Immigration: the tragicomic war of tongue-in-cheek between London and Bucharest

 “Romanians don’t come! We would run from here except the public transportation doesn’t work”.

The (real) idea of the British government, concerned about the opening of the borders, provokes sarcasm in the press of both countries

If we were still in the times of Elizabeth I, the queen would have already sent her fleet to patrol the English Channel. Only that this time the danger for Great Britain is not the arrival of the Invincible Spanish Armada but a wretched “invasion” of Romanian immigrants looking for work (the majority of which are armed with buckets and construction trowels). Times no longer allow the use of military force (unfortunately for the English) ad so the government, worried about a migratory flux coming from Bucharest by the end of the year, when the work restrictions will be lifted for Romanian and Bulgarian citizens, is thinking about a “deterrence” campaign through mass media. A British minister explained to the media that the scope would be to “correct the impression that our streets are paved with gold.”

Listening to this story feels like being in a Monty Python comedy with Gilliam and company dressed in rags in the House of Commons trying to convince the Romanian invaders that the UK is a nation in disrepair. But unfortunately it is a tragic reality. Some people at the British daily newspapers are trying to bring back reason, explaining that fearing the risk of invasion is nonsense even because in a total population of about 20 million people, it is estimated that about 2.5 million Romanians already work abroad; hence, the majority of those who wanted to emigrate already have. And among those who remained, according to polls, few plan to leave and very few for London. Meanwhile, the topic is hot in the media, even the Romanian president, Traian Basescu, had to reassure the press, confirming that “there will be no invasion – Romania is a beautiful country.”

The Guardian asked its readers to send pictures for this possible (and improbable) deterrence campaign. Fortunately the response was sufficiently ironic on the part of the people who sent slogans like: “In the UK mothers are compelled to tell their own children that rubbish is a plant that grows on concrete,” equipped with pictures of piles of trash bags, and “Careful – with the melting of the ice the island is bound to go under by 2020,” or the photos of Cameron and Blair with the writing “We voted for these people – we won’t leave our own country just because the public transportation doesn’t work.” Not to mention many other references to the bad weather and rain.

The Romanian online newspaper Gândul launched its own backlash campaign with the title: “Maybe we wouldn’t like Great Britain but come to Romania!” The slogans are of the type: “Half of our women look like Kate (the future queen – editor’s note) and the other half like her sister,”  and “We speak English much better than any other place that you visited in France” or even “Our draft beer costs less than your bottled water.” The discussions must have been convincing enough since, seemingly, Prince Charles bought several properties in the Saxon villages near the city of Sibiu. Who knows if it is not the Romanians who need to close the borders to the droves of Brits arriving.

Alfonso Bianchi