One woman’s Question Time rant proves the people of Britain still haven’t learnt the truth about immigration

Last night before all the fuss on social media, I happened to see a woman on BBC’s Question Time with the Alison Steadman hairdo talking about immigration, and thought three things. (And not just that she looks like Steadman’s character Pamela from Gavin and Stacey).

First: she’ll probably go viral. This is now a weekly tradition, picking up on some extraordinarily ranty contribution from a QT audience member and seeing it ridiculed – and praised – by Twitter’s various tribes.

Second: she was wrong, and wearily, depressingly so. It was like listening to a delayed feedback loop of any Nigel Farage speech from the last 15 years. The stuff about health tourism, about pressure on public services, the idea that Britain is somehow full and people are “flooding in”; it was full-on Ukip/Brexit Party/Leave/Farageist soundbite stuff. It has never been adequately challenged and rebutted, which – by the way – is how that vote we had back in 2016 came to be lost, if anyone remembers it.

Third: why were the panel members so weak at answering her? Having actually watched the show, that was the more dispiriting aspect, not the commonplace views of the audience member. Millions agree with her, if you had not noticed.

The panel consisted of George Eustice, a current Conservative cabinet minister; Michael Portillo, the former secretary of state for defence; Alison McGovern, Labour MP; Howard Davis, who is the chair of the Royal Bank of Scotland; and left-wing activist and journalist Ash Sarkar. None of them actually agreed with the woman’s demands to close Britain’s borders, but they couldn’t be bothered to say exactly why.

It was like it was just too much bother to try, because she was obviously so passionate. None of them took the woman’s arguments seriously, or treated her with some respect by answering her points directly and succinctly, one by one.

They could have. They could have said that the NHS was trying to deal with the relatively small, but real scandal of health tourism fraud. They might have added that many of those who would treat the woman and her family are migrants or of migrant descent, and simply cannot be replaced from Britain’s ageing population. They might have joked that shutting the border would be tricky for next time Jurgen Klopp needed to get back to Anfield. She might have been reminded that public services are under pressure because of cuts and austerity (whether they were needed to fix the public finances or not).

They could have also made the case that migrants tend to be young and looking for work – not unemployment benefits – and generate extra demand in an economy that raises economic growth and wages. They might have explained that no country or group can escape globalisation, and the serious task at hand is to protect communities hit hardest by it, by supporting them to adapt.

But, on the whole, they didn’t. They talked over her and round her and ignored her concerns. It was like Gordon Brown and Mrs Duffy all over again.

So the Leavers are left to the likes of Farage and even Boris Johnson, who exploit them by echoing back their mistaken yet sincere beliefs about migration and the EU. Ideas and little phrases picked up in focus groups or on the doorstep from voters, such as “Get Brexit Done”, “Take back control” and “Breaking point” are turned into slogans, posters and memes. People start using them in general conversation, the loop is complete and the progressive argument is lost.

We are living in an echo chamber, and the sentiments shown by this week’s viral woman off Question Time are not unusual or strange; persuade her, don’t deride her. She speaks for too many.