Politicians ranting about immigration and ‘Broken Britain’ should get out more
The message Christine Jardine MP receives on the doorsteps is one of diverse communities working together to help each other and not spreading fear, resentment, and division like some politicians
As the party conference season looms, we can expect the media to report on everything from right-wing rants to left-wing fall-outs and, no doubt, daft stunts. But I hope some politicians also use the time to look around their constituencies and learn from what people there are achieving.
They should recognise that it is not just the country’s problems in microcosm that can be found on our doorsteps, but the routes to solving many of them and some successes too.
A few weeks ago, I helped put together the banner for Corstorphine Community Centre to carry in Edinburgh’s 900th anniversary parade. It is a crafted collage of all the things that mean something to us in our community.
I not only had great fun with the women who let me in on some of their crafting skills, but got to enjoy it with them at the spectacular parade that preceded the Riding of the Marches in the city. It was a fantastic celebration, not just of our city’s history but of a diverse modern community.
Growing brambles and tomatoes
It was a tangible demonstration of the same pride and sense of community I felt when I helped Stenhouse youngsters plant apple trees provided by the Woodland Trust in the hidden gem that is their community garden.
Children from a diversity of ethnic backgrounds laughing and playing together, having an absolute ball showing us grown-ups the brambles and tomatoes the garden had already produced. And when they were asked what trees were for, they treated us to their already mature insights on the value to clean air, wildlife and a healthy environment.
I also popped into Drylaw Neighbourhood Centre to share tea and toast with some local pensioners. Helping to look after them was a young Palestinian refugee who has collected some of his Mum’s recipes in a fund-raising booklet.
One of the centre organisers told me they host regular meet-ups with a meal created by one of the minority communities. They bring people together.
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Food, warmth and decent roads
How different that attitude is to some of the nonsense I hear every week in parliament with dramatic warnings from the right about ‘Broken Britain’ and the threat to our communities from those who aren’t from here.
And what I see around me is very different. I see people working together to celebrate their communities and help one another. They tell me what they want is for their politicians to listen.
They want us to fix the roads and make sure that people have enough to feed their families. They want their pensioner neighbours to be warm in their homes this winter. What they don't ask us to do is to create fear, resentment, and division.
The week before I had visited a mosque with the Women and Equalities Committee in Liverpool where a Muslim woman, born and brought up there with the broadest Scouse accent I have heard in years, revealed how the surge in right-wing protests and rhetoric had made her afraid to walk her own streets.
It's a fear created by a rhetoric, built on frustration that politicians are not solving the real problems people face. It's time we followed the example of our communities to help provide the country with the solutions we need.
Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West
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