Fact or feeling

We already know that immigrants contribute much more financially to the UK than they take out. We know that we have nearly full employment, so immigrants aren't taking jobs from UK citizens. We know that our birth rate is falling and our retirement is lasting longer, that care homes are becoming crowded with demented senior citizens which we can barely afford to look after - and immigrants are young, they are tax-payers and they will work for long hours and low pay in care homes and the NHS.

So if the referendum was all about immigration surely it would have been a landslide for Remain, to keep our borders open, to encourage people to come and work and pay tax while looking after our elderly and our sick.

Well, we are told it was about immigration - that it was one of the big reasons a third of the electorate chose Leave, to close our borders, to throw out the people who are working, paying tax, caring for our elderly and our sick.

Me? I support immigration, so it is reassuring to know that the Brextremists in charge are now saying that we will have more immigration after Brexit. So my mum will still have care, my dad won't have to wait months for NHS treatment, and the government might still be able to pay my pension in twenty years' time. The Leave campaign lied? No surprise there.

However, if our current coalition of chaos, propped up by fundamentalists supported by terrorists who were bought for £1bn, want a chance in the next election, maybe they should find out what is it about immigration that makes Leavers ready to pay the cost of cutting it?

Previous governments could have cut immigration if they chose years ago, but chose not to because they assumed people wouldn't want to pay. The present government clearly still doesn't want to cut it, but even now they have no idea why so many people do want to and feel so strongly about it.

It seems that finally the government might try and find out some specific facts. Amber Rudd has commissioned a report into the costs and benefits of free movement to the British economy. Admittedly it won't be finished for another year, maybe it will be suppressed, and anyway the government has already outlined its plans, but it may help if it asks difficult questions.

I hope that it won't simply confirm what we already know - how much we benefit from immigration. I hope that it will also tell us why so many people want an end to immigration, and so help us create a compromise that addresses their real concerns without destroying our economy.

We can create a policy based on facts, but if we ignore feelings - well, we end up where we are now.