@bye_bye_fatman: What did the Romans, Anglo-Saxons, Jutes, Vikings, Normans and, centuries later, the Dutch forces of William of Orange have in common? They all came to Britain from somewhere else. Some invaded. Some conquered. Some settled. Some came as soldiers, traders or families. And throughout British history, countless other people have crossed the waters surrounding these islands to settle here. And yes, many of them crossed those waters in boats that, by modern standards, were very small indeed. There is a bitter irony, then, in hearing the words “small boats” repeated today almost as though they describe a category of human being rather than simply the means by which some desperate people cross the English Channel. Today’s refugees and migrants are obviously not comparable to Roman legions, Viking raiders or Norman armies. They are not invading armies. Many are ordinary people fleeing war, persecution, violence, instability and desperate poverty, or seeking the security and opportunity that have driven human migration throughout history. And that is where some of today’s bitter anti-immigration rhetoric becomes so historically ironic. Britain was never a population sealed off from the rest of humanity. Its history contains ancient Britons and Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings, Normans and Flemish settlers, Huguenot refugees, Irish migrants, Jewish refugees fleeing persecution, Caribbean communities, and generations of people whose families came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa and many other individual countries. Modern Britain exists because people moved. Even the English language tells the story. It carries layers of Celtic languages, Latin, Old English, Old Norse and Norman French. The names of our towns, the words we speak, the food we eat, our surnames and the ancestry of the population all bear witness to thousands of years of migration, invasion, settlement and cultural exchange. And there is an even greater historical irony. For centuries, Britain did not merely receive people from overseas. British ships sailed across the world. Britain invaded. Britain conquered. Britain colonised. Britain settled. Millions of British and Irish people crossed oceans to establish new lives in North America, Australia, New Zealand, southern Africa and elsewhere. The British Empire moved soldiers, administrators, missionaries, merchants and settlers across virtually every part of the globe. So perhaps history demands a little humility when we look at frightened and desperate human beings crossing a few miles of the English Channel in an inflatable boat. Because these islands have been shaped by people arriving from somewhere else for thousands of years. The boats change. The people change. The reasons for crossing change. Human migration does not. And behind every statistic, every headline and every politically loaded reference to “small boats” is something remarkably easy to forget: A human being. #SmallBoats #Immigration #Refugees #Migration #BritishHistory

Bye_Bye_Fatman

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Saturday 08 August 2026 08:43:12 GMT