In the news this week, it has been widely reported about billionaire Jim Ratcliffe’s statements that Britain has been "colonised" by migrants.
This is the same Jim Ratcliffe who lives in Monaco to dodge billions in tax, whose company Ineos shut down Grangemouth refinery earlier this year, costing 400 jobs in our community.
If that's not colonisation, extracting wealth while contributing nothing to our community, I don't know what is.
Meanwhile he attacks what helps keep this country running, migrants.
One in five NHS workers wasn't born here and without them, our hospitals would struggle to stay open.
Within our community, they're delivering babies at Forth Valley Royal, staffing A&Es, keeping elderly patients alive.
They're the care workers looking after our grandparents when the rest of us can't.
They're working night shifts so your relative gets their medication on time.
This isn't new, throughout Britain’s history, migrants have built the infrastructure we rely on.
Irish workers fled famine to construct Britain's canals and railways in the 19th century.
They have also fought for our great nation, with Polish pilots flying in the 303 Squadron, the top scoring RAF unit in the Battle of Britain, with 145 Polish airmen helping save this country from Nazi invasion.
Today, migrants teach our children, build our houses and pick our food.
They help keep our economy moving.
Right here in Clackmannanshire, individuals have started businesses, contributing to our local economy, enriching our high streets and providing jobs to our area, including for young people.
The numbers are beyond clear.
Migrants contribute an estimated £17.5 billion in tax over five years.
A migrant arriving aged 25 pays £341,000 more into the system over their lifetime than they receive in benefits, entitlements and services.
They pay in more than they take out.
Billionaires like Ratcliffe haven’t been as patriotic and a benefit to this country.
He's dodged £4 billion in tax that could have funded schools, hospitals, and infrastructure.
His company closed Grangemouth refinery despite decades of the site contributing to Scotland's economy, abandoning 400 workers and our community when it suited him.
But certain politicians would rather you didn't think about that.
They'd rather you blamed the nurse from Eastern Europe than the billionaire in Monaco.
Blame is an easy solution, it doesn’t require critical thinking or hard solutions.
It’s an easy route out.
Blame migrants for crumbling services, not decades of deliberate underfunding.
Blame them for stagnant wages, not exploitative corporations.
Blame them for the housing crisis, not the failure to build social housing.
It's misdirection.
Make working people fight each other, whilst the far-right politicians peddling this know exactly what they're doing.
They don't believe this rhetoric themselves.
They use it for power, to divide us, to build their careers on hatred and fear while offering no real solutions.
This far-right rhetoric has a real dangerous impact.
We've seen the attacks on mosques, on asylum hotels, the violence fuelled by lies about who's really taking from us.
People have been hurt.
Communities have been terrorised.
And for what?
So some politician can get elected, so some billionaire can avoid scrutiny?
Words have consequences.
Hatred has consequences.
Young people especially need to see through this manipulation.
Migrants haven't colonised this country.
They've built it, healed it, and kept it alive through every crisis we've faced.
Billionaires like Ratcliffe have done what colonisers always do, taken the wealth and divided us against each other, scapegoating the hardworking individuals who choose to make Britain their home.
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