Me and my MP

 Dear friends,

 We live in distressing times. I sent the following letter to my Mp this afternoon:

 

Mr Jack Rankin MP

House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

 

9 August 2026

 

Dear Mr Rankin,

 

Your colleague Helen Whateley has just convinced me that I cannot in good conscience vote for any candidate representing the Conservative party.

 

My Saturday paper quoted Ms Whateley as stating the following:

 

“Making Britain your home should be earned by working, paying tax and integrating. It should not come with a free ride on the benefits system. Britain cannot be a cash machine for the world.

 

Labour has lost control of immigration and lost control of the welfare bill, and it is British families picking up the bill and sitting on waiting lists. The next Conservative government will make foreign nationals ineligible for social housing. Nearly 230,000 homes could go to British families.”

 

Perhaps you will tell me that Ms Whateley has been misquoted. However, on the assumption that she has been accurately quoted, I write to point out that this asinine farrago of prejudice and misrepresentation appalls me.

 

First, Ms Whateley implies that all foreign nationals who live in social housing came to Britain for a “free ride,” implying that they do not work, pay tax or integrate. How can she possibly know that this is true of at a minimum 230,000 people (assuming that only one householder per home holds a foreign passport) and perhaps as many as 460,000 (if there are two such householders in each home)? Is there any evidence that a significant proportion of these fellow human beings do not work, pay tax or integrate? I doubt it. Would you be encouraged to integrate if the government were to evict you from your home simply because you were not born in Britain?

 

The members of our communities who live in social housing might include retired couples or people in active employment who have taught our children, nursed us when we were unwell, cared for our elderly neighbours, whose children are in our schools, who are our neighbours perhaps attended the events that I help to organize in Sunninghill Library, or participated in activities in Cordes Hall. Would that constitute a failure to integrate.

 

Do you, as my elected representative, know how Ms Whateley will identify those she intends to evict from homes they may have occupied for a long time? If those who determine that a family should be evicted make a mistake (remember the Windrush scandal), will a candidate for eviction be allowed to appeal? And once evicted, if these unfortunate victims of Ms Whateley’s racism fail to find a home they can afford, will she ensure that local authorities have sufficient funds to house them, as they are legally required to do so? In this event, exactly how has Ms Whateley’s policy saved the taxpayer any money at all? Indeed, perhaps the cost will be higher because a private landlord will charge a high rent.

 

Persecution of people simply for being workers in a country of which they are not citizens, is a very personal matter for my wife and me, since we have two immigrant sons, one in Mexico and one in Japan. They earn salaries and are seeking to benefit their host countries with their talents. They both have access to the public health system in the country in which they live. Are they really personally responsible for any waiting lists in Mexico or Japan, and if waiting lists do exist should they be punished for the failure of the respective governments to manage an adequate health system?

 

Closer to home, we have a friend of many years, a Muslim lady who worked alongside my wife in a university library, and who has continued to work in her “retirement years” while I live idly on my pensions. She was educated in her own country but in the British curriculum, speaks excellent English, volunteered during the Covid pandemic, is a friend of Kew Gardens, and a valued friend. Please tell me how I can advise her to integrate? She might well be the target of one of Ms Whateley’s evictions.

 

I hope you will excuse me, if I trouble you concerning one more vacuous statement, in this case something said by your leader Ms Badenoch. Many years ago (when the Poll Tax was so controversial that even Conservative Party members travelled to London to join protests), a Conservative canvasser for council elections called at my home. When I told her that I could not vote for the Conservative candidates, she said words to the effect: “Why not, it’ only bout emptying the bins.” I thought that this betrayed a profound ignorance of the duties of a borough councillor, but she was only a canvasser not the leader of the Conservative Party. However, I understand that Ms Badenoch justified her selection of a former Neo-Nazi for a council seat on the grounds that he would be concerned only with “parking, sorting out bins.” I know that you were once a councillor for RBWM, so I can assume that your knowledge of the functions of a council is superior to that of your leader. Perhaps you can explain this to her when you next see her.

 

I am sorry to interrupt your summer holidays with this matter. I wish you and your family a relaxing summer.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Ian Jacobs