As the parties get into campaign gear, immigration is rearing its head as an election issue. It’s going to be an unpleasant campaign; foul is fair at such times! A Conservative party billboard, which recently caught my attention, sets the tone. To say that immigration should be limited is not racist, it proclaims. “Are you thinking what we are thinking?”, it provocatively asks.
More sinister than the actual message is the location of the billboard. It is stuck aside a rail bridge at the start of the A34 Stratford Road, a major route into the centre of Birmingham, linking the suburbs and the M40. The bridge is just off the Camp Hill Island, a place where traffic from various south side routes into the city coalesces into a single main road.
The billboard faces traffic heading away from the city centre. For over two miles after the bridge, the Stratford Road passes through Sparkbrook and Sparkhill, areas where the majority of the residents are non-white, mainly of South Asian origin. The shops- newsagents, halal butchers, balti houses, fabric stores, carpet warehouses- are owned by people from these communities.
Why place the billboard at such a place? Is it a warning, a reminder, a point for commuters heading to the suburbs to bear in mind as they pass through several miles of ‘immigrant’ territory? As commuters and shoppers crawl along the Stratford Road, with its halal butchers and burka-clad women, they are reminded of the Tory poster. “Are you thinking what we are thinking”? What are you thinking? Perhaps that there are too many immigrants?
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