the tribunals are, of course, obvious.

5

In the beginning, I expect absolute chaos.  But it wouldn’t take long, once news of the first expulsions had been broadcast, for things to settle down.  Footage of people suffering horrendous privations would clearly motivate those still in the country to mend their ways.

Wouldn’t this just bring about a police state, where the Niceness Police were prying into every conversation or activity?  Not at all.  On the contrary, miscreants would only be reported to the tribunals by their colleagues or other members of the public.  There would be no need of the snooping charters of totalitarian regimes.  Because, if someone were maliciously reported to the tribunals for not being nice, it would be the reporters who would find themselves in the tribunals first since that sort of behaviour is not at all nice.

I predict that, after only a few months of, admitted, chaos, things would settle down and many people would find it easy to modify their behavioural and communication styles to be nice enough.  And that phrase, ‘nice enough’, is crucial.  The whole point is for people to be sincerely, authentically nice.  Doing it as act is not very nice, so…

6

Of course, some acts are more unnice than others.  Crimes would be tried by the courts as now, and any attempt to expel a criminal would be dependent on his or her behaviour after release.  Minor acts of unniceness would be treated more leniently than major ones, and the most minor acts of unniceness would be excused, as would those of children under 16.

7

I predict about a third of the UK population would leave, incapable of being continuously nice even though their residency in the country depended on it.  A particular problem, I accept, would be that people in certain jobs would inevitably be more likely to be asked to leave.  One can’t think of many, or any, high profile politicians who would survive such a test.  A 30+% loss of population would be compensated by nice people from abroad applying to reside.  Once here, they would be subject to the same rules as everyone else.

It might be argued that there would be a big problem with expelled people trying to get back in.  My view is, good luck to them.  Provided they remain nice after reentering, that would be fine.  If they couldn’t manage to be nice, their second expulsion would be accompanied by a very hefty fine.  Failure to pay it would be a criminal offence, the punishment would be ultra low wage labour making nice things for very many years.

8

The long term result would be smaller population (there just aren’t that many nice people in the world), which would be extraordinarily productive because everyone would work together reasonably harmoniously.  The UK would have a high personal income, low unemployment economy, where people would be optimally fulfilled.  It would be a high tax country, because residents would understand why they should be taxed.  In return, if the government introduced free coaching in wellbeing, emotional intelligence and personal development, it would be hard not to see the sky as the limit.

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