If you look up Croatia online, all you currently get is a list of references to the World Cup. No one appears to have yet noticed that Croatia is now a full member of the European Union, and the restrictions on requiring a registration certificate in order to work in the UK have thus been lifted.
The absence of coverage and discussion is very different to the mass hysteria that occurred in 2013/14 in the run up to Bulgarians and Romanians gaining full rights. At that point we were inundated with political and media hysteria claiming that we would be overrun, and that benefits needed protecting. That was all however, pre-Brexit.
In our current, transitional Brexit world, Croatia has gone unnoticed. According to data from the DWP, there were only 247 Croatians in London who applied for a National Insurance Number over the 2016-2017 period. Figures for the national context were unavailable at the time of writing.
What this confirms is that the whole immigration debate is a nest of double standards. It picks who it wants to target and fight with. Yes, the size of communities maybe a significant factor in the media, political and public response, but the arguments, if we are being fair, should hold true for all. The fact that they do not shows exactly how targeted our intolerance is…