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Prohibition does not work with illegal immigration either – open the door but slash welfare for all

Tom Winnifrith
Wednesday 13 March 2013

There are few sentient human beings who maintain that prohibition of alcohol in 1920s America was a roaring success. Criminals benefited and made a killing. The costs of law enforcement went through the roof. Customers had to pay more. Checks to ensure safe supply of liquor became impossible. And anyone who wanted a drink could get one anyway. Yet still mainstream opinion argues that prohibition is a good idea elsewhere. The results are always the same.

As a libertarian I believe it is my call on what I put into my body not that of the State. So I have a philosophical opposition to prohibition. I do not expect many of you to agree with that stance. But you should see that on a practical level it does not work. Legalise drugs and allow supply via tobacconists and you could ensure that no dirty heroin hits the streets, tax receipts would go up, prices would go down. The 80% of crimes that are drug related would disappear and so we could reduce policing costs. With your car & house less likely to be broken into your insurance premiums would fall.

But there is another prohibition which is an abject failure – that on the movement of people into this country. It emerges today that it costs £25,000 to boot an illegal immigrant out. And he or she will soon be replaced. Criminals make a fortune trafficking people into the UK. A whole industry of lawyers and other parasites makes a living (from the taxpayer) arguing that folks should not be deported because it will infringe the human rights of their cat, result in homophobic bullying or whatever. And still we have no idea how many illegals are in the UK – it is probably well over one million. The whole system is a costly farce as any system based on prohibition always is. All those who talk tough about immigration seem to miss the point. We could spend 20 times as much as we do on “getting tough” but prohibition NEVER works.

And so why not allow anyone who wants to come to the UK? But with a twist. It is quite clear that we have vast number of home grown Heather Frost figures who have never worked, will never work and regard welfare as an entitlement. That is not sustainable or equitable. And so we make a small rule change.  You can only claim income support up to a value of x times the amount of NI contributions you have made historically. And unless you have paid NI you and your offspring shall have no entitlement to schooling, healthcare, subsidised housing or any other state benefit. If you cannot afford kids do not have them and simply expect others to pay.

If one adopts these rules for our own home grown Heather Frosts you will not – with an open borders policy – get folks moving to the UK to live off the State because the same rules will apply to them. By all means let the Rumanians come en masse. But unless they are working they will starve. Make that abundantly clear and those who want to work hard will come to the UK and we will benefit from that. Those who want to scrounge can go to a “caring, socialist paradise fucked economy” like France or Scotland when it gets its independence. Perhaps they can take Heather Frost with them.

Adopt this policy and UK welfare spending will plunge. The parasite lawyers who feed off immigration law at the taxpayers’ expense will have to go get proper jobs and save us all a packet. All those employed by the State in this futile pretence that we are tough on immigration can be let go. And the vast savings can go on slashing the UK’s unsustainable deficit and on raising the threshold at which anyone pays tax to £20,000 so making ,low paid work that much more attractive.

Obviously this makes sense. The chances of it happening zilch.

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About Tom Winnifrith
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Tom Winnifrith is the editor of TomWinnifrith.com. When he is not harvesting olives in Greece, he is (planning to) raise goats in Wales.
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