Tag Archives: immigration

Lord Roger Roberts writes: Don’t try to win votes by coming down hard on migrants

By Lord Roger Roberts | Sat 18th May 2013 - 12:58 pm

This year is very special: it is the 20th anniversary of the Maastricht treaty. We have, since 1993, been European citizens, each of us endowed with the rights of free movement, settlement and employment across the Union. Of course, we are anxious about the lifting of barriers for some European Union workers at the beginning of next year. I suggest that we remove all hostility and suspicion and treat them as they are: fellow citizens of the Union. If we treat them otherwise, we are asking for trouble. Facts must take prominence; scaremongering must be stamped out.

But of course we …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged asylum and eu | 4 Comments

Vince Cable talks sense on immigration

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th May 2013 - 10:34 am

Vince Cable has spoken up for the economic benefits of immigration in the Queen’s Speech debate, challenging the half truth and hyperbole in the illiberal rhetoric that’s doing the rounds at the moment. He reserved much of his ire for the Labour party:

I was hesitant about raising the subject because it is essentially covered by the Home Office, but substantial economic issues are also involved and it is important to refer to them. I was provoked into feeling that we should debate the issue in this context because a couple of days ago I was on the radio on the

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged ed davey, hansard and vince cable | 23 Comments

The Independent View: CentreForum’s three headliners for an alternative Queen’s Speech

By Tom Frostick | Wed 8th May 2013 - 10:45 am

The Queen’s Speech today looks set to be a relatively sedate affair. As Stephen Tall observes, “the Coalition is now pretty much intellectually dead” when it comes to its legislative agenda. Enthusiasm for pushing new ideas has been replaced with a business like determination to deliver what is already underway.

The content of the Queen’s Speech is nonetheless important. It will shape what happens over the course of the next parliamentary session, and will therefore influence the outcome of the General Election. If CentreForum had the privilege of writing the Speech, we would focus on three headline issues in particular: …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged centre forum, higher education, planning and queen's speech | 13 Comments

Nick Clegg and Paddy Ashdown say that Afghan interpreters should have the right to live in the UK

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 1st May 2013 - 1:30 pm

Almost exactly four years ago, Nick Clegg, as an opposition party leader, led a debate in Parliament in which the Labour Government was defeated on its plans to restrict the rights of Gurkhas to settle in the UK. David Cameron was keen to get himself into the photos with Joanna Lumley at the time.

Four years on, and Clegg and Cameron have opposing views on whether Afghan interpreters who helped our soldiers in that country should be allowed to settle here. Today’s Times (£) reports that the Prime Minister, along with Theresa May and Philip Hammond are against allowing …

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged afghanistan, nick clegg, paddy ashdown and the times | 3 Comments

Liberal Youth are making a difference – can you help this weekend?

By Samuel Fisk | Wed 24th April 2013 - 1:58 pm

Liberal Youth are making a difference up and down the country this month to get more Liberal Democrats elected. Just as in Eastleigh, we’re showing the potential for Liberal Youth to be an election winning organisation as well an internal policy pressure group.

We’ve already had national action weekends in Sheffield and Cambridge, as well as national phone banking events with our shiny new connect account.

But we’re only just getting started.

This weekend we’re urging Liberal Youth members with no elections in their region to head to key target areas. We’re holding action weekends in Somerset and Northumberland this weekend. …

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Posted in News | Also tagged liberal youth, local elections 2013 and nick clegg | Leave a comment

Opinion: Is UKIP a threat to community cohesion?

By David Hennigan | Wed 10th April 2013 - 8:47 am

Much has been made of the rise of the United Kingdom Independence Party under Nigel Farage. Watch any of Mr Farage’s rabble rousing appearances on Question Time and one might feel that here is a man who speaks common sense. A man on your side – a party ready to change the three party system in this country.

Delve a bit deeper into UKIP and you’ll see a slightly sinister side more akin to the Far Right. It was only 3 years ago that, at the invitation of Lord Pearson (then UKIP Leader), the Dutch Far Right politician Geert Wilders showed an anti-Islam film in the House of Lords. Cheered on by the English Defence League, UKIP claimed that this was a victory for free speech and common sense.

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged manchester and ukip | 90 Comments

Opinion: Freedom to travel and work is the essence of the EU and we should embrace it

By Giles Goodall | Wed 27th March 2013 - 1:20 pm

Another week, another attack on EU citizens living and working in the UK. This time it didn’t come from that familiar old grouch Nigel Farage, but from the Prime Minister himself. In a speech which was clearly playing catch-up with UKIP after the Eastleigh by-election, David Cameron ratcheted up the rhetoric, calling for new curbs on the rights of EU migrants to claim British benefits and social housing. He wants to stop our benefit system being a ‘soft touch’ and end the ‘something for nothing culture’, in language which could have been copy-pasted from any front page of …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged david cameron and eu migration | 22 Comments

Julian Huppert MP writes… Improving on the UK Border Agency

By Julian Huppert MP | Tue 26th March 2013 - 5:10 pm

On Monday the Home Affairs Select Committee published yet another damning report of the UK Border Agency. We found that, in addition to the half million undetermined immigration and asylum cases, UKBA were failing to deal with new immigration cases.

It is no wonder that immigration is consistently identified as one of the biggest issues facing the UK if the Agency established by Labour cannot tell us who is in the country, who should be here and who should not.

The backlog started in the 90s, but in response Labour put the whole border control operation at arm’s length. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged home affairs select committee and UKBA | 10 Comments

An open letter from working group & FPC members on Nick Clegg’s immigration speech

By Suzanne Fletcher | Tue 26th March 2013 - 4:45 pm

As members of the body setting up a review of Liberal Democrat policy on immigration and identity under Andrew Stunell MP, or members of the review itself, we feel the need to put a few facts in the public domain following Nick Clegg’s speech on Friday.

It would have been helpful had we been made aware of the contents in advance. It would have been very helpful if members of the Policy Working Group had been sent an embargoed copy of the speech the night before.

There was much in the speech that reiterated Liberal values on immigration; indeed much of it …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged internal democracy and policy development | 22 Comments

Jonathan Portes writes: If you want to get serious about growth, you need to be positive about migration

By Jonathan Portes | Tue 26th March 2013 - 1:45 pm

On Monday, I did seven interviews on David Cameron’s immigration speech. Each time I’ve tried to get across one simple fact: that all the available evidence suggests that immigrants – and immigrants from the new EU member states, in particular – more than pay their way. That is, that they pay more in taxes than they cost in benefits and services; overall, from being a burden, they make it easier to finance our welfare state not harder.

It is that basic fact that all three party leaders should be explaining to their constituents. Instead, they seem to be engaged …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged economic growth, featured, migration advisory committee and niesr | 23 Comments

Security bonds are a mistake, Nick…

By Mark Valladares | Tue 26th March 2013 - 9:55 am

Last June, the idea of insisting that those wishing to bring a foreign spouse into the country should have a minimum level of income was mooted. It was bad enough that the Government adopted it, but it was the Labour response that was even more dubious. Here’s what Yvette Cooper asked at the time;

Will the Home Secretary explain why the Government ruled out consulting on a bond that could have been used to protect the taxpayer if someone needed public funds later on?

So, when Nick Clegg talks about introducing a security bond for visa applicants, it isn’t original and …

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Posted in News | 13 Comments

Opinion: Liberal Youth petition Nick Clegg on immigration

By Sam Fisk and Kavya Kaushik | Mon 25th March 2013 - 2:06 pm

The Liberal Democrats are committed to building a stronger economy in a fairer society. We might be sick of hearing that phrase but it does sum up our party’s values pretty well.

Yet Nick Clegg’s speech on Friday would damage the party’s plans for a stronger economy in a fairer society.

If Nick Clegg truly wants to enable everyone to get on in life, he should re-consider this new illiberal stance on immigration.

Liberal Youth oppose Nick Clegg’s ’security bonds’ policy, which will stifle foreign entrepreneurship and investment in Britain. We should be encouraging people to start up businesses in here, which create jobs and economic growth. We …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged liberal youth and nick clegg | 46 Comments

Ethnic Minorities Liberal Democrats react to Nick Clegg’s immigration speech

By Lester Holloway | Mon 25th March 2013 - 10:55 am

Reaction to Nick Clegg’s immigration speech shows just how much our party values the cultural and economic contribution migration makes to Britain.

In fairness, Nick did say some positive things but the idea of bonds, thought to be for £1,000, on visitors from ‘high risk’ countries was inevitably going to write ‘tough-on-migrants’ headlines in the media.

No one wants overseas visitors to disappear into the unofficial economy or exploited by unscrupulous criminals, but we have a whole apparatus to deal with that already.

The Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats welcome Nick’s desire to double fines for employing illegal workers, but our membership and BAME …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged emld and nick clegg | 25 Comments

Lib Link: Immigration speech … an opportunity missed

By Joe Otten | Sat 23rd March 2013 - 11:24 am

Nick Thornsby, of this parish, adds his voice to the criticism of Nick Clegg’s speech on immigration, over at the Indepedendent.

Immigration is another area where the party has not just the opportunity but also a duty to shift the balance away from the negative rhetoric of the other parties and much of the media. Liberal immigration policies might not be politically popular, but it is the fate of liberals to be frequent holders of minority opinions, and we should do so proudly.

In a globalised world economy, where prosperity depends on succeeding in a global competition for

…

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Posted in LibLink | 5 Comments

LDV Poll: Immigration – Lib Dem members have their say

By Stephen Tall | Sat 23rd March 2013 - 9:15 am

Lib Dem Voice polled our members-only forum recently to discover what Lib Dem members think of various political issues, the Coalition, and the performance of key party figures. Some 650 party members have responded, and we’re publishing the full results.

Big majorities say immigration has had positive effect on UK

On balance, do you think immigration into the UK from the following areas has had a positive or negative effect on the UK?

From Western European countries, such as France and Germany

85%

1%

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged featured | 16 Comments

Nick Clegg’s illiberal hat-trick: now immigration joins ‘secret courts’ and media regulation on the pyre

By Stephen Tall | Fri 22nd March 2013 - 5:55 pm

Today Nick Clegg made a speech on immigration. He was due to deliver it in February but decided to delay it until after the Eastleigh by-election: I guess it wasn’t an issue he wanted to stir-up for Ukip’s benefit. Or perhaps he realised that his position would be as well-received by many activists as a bucket of cold sick.

I have read it all the way through, which is more than it deserved. It’s a lazy, lazy speech. It genuflects in the direction of liberalism with some stirring …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged featured and nick clegg | 134 Comments

Nick Clegg’s speech on immigration: the good, the bad and the ugly

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 22nd March 2013 - 3:52 pm

The much-missed Conrad Russell said you should read something three times before you pass comment on it. I’ve done that with today’s speech on immigration by Nick Clegg. I’ve also had several cups of tea and am frantically hunting for some smelling salts to revive me. Leaders are supposed to lead and to challenge established thinking. I have no problem with him sticking his neck out on an issue if that is what he wants to do. It’s important that we listen to him and if we don’t like his ideas, to calmly and respectfully tell him so.

It seems …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged andrew stunell and nick clegg | 32 Comments

Sarah Teather on “deeply upsetting” report on pregnant women in asylum system

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 27th February 2013 - 7:00 pm

Sarah Teather has been speaking in Parliament today about a new report by Maternity Action and the Refugee Council which highlights the treatment of pregnant women and their new babies in the asylum system. You can read her whole speech here, and I warn you it will make you upset and angry in equal and consuming measure. The description of a woman who had just given birth being made to carry her newborn baby home by foot in the snow was harrowing. There are many such similar stories in the report.

These vulnerable women suffer both poor physical and …

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Posted in News | Also tagged asylum and sarah teather | 6 Comments

This week in Europe: 21-24 January… no to milk lakes, yes to skilled migrants and bees

By Mark Valladares | Fri 25th January 2013 - 4:21 pm

Proposals for a revised Common Agricultural Policy met with mixed emotions

On Wednesday, the European Parliament’s Agricultural Committee (AGRI) voted on reform proposals to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). ALDE MEPs welcomed the votes in general as a major step towards a more sustainable European agricultural model. However, ALDE condemns the possible double payment for greening and agri-environmental measures and rejects a possible return to failed past policies of heavy market interventions.

Commenting after the votes, George Lyon MEP (UK, Liberal Democrat), ALDE team leader on the AGRI committee and shadow rapporteur on the direct payments report, said:

Today’s vote is a big

…

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Posted in Europe / International and News | Also tagged bees, chris davies, common agricultural policy, george lyon, marit paulsen and nadja hirsch | Leave a comment

What would a liberal, progressive migration policy for the UK look like?

By Alasdair Murray | Fri 18th January 2013 - 12:51 pm

As the next election begins to loom into view, the issue of immigration continues to pose a challenge for liberal progressives of all political persuasions. A new report published today by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) makes a rich and valuable contribution to this essential debate on the future of British migration policy.

There are few politicians who would disagree with the report’s urgent call to “actively engage with the issue of migration – and the reality of people’s views on it”. The extent to which the political ‘elite’ have avoided talking about immigration has been exaggerated …

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Posted in The Independent View | Also tagged ippr | 16 Comments

Opinion: We must prevent another immigration “legacy”

By James Harper | Wed 9th January 2013 - 11:53 am

Is there an amnesty for illegal immigrants? Keith Vaz seems determined to prove that there is, although so far without success. But the reality behind the bluster is rather more serious.

In 2007 the Home Office ‘found’ (or so the apocryphal tale goes) 500,000 asylum cases which had not been dealt with, ‘lying around’ in a room in the depths of Lunar House, Croydon. This backlog was termed the ‘legacy’ of unresolved asylum cases.

A new department was set up and given the grisly task of looking at and resolving these cases, some of which had been untouched for over 10 years. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged UKBA | 11 Comments

Did you know the Lib Dems have lost half a million voters to Ukip? Here’s what I think it means.

By Stephen Tall | Tue 18th December 2012 - 4:55 pm

Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft — who, as ConservativeHome’s Tim Montgomerie has noted before, spends more on polling than all three parties combined — has today published the latest survey looking at the timely issue of the threat of Ukip. Nigel Farage’s party is now regularly polling around the level of the Lib Dems, seemingly taking voters disproportionately from the Tories, contributing to lengthening Labour poll leads.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged european union, featured, lord ashcroft, peter kellner and ukip | 51 Comments

Opinion: Amnesty for 120,000 illegal migrants

By Joe Bourke | Mon 26th November 2012 - 9:54 am

During the 2010 general elections, I campaigned in Barking and Dagenham, where the BNP concentrated much of their electoral effort on the back of council seats they held there.

Our policy of offering families, who have been here for years and want to pay taxes a route to citizenship (provided they want to work, speak English and want to commit to the UK in the long term) came under attack not just from the BNP, but Labour and Tories as well.

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Posted in Op-eds | 10 Comments

LibLink: Sarah Teather – Asylum through a child’s eyes

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 8th November 2012 - 3:30 pm

Former Children’s Minister Sarah Teather was personally thanked by Citizens UK at Liberal Democrat Conference in September for her role, as Children’s Minister, in ending child detention for immigration purposes. She said then that there was much more to achieve on the way the UK Borders Agency operates.

This week she’s launched an enquiry into the support for families within the asylum system. She wrote about that enquiry and what she wants to achieve for Politics Home:

If you have never had a conversation with a young asylum seeker about their

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged asylum, home office, politics home and sarah teather | Leave a comment

LibLink: Nick Clegg and Barbara Nalumu – We are proud of having ended child detention

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 30th October 2012 - 4:40 pm

One of the moments I will never forget from the heartbreaking night of the 2011 Holyrood election was our Edinburgh Central candidate Alex Cole-Hamilton’s tweet:

Ending Labour’s horrendous policy, whereby children were locked up for indeterminate periods in horrible institutions like Yarl’s Wood and Dungavel, is one of the great things to come out of this coalition. Nobody’s saying the UK Border Agency is now perfect. Far from it. But on this, there can be no doubt that the Liberal Democrats ended an unacceptable, inhumane scandal.

Nick Clegg …

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged barbara namulu, child detention, guardian and nick clegg | 12 Comments

Opinion: We should be making the positive case for immigration

By Tom Richards | Sun 21st October 2012 - 3:50 pm

The Economist’s front page this week signals its leader on immigration – which says that the Government is getting it wrong on immigration.

The Economist is right. The Government is getting it wrong. All the evidence points towards skilled migrants having a positive impact on the economy for everyone that’s already in the country. And the evidence for unskilled workers having any negative impact on wages or jobs is at best ambiguous. As the article points out (give it a read if you haven’t), making it near on impossible for …

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Posted in Op-eds | 33 Comments

LDVideo: Citizens UK thank Liberal Democrats for ending child detention for immigration purposes

By Caron Lindsay | Fri 5th October 2012 - 2:46 pm

I wrote recently of a very emotional and heartwarming presentation at Conference in Brighton by Citizens UK who came along to thank the Liberal Democrats for what we had done to end child detention for immigration purposes. Nick Clegg and Sarah Teather both spoke in response. To cheer you up on an autumnal Friday afternoon, here is the whole thing in video. Enjoy.

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Posted in News | Also tagged child detention and citizens uk | 7 Comments

Opinion: Immigration service must do more to protect human dignity

By James Harper | Wed 3rd October 2012 - 2:25 pm

The UK Border Agency’s recent decision to hire G4S and Serco to deliver the housing scheme for asylum seekers is not only a bad one in its own right. It is symptomatic of the deep inadequacy of an organisation that exists purely to deal with people, but which lacks the same standards and people-focused ethos we expect of other organisations responsible for looking after human beings.

Last week we discovered that asylum seekers in the Midlands have had their doors painted red by the company responsible for housing and accommodating them, G4S. G4S did not think this would be a problem. …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged asylum and UKBA | 5 Comments

Opinion: What’s wrong with immigration control?

By Ditch Townsend | Sat 29th September 2012 - 11:15 am

Having lived for much of my life outside our over-developed country, and working in contexts of extreme poverty and social exclusion in Africa and Asia, I am disheartened by some significant assumptions in the immigration debate:

Firstly, what gives us the right to preserve a global status quo comprising an economically, politically, and culturally dominant and exclusive club? Many phrases used amongst Liberal Democrats, seem paternalistic, even oppressive, towards people whose plight we perpetuate by our insularity:

“‘Soft’ on immigration“: We’re not ‘soft’ enough, if it means being repentant enough to share the world’s resources and opportunities.

“An ‘earned amnesty’ for …

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Posted in Op-eds | 4 Comments

Opinion: Is it possible to be liberal and popular on immigration?

By Alasdair Murray | Sun 23rd September 2012 - 4:50 pm

In those heady days that followed the post-debate Clegg-bounce during the last election, one issue suddenly began to dominate on the doorsteps: immigration.

Spooked by the Lib Dem surge, the Conservatives and their willing allies in the press sought to deflate the Clegg bubble by returning to dog whistle issues, such as immigration.

Whether this approach greatly affected the final outcome is questionable, but there is no doubt it forced many candidates on the defensive. Rather than having an opportunity to talk about our positive policies we were spending time trying to counter the perception that we were ‘soft’ on immigration.

Worse, the …

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Posted in Conference and Op-eds | Also tagged 2012 Brighton Conference | 7 Comments