There are some things in life that go hand in hand
In the UK it is a General Election and talk of Immigration Controls
In every general election since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech Labour and the Conservatives have sought to out-do each other on the toughness of their respective policies on immigration Usually the war of words starts at about the same time as the political parties start their election campaign. This time round the battle has already started even though the General Election is some six months away And the reason? The Tories are running scared of UKIP as Nigel Farage sets himself up as the only gatekeeper who can be trusted to keep immigrants at bay and land election defeat on Conservatives the back of it.
A couple of months back even Nick Clegg felt compelled to pronounce that Liberal Democrats can be just as tough as the other two Parties on controlling immigration To his credit he did go out of his way to emphasise that our policies would be tough but not insensitive, fair and firm but not discriminatory
And last week David Cameron announced he was going to slam on the brakes on the influx of immigrants from Europe even though it now appears he really has no powers to do so.
What irks me most about the ease with which all parties play political football with immigration is the total disregard they all show for the feelings of the generation of immigrants that have helped make the country what it is today – the fourth wealthiest and one of the most diverse countries in the world.
It is generally accepted that the UK economy has grown and continues to grow largely on the back of small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
It is also a matter of record that a significant number of SMEs are run by immigrant owner managers
So I would suggest if we are serious about creating a fairer society and stronger economy, the last thing politicians need to be doing is bashing would-be immigrant entrepreneurs. These people are not the scroungers they are portrayed as by Farage and the Daily Mail brigade, but risk-taking individuals determined to make a new life for themselves and their families. In the process they of course contribute to our economic prosperity These individuals do not abandon the security of their home and families, then travel thousands of miles in the hope some foreign country will see them alright. They do so because they sense the opportunities that await them in a country that rewards determination, enterprise and hard work
We should welcome this new breed of immigrant because it is they and not our greedy risk averse bankers who will ultimately deliver the stronger economy and fairer society we advocate
And in return for that contribution our country needs to make them feel welcome and wanted in this their new home. That would of course mean allowing families the right to visit and in time live with them Now that strikes me as the true mark of a fair society.
* Rabi Martins is a councillor and Deputy Lib Dem Group Leader on Watford Borough Council. He is a candidate for Lib Dem Vice President.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Elvis Costello and The Attractions: Watch Your Step
West End ward surgeries today #dundeewestend
Speculation over Labour's benefit cuts
Being a good conference guest
Simon R
Robin Bennett
Mike Peters
Graham Jeffs
71 Comments
The picture is probably a bit more complicated, but think about the first message being given here: Immigration is good because it provides the indigenous workers with new Bosses – who run these new SME’s. Is that really a wise message to send?
The picture may be more complicated because SME’s are not automatically good things. They may be good if they’re doing new things and employing more people, but not necessarily if they’re not. An immigrant entrepreneur who creates a new SME that employs other immigrants isn’t necessarily doing anything good for the employment prospects of the indigenous population.
SME’s are the norm in some of the cultures where immigrants come from, but are not necessarily an effective way to increase employment in the indigenous population. Nor are they necessarily an efficient way to run an economy – the large supermarket chains, for example, provide a far, far better shopping experience and far higher quality goods than we used to have in the UK 50 years ago with mostly small shops.
If immigrant SME’s “contribute to *our* prosperity”, then where is the actual evidence? And why speak in this divisive way of *our* security? – immigrants are part of *us* once they have immigrated.
I’m sorry but this is totally out of touch. The fact you go back to Enoch Powell only proves this. There are to my mind three legitimate concerns that the public have about immigration.
1) Population. We are a densely populated Island. What’s more the most densely populated part of the UK (the south east) is where immigrants will disproportionately want to go because it is where the economic opportunities are greatest. Politicians,when they are feeling brave, will point out that immigrants boost economic growth. They do, but that growth needs to be used to build more houses and better infrastructure. That is not happening. It is being used to fund pensions and healthcare for our ageing population. We have a housing shortage. Try and build any new houses in this country where there is demand and you’ll get a wall of protest. Greenbelt may be an issue, but I suspect the bigger concern is traffic congestion. We commute the longest hours in Europe I believe. A sense of being overcrowded is one reason people probably feel their quality of life is deteriorating.
2) The economy. As has been said, immigrants contribute to economic growth. At the same time much of that money MUST be spent on better infrastructure. Rightly or wrongly many people feel that large scale immigration is reducing their bargaining power in the workplace. Mr Martins refers to entrepeneurial immigrants. The sad truth is that many people are coming here simply because of the grotesque levels of youth unemployment in parts of the Eurozone. There’s not much we can do about Merkel, Barroso and the ECB’s insane death spiral. But people have been lead to believe that all the traditional ways of building an economy that is on the side of average and lower earners is illegitimate post-1979. So all they can do is complain that immigration is squeezing them. The decline in wages and living standards is at least a powerful correlation.
3) Culture. This is perhaps the trickiest, but lest we forget that we are in a post 9/11 world and also one where British born citizens blew themselves and others up on the London Underground. You have maybe hundreds of British born citizens going to Iraq and Syria to fight in a death cult. People see this as the importing of an alien culture that threatens us and to some extent it does. We have seen grooming gangs in several cities with even pc commentators like Yasmin Alibhi Brown blaming on appalling levels of misogyny amongst many British men of Pakistani origin. Mr Martins talks about allowing families to move here with immigrants. Of course we should support those who wish to marry a foreign citizen on compassionate grounds. But the system shouldn’t be used for arranged marriages between people who hardly know each other. There are others with a much more justifiable reason for coming here.
I really don’t see how a handful of British citizens committing terrorist atrocities in the UK is any more of a cultural problem than when, during the 80s, far more British citizens (on paper anyway) from Northern Ireland waged a sustained bombing campaign across the country.
There was a big study done on the issue of migrant entrepreneurs recently. You can find it at http://www.creatingourjobs.org/
*GASP* Some sort of evidence in a debate about immigration…
@FrankBooth
A very good and rational description of the concerns.
@George Potter
Those were not immigrants, and they actually wanted out, not in.
“I really don’t see how a handful of British citizens committing terrorist atrocities in the UK is any more of a cultural problem than when, during the 80s, far more British citizens (on paper anyway) from Northern Ireland waged a sustained bombing campaign across the country.”
Northern Irish terrorism was an attempt to forge a united Ireland via paramilitary means.
Islamic terrorism is a failure of integration, diversity, immigration and multiculturalism. I don’t know what it seeks to forge. Do you? Sharia rule in the UK?
More, northern Irish terrorism was a product of centuries of history, and not totally the responsiblity of the generation which had to confront it.. We have created Islamic terrorism all by ourselves through a few
decades of multiculturalism.
And may leave it for our descendants to confront too. Unless you have an answer George?
simon – I’m actually a little wary of people banding about the term multiculturalism without actually stating what they mean by it. I’m not hysterical on this issue but clearly we need to be aware in our immigration policies that not everyone around the world conforms to liberal western values. If we really believe in them, then to some extent we do have to impose them.
@Alex Beaumont
It would certainly be nice to have some evidence that immigration does good for the country. It’s my feeling that it does, culturally, that there’s not much in it economically, and the issues about population and social service use are down to the laziness of politicians rather than to immigration . But that’s a value judgment based on experience which (like all experience) is limited and partially self-fulfilling.
The trouble, is, so many supporters of immigration actually provide “evidence” or arguments that say the very opposite of what they think they say, not on purpose, but because they don’t address the valid points made by Frank Booth above. Think a little about the so-called “facts” on the website you link to. There are about half a million companies in the UK founded by immigrants, but they provide only about a million jobs. So on average there are 2 jobs per company, which is pretty likely to be the immigrant and spouse! The “evidence” is saying the opposite of what it’s being spun as!
The case studies are exceptions, not the rule! Since they employ more than 2 people, some of the other SME’s are either one-person companies, probably the immigrant only, or else they’re employing people outside of the normal employment system – maybe part-timers, zero-hours contractors, tax dodgers!
So this “evidence” is like lots of other “evidence” – clear interpretation leads to conclusions that are more complex than the spin, and often actually contrary to it! And because it does not address the issues raised so well by Frank Booth, its relevance to the debate is questionable too!
Less than 5% of terrorist attacks committed in Europe (including the UK) are by Muslims. Our far right is far more of a concern that British citizens who happen to be Muslims are.
Also, point to bear in mind Simon, these people you speak of aren’t immigrants. They were born here, they were educated here, they speak English and they had citizenship from birth. They’re no more immigrants than you are.
What I think you actually meant was that they’re brown and not Christian and therefore aren’t “really” British.
Just thought I’d let you know that your mask’s slipping there.
I certainly agree that the far-right can be rather more dangerous than those who are officially regarded as terrorists, and that the question of terrorism is not properly linked to the question of immigration.
Of course many of the official terrorists are themselves far right, including the Taliban and the IS.
My view is that multiple cultures is an essential component of the “British” identity, even of the “English” identity. But people get frightened if they’re insecure, and that’s what a recession does to people.
Richard Dean “some of the other SME’s are either one-person companies, probably the immigrant only”
I think that this is an important point and makes simply counting the number of companies meaningless, not only in the context of immigration but also when talking about economic growth. Many one-man limited companies are simply vehicles which allow individuals to reduce their tax bill and are not remotely entrepreneurial. Indeed, often such contractors are indistinguishable from the “permanent employees” they replace or work alongside.
An immigrant entrepreneur who creates a new SME that employs other immigrants isn’t necessarily doing anything good for the employment prospects of the indigenous population
Of course they are: all those newly-employed immigrants need to be provided with goods and services, which provide employment opportunities for the local population. Who stocks the supermarket shelves from which the successful immigrants buy their food? The local population.
You seem to have bought into the ‘lump of labour’ fallacy.
Rabi Martin misses the current immigration issue which is that there is no control over EU immigration whilst immigration from the Commonwealth and elsewhere is capped.
This means that the entrepreneurs and skilled workers that Rabi welcomes may be blocked from entering the UK because of the numbers of uncontrolled unskilled workers entering from the EU.
@Dav – Are you sure it’s the locals stuffing the shelves at the supermarket, and not those uncontrolled EU immigrants?
@ David Evershed – your logic eludes me. Caps on non-EU immigration of various types have nothing to do with the low-skilled EU migrants, except they have been recently made arguably excessively tight, in part due to the EU over-migration hysteria.
Besides, not nearly all EU citizens coming here are low-skilled. I am a Software Enginner, and I used my Lithuanian citizeship to come here (from the US) – I could use HSMP just as ell, but the EU rules saved me a lot of red tape and some money. Wherever I (or my wife) worked, there were EU citizens, ranging from French to Romanian, and thy were not picking strawberries.
@David Evershed > This means that the entrepreneurs and skilled workers that Rabi welcomes may be blocked from entering the UK because of the numbers of uncontrolled unskilled workers entering from the EU > Your comment pre-supposes that that the immigrants entering from the EU are all unskilled and have no entrepreneurial skills
You could not be more wrong I recently had cause to use the NHS and came across more doctors and consultants from the EU than the commonwealth countries You will also find that an increasing number of service engineers are recent EU immigrants
And you only have to walk down any high street to see how many EU immigrants operate a range of businesses including hair dressers, holistic medical services, retailers, creative arts etc etc It is historical fact that the UK business community has always had a high proportion of immigrants The only change has been the background of these immigrants In the 1960s – 70s- 80s it was primarily Asians In recent years it has been predominantly Europeans So I contend that the general point I make in my orinal article stands
@Frank – there are more migrants in London from the rest of the UK than from abroad (not sure if that applies to the whole South East). Would your solution be to stop internal migration?
To all those who think it would be a good idea to stop EU free movement (which would require re-writing the 1957 Treaty of Rome…), some points to note:
1) The UK is the biggest SOURCE country of EU migrants, ie more Brits go and live in other EU countries than citizens of any other single EU country. Do you imagine that it would be possible for the UK to restrict free movement and for it to have no effect on the 2m+ Brits exercising their right to free movement? That would be awfully naive.
2) The UK is not the EU country with the most free mover migrants (that’s Germany, then Spain). The UK does not even have the highest proportion of population made up of EU free mover migrants (that’s Luxembourg, followed I think by Belgium).
3) Something like half the Brits living in Spain are pensioners. So they’ve never paid tax or social security in Spain, but thanks to EU rules on free movement, they get to use the Spanish healthcare system as locals do. The NHS reimburses some costs, but not all, so Spanish taxpayers are picking up the difference. I am sure that if the UK tried to stop young Spanish people coming here, Spain would say that’s fine, we’ll carry on subsidising your pensioners’ healthcare (or maybe not).
4) There are around 2.3m EU citizens living in the UK (making them around 3.5% of the population) and around 2.2m Brits living in other EU countries. So EU free movement has made a tiny net difference in population. Or put more simply would 100,000 fewer people solve all the problems some of you writing here seem to think EU free movement causes? Doubt that very much.
5) The UK tends to receive young working people as EU migrants while nearly half the UK migrants who go to other EU countries are pensioners. So undoing this would gain what? The UK could end up swapping young healthy working taxpayers for pensioners. Not sure that would be good news for the NHS. There are 40,000 EU doctors working in the NHS (many may have been here for decades like the Greek surgeon who operated on a family member of mine in Leeds), could they be replaced by returning British migrants? Or put more crudely, shall we get British pensioners from the Costas to staff the NHS? I’m sure that will work.
6) And those who falsely believe that British immigrants are somehow special (newspapers even call the 10,000 Brits on the dole in Germany “expats” while calling EU workers in the UK “immigrants”) and miraculously live in another EU country without taking up housing, taking jobs from locals, using public services etc, wake up and smell the coffee, British migrants to other EU countries come in many forms, some are entrepreneurs, some are bar staff, some professionals like teachers, engineers and doctors, some are on the dole, some are pensioners, some are students and some are stay at home parents. If EU citizens in the UK “take” houses or school places from locals or “steal” jobs, then somewhere a British migrant in another EU country will be doing exactly the same.
People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
@Dav
In economic theory you are correct, the two immigrants are providing two-persons-worth of demand. But is that an argument in favour of immigration? In political practice you are wrong, because that is not what the idea of “creating jobs” is intended to convey. In practice it represents what could be interpreted as a lie.
@Dav
In fact, I must correct my previous post – you are wrong in economic theory as well as political practice. If the two-persons-worth of demand is matched by the two-persons-worth of supply, then no jobs are created for anyone else.
I think what really underpins Rabi Martins concerns is the word ‘immigrant’ and the baggage it carries along with the wide interpretations and sweeping statements that people make to support their viewpoint(s), which in turn get twisted to legitimise the views and actions of extremist groups.
The UK does have a year on year migration headache that is fuelling a year on year population growth headache. To any sane person it is obvious that both the level of churn in our population (emigration and immigration) and long-term net imbalance (net immigration) are both undesirable from a stable UK society viewpoint and unsustainable given the additional demands this population growth is placing on the country.
The challenge is (and has been) in keeping the debate around what is a sensible level of immigration and the ways to manage and control the flow (and it’s constituent parts), separate from the more emotive and complex topic of what to do about the ‘immigrants’ already here. Comparing the measured language actually used by Enoch Powell (in his Birmingham speech) with the much more emotive language being used by the current generation of politicians, and knowing what a hornets nest got stirred up as a result of Enoch’s speech, I, like Rabi have my concerns about the potential fallout from all the posturing. However, because it is a difficult path to tread, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t attempt the path, for there is a real risk that the simplistic solutions of the extremists being given credence , which as we know from history carries a very high price.
“Also, point to bear in mind Simon, these people you speak of aren’t immigrants. They were born here, they were educated here, they speak English and they had citizenship from birth. They’re no more immigrants than you are.”
Yes, yes, my mask is slipping. I am a racist a xenophobe. Shame on me, and shame on the portion of the electorate who agree with me.
Let me ask you this, though. Why are people who renounce British citizenship, who reject our values and try to murder us on our streets, British? Even if they are born here?
As the Duke of Wellington said, if I am born in a stable, does that make me a horse?
Simon
“As the Duke of Wellington said, if I am born in a stable, does that make me a horse?”
I’m sure Nigel Farage would kick you out of UKIP for comments like that and rightly so. They are trying to get away from this BNP image some people have of them, but people like you aren’t helping. There are a lot of decent people worried – for many reasons – by immigration, but don’t make the mistake of thinking they agree with people who are just out and out racists.
“There are a lot of decent people worried – for many reasons – by immigration, but don’t make the mistake of thinking they agree with people who are just out and out racists.”
In my opinion nationality has to be earned, it is not a birthright. But the bar is pretty low. Don’t follow another ideology (Islamic State) and don’t seek to murder your fellow Britons for not wishing to live under Sharia.
I appreciate this is “out and out racist” to you Lib Dems, but there you go. 🙂
See you at the hustings, good luck with your campaign for arguing how “British” Islamic State terrorists are because they were born here…
Fifth in the polls? You’ll be lucky to beat the raving loony party with that pitch to the electorate.
Simon
If you campaign at the hustings with the same racist rubbish you post on LDV you will only damage UKIP’s chances. Whether the LibDems beat the raving looney party I care not, but I do know that the vast majority of the british people will not vote for a racists party.
We’ll have to agree to differ, Malc and I’ll take my chance with the electorate.
Answer me this. Are people who participate in the below “British”, whether they were born here or not?
http://gulfnews.com/man-stones-daughter-to-death-in-daesh-video-1.1401881
If so, what does British mean any more? And why is it “racist ” to ask these questions?
And if it is racist, in what sense is racism a pejorative concept any more?
“What irks me most about the ease with which all parties play political football with immigration is the total disregard they all show for the feelings of the generation of immigrants that have helped make the country what it is today”
You’re making the usual Liberal assumption there that those who want less immigration are exclusively white and xenophobic. Yet it’s a curious fact that ethnic minorities and those born outside the UK are themselves much more in favour of reducing immigration than increasing it. According to the following link, 51% of non-white and foreign-born people want immigration reduced, while only 9% want it increased :-
http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/uk-public-opinion-toward-migration-determinants-attitudes
So in fact, quite a lot of that “generation of immigrants” you refer to would be cheering on the anti-immigration rhetoric. Some of them are even in UKIP :-
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/may/13/ukip-black-candidates-ethnic-minority-vote-croydon
What really makes me despair about the immigration debate in this country is the utter phoneyness of it. Not many people on the “anti” side want immigration to cease completely, while equally few on the “pro” side would propose genuinely unrestricted immigration. Most people are ambivalent and just want whatever the optimum level of immigration would be at any given time. So why does the debate always have to be framed in this divisive anti- and pro- way? By doing this, we’re ensuring that the only people whose views are heard are the extremists – the racists on one side, and the equally poisonous “everyone who wants to reduce immigration is a racist” extremists on the other side. Sad to say, there are example of both ways of thinking in the comments above. Even sadder to say, after over fifty years of this rubbish, I’ve long since given up hope that there will ever be an intelligent and reasoned debate on immigration in this country.
The OP paints a picture of decades of UK political leaders pandering to anti-immigrant voters. The truth is that every poll done on this since the 1960s has found that the vast majority of British people want immigration to continue, but to be reduced. Politicians have completely disregarded those views and presided over burgeoning levels of immigration, particularly since the early ’90s. This has caused the resentment that Farage has tapped in to so brilliantly.
Stuart: “So in fact, quite a lot of that “generation of immigrants” you refer to would be cheering on the anti-immigration rhetoric.”
That’s right. I feel it myself. I’m already in – now shut the door!
I had the misfortune of staying in a Travel Lodge, breakfast was in a greasy spoon ‘restaurant’ staff were English and did not care, compare that with the Polish born staff in Zizzi or Premier Inn to see how we have gained by immigration. If you want to go back compare the Bernie Inn burnt steaks with what we got from China or India restaurants.
@Igor
Well, quite. But as another LDV article rightly pointed out yesterday, it’s well known that lots of British ex-pats are of the anti-immigrant type, so it probably shouldn’t surprise us that a lot of our own immigrants are cool on more immigration.
Simon
The video you provide the link for is the stoning of a poor girl in Syria – it’s not britain and the murders are Syrian from what I can gather, so why would I consider them british. I suppose you are trying to link this murder by muslems to the millions of muslems who live peacefully in the UK. Muslems in the UK who are in our armed forces, police force, health service etc and are british through and through. You may as well try and link all LibDem members to Nazi guards at a world war 2 concentration camp – it makes no sense what so ever. We all know there are some bad apples as there are in all groups, and these belong in prison. Why would we take citizenship away from someone in the Islamic Army who beheads a hostage, but allow someone like Ian Brady to keep his? From a personal point of view I would like the death penalty for both of them, but I certainly wouldn’t take citizenship from one and not the other just because of their race or religion.
Peter Hayes,
Believe me, I live in Leicester Indian restaurants a just as capable of dodgy food and awful service as native Brits. To be honest I think denigrating locals to highlight the benefits of immigration is arguably just swapping one form of bigotry for another.
People aren’t asking an end to all immigration or repatriation they just think controls should be a lot tighter and politically as this view is held by around 72% population with a growing tendency to vote outside of the established Parties it might be a good idea to take it on board . The economic arguments are less important than the political and social ones.. The right are on the rise and the main driving force of that rise is mass immigration. Tighter controls would do very little real harm and would dampen some of the potential for serious political upheaval.
“I had the misfortune of staying in a Travel Lodge, breakfast was in a greasy spoon ‘restaurant’ staff were English and did not care, compare that with the Polish born staff in Zizzi or Premier Inn to see how we have gained by immigration.”
(Peter Hayes 21st Oct ’14 – 11:25pm)
No Peter, on the contrary, your example shows what we have lost! We’ve become complacent and taken the easy way out by simply encouraging immigrants to do the jobs that we consider to be beneath us. Unfortunately this isn’t a state of mind that has suddenly developed in the last decade as I remember both the marked contrast between customer service in the UK and the USA in the mid 80’s and people’s attitudes to people working in customer services. So whilst I like you prefer the Zizzi and Premier service, we need to work out how to kick our own population (and that includes second and third generation immigrants) back into a more productive state of mind.
I wonder if Peter Hayes’s experience tells more about LibDems that immigrants. It seems like he’s saying that they’re ok if they serve you well, and not ok if they don’t. An attitude worthy of British colonial times!
Questions that might be more relevant include the following
> whether immigrants take jobs or bargaining power from the indigenous working class?
> whether excessive immigration puts excessive pressure on infrastructure and services like schools or the NHS?
> whether there is a thing called Britishness or even Englishness that might somehow be under threat?
My feeling is Maybe, Yes, and Not really.
For infrastructure and services, one of the issues is perhaps that immigration policy is decided by central government but many of the costs are borne by local government. So, there is a mismatch between power and responsibility, which can lead to various ways that politicians and others can game the system, to the dis-benefit of indigenous people and immigrants alike.
For Britishness I feel there certainly are British values that can be under threat from other cultures, including the headline ones like No to FGM, No to Forced Marriage, the idea of Equality, etc. Britain also has much to learn, but part of the British task is to absorb and change the immigrant if the immigrant has this kind of culture: excessive immigration would likely tend to make this task more difficult.
It’s a good article, but the banks are whooping most areas in society when it comes to promoting immigration and race equality, so there was no need for the banker bashing. When I used to cold-call bankers I remember approximately half of them were foreign and I’ve just got a stat from the Spectator that says 30.5% are from ethnic minorities, compared with 5.4% to the arts. It resonates with what I remember.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/culturehousedaily/2014/02/ethnic-diversity-higher-in-the-city-than-in-the-arts/
@simon
>Answer me this. Are people who participate in the below “British”, whether they were born here or not?
If they’re born here, they’re British – to be British is to be born on British sovereign ground, whether that be England or Diego Garcia. Myra Hindley and Mohammad Sidique Khan, for example, were both British.
>If so, what does British mean any more? And why is it “racist ” to ask these questions?
It means you’re part of a well-established and diverse nation which is now multicultural enough to be experiencing problems from around the world. This is similarly true in most major conurbations on the planet today, the populist political response is isolationism, which usually results in economic decline and that is what you’re promoting. On the flip of this there are many British people from all sorts of origins peacefully co-existing and enjoying each others cultures, for example, Nigel Farage’s family.
It’s not at all racist to ask these questions, but it does suggest you’re not thinking enough for yourself. I can understand why you’re confused, asking about Britishness but promoting an organisation funded by placating the sorts of fascists we fought 2 world wars to stop would confuse anyone.
The immigration question is much more complicated than it is presented to the public, and Rabi is correct to say that politicians are not helping address the real problems. Instead they pursue a paper tiger of setting arbitrary figures and then straining to (fail to) achieve them. This puts enormous pressure on the devisors and implementors of rules and laws. The result of this has been for decades that would-be immigrants – those with what a reasonable person would consider excellent cases – being subjected to years of administrative delay and sometimes actual dishonesty from the authorities. This causes a lot of needless suffering.
A realistic view of immigration must include: some immigration is good in itself for the host country; we have an absolute duty to take in refugees; as a former imperial power speaking a world language and with generally functioning scientific, cultural, legal, commercial and industrial systems we are an attractive place to come to; we are going to end up with more immigrants (legal and illegal) whatever any government does.
The UK is not as whole overcrowded. There are plenty of parts of the UK, including parts of England, which have falling populations now or had in the recent past. There is overcrowding notably in and around London. London is also a major magnet for incomers because of its facilities and richness of ethnic communities – this often provides a new immigrant with contacts, perhaps friends and family, perhaps an easier way to find a job.
So some resources have to be spent on helping communities under pressure, both native and incoming and we need to look again at the imbalance of the London area. The Market puts the pressure on London, but we have to go back to the times of Harold Wilson to find government policies trying to ameliorate that pressure.
Sensible and well expressed comment by Ian Sanderson (RM3) 22nd Oct ’14 – 9:23am.
The only thing I would add is that London, with a higher proportion of immigrants than anywhere else in the UK, is a remarkably tolerant place not just accepting people from all over the world but knowing that we are lucky to have them here.
How dull would London be if it had got stuck in the “jolly cockney” stereotype of films such as Passport to Pimlico ?
Is my memory playing tricks on me or was Nigel Farage a character in that film?
Was he selling black-market waches? Or getting involved in dubious property deals?
So Ian Sanderson,
Your solution to the vastly unpopular issue of mass immigration is to spread it throughout the country!. Plus It’s not just London is it. Go to Boston, Leicester, Birmingham or basically anywhere in the Midlands to South Yorkshire. The reality is that 72% of the population want no more of it and are beginning to vote in a way that could have serious political consequences.
John Tilley
How dull would London be if it had got stuck in the “jolly cockney” stereotype of films such as Passport to Pimlico ?
Well, ok, but that culture has not just got mixed in with others, it has gone. I work in what was once the heartland of Cockney London, and the local population is now almost all non-white. The old Cockney accent is becoming as dead as the old Sussex accent. People living in middle class areas who haven’t seen such a rapid change and whose communities are not so different from how they were decades ago perhaps can’t appreciate what it feels like to have the certainties of the culture around you so completely changed. I do think there is an element of snobbery here – pooh-poohing those who are concerned about the impact of immigration is a sign that you have made it, that you are part of the comfortable middle class whose culture can confidently be assumed to be carrying on, not one of those Cockney plebs or Sussex peasants.
By their very nature, immigrants are likely to be ambitious and go-ahead people, the upper end in ability of the places where they come from. So it is hardly surprising that they are able to out-compete natives here who are at the lower end of ability. So should we dismiss those so out-competed as just lazy and ignorant people who deserve their fate? Some of what is written here seems to me to be doing just this. Not intentionally, sure, but I would ask people to think a bit more carefully about how it might come across to others who are not so fortunate as they are.
@Ian Sanderson (RM3) 22nd Oct ’14 – 9:23am
“Instead they pursue a paper tiger of setting arbitrary figures and then straining to (fail to) achieve them.”
You are absolutely right – this Tory obsession with their “net migration target” is senseless, and I wonder why the LibDems never challeneged it. The thing that amazes me most, is that foreign students are included in this count. They are not real immigrants, they get no automatic right to stay after completion of studies, they pay higher fees than the local students (except those from the EU), they must buy private health insurance – and having them here is strictly business.
@Matthew Huntbach
“I work in what was once the heartland of Cockney London, and the local population is now almost all non-white.”
Should be Polish, I guess.
John Tilley
Remember it was the white working class who endured the Blitz and V1/V2 attacks. If the working class in the industrial parts of cities moral had broken we would have lost WW2. The white working class has always and still is prepared to fight and die for this country while the non-military middle class despises their physical courage and patriotism- Orwell was saying this in the 1940s ( V2 of his letters).
Homes fit for heroes . Even today wounded service personnel ( exclusively from the non-military middle class ) have problems obtaining suitable homes. Basically , if the immigrants were at the back of queue when it came to welfare and state provision, people would not complain. People who have fought for this country and been born here should have preference when it comes to being provided with resources from the state. There should be no extra teaching for immigrant children, if parents have problems with the English language, they can buy grammar books and teach themselves.
What we see today is the result of thousands of years of development , starting with the clearance of the forests. The freedoms we have are the result of common law starting with the Saxons and the various battles we have fought to maintain our liberty . Any immigrant coming to Britain enjoys the fruits of the labour of Britons over thousands of years and do not have to pay for healthcare and education. If one comes from a poor country , the quality of life one enjoys , even if one lives on welfare far exceeds in quality what one has left behind.
Those Cockneys people disdain are descendants of people who built the docks and ran the ports which made Britain a great commercial country.
The rise in UKIP is much to do with the disdain and contempt with which vast swathes of Britain who have a traditional and patriotic view of life by middle class metropolitan Britain who appear to have no experience of industry, agriculture, fishing, commerce, the Armed Forces all while living on below average salaries and using schools and the NHS plus relying on the Police, of inner city Britain.
“this new breed of immigrant” very dodgy wording indeed.
There’s a tendency in these arguments to get bogged down on behalf of or against The white working classes as if only this social group were concerned about immigration. However, wanting tighter immigration controls is actually the norm and cuts right across the social spectrum. The idea of a liberal metropolitan elite is basically a myth. A good proportion of the power elites in Britain are neither liberal or metropolitan. The real problem is that their is a disconnect between what suites the international/world stage and what voters want at a National level. People remain stubbornly tribal even in liberal countries. Voting habits are changing as a reflection of this disconnect.
‘Charlie’ is talking nonsense above. The vast majority of the pink people in this country have never fought for it or for anything. As for his racist connotations re: the ‘working class’, he would appear to have forgotten the considerable waves of immigration into this country prior to World War 2. Back to the Roman times, actually. ‘Charlie’ probably has ‘black’ or ‘brown’ genes in his own genome. Nearly everyone in the UK has. Our Royal Family descend from a group of German aristocrats picked for cynical politico-religious reasons.
I am very proud of the present overwhelmingly-liberal British culture, to which ‘Charlie’ is clearly alien. That does not mean that I accept the laziest form of ‘multiculturalism’ which, if we are not careful, can amount to cultural bullying.
Igor Sagdejev
Should be Polish, I guess
No, that’s more like where I live.
Charlie 22nd Oct ’14 – 3:40pm
As Tony Dawson points out the vast majority of people in his country have never fought for anything.
We are living in the year 2014. To have taken part in the Second World War (which ended in 1945) you would have to be at least 88 years old. The vast majority of us are not that old nor anything like it.
And of those people over the age of 88 the majority did not fight, or are you suggesting that we had an army, navy and airforce numbering more than twenty million?
If you are going to prioritise people today who “have fought for this country” there are a lot of Fijians and Gurkhas, who have been recruited to our army in recent decades who you would have to prioritise before people born in this country.
I am guessing you are not suggesting that?
Most of the “freedoms” enjoyed by people today have been won during the last 150 years. Have you read anything about the English Civil War? Have you read about The Chartists or The Suffragettes or The Trade Unions? Why did any of these people over the last 350 years even bother if we had all these wonderful “freedoms” passed down to us from Saxon times?
Maybe you should retire your Ladybird Book of Kings and Queens or stop listening to racist clap-trap?
Your delusion about the origins of Cockneys (people born within the sound of Bow Bells) is also wide of the mark. For some generations many Cockneys were the descendants of Flemish Weavers. What you would call immigrants. Nowadays many of the people born and brought up within the sound of Bow Bells have grandparents or great grandparents from Bangla Desh. It is however quite possible that during the First World War those great grandparents or grandparents fought for this country. Just check some of those “immigrant sounding” names on the graves of the war dead across Europe.
See my last post is under review. Makes a change. 🙂
Here’s a question for you, my Lib Dem friends. The most recent poll shows a huge poll lead for UKIP in Rochester. It is being desperately spun, but I think you know in your heart of hearts that we are going to win.
More, you know this is the most important by election in decades.
If you lose, what are you going to do about immigration? Were you to achieve office, obviously? Nothing , right? Because this is what I see in the serious press. The line is very much that the voters are wrong, and really nothing can be done, should be done. The legacy parties should carry on regardless.
Now I don’t want to sound negative, but when the people speak (and we all know Rochester AND Clacton AND Heywood were all about immigration) and are ignored, that way trouble lies.
Just saying.
I have deliberately refrained from responding to the comments in the hope somebody would pick up the central point of my article – namely that immigrants even from the EU are good for Britain But I cannot contain myself any longer
So I call the following to my aid :
Firstly the extract from an recent article published in 2013
> People from European Economic Area countries have been the most likely to make a positive contribution, paying about 34% more in taxes than they received in benefits over the 10 years from 2001 to 2011, according to the findings from University College London’s migration research unit. Other immigrants paid about 2% more than they received.
Recent immigrants were 45% less likely to receive state benefits or tax credits than people native to the UK and 3% less likely to live in social housing, says the report written by Professor Christian Dustmann and Dr Tommaso Frattini.
But going back further to 1995, the study found that non-EEA immigrants arriving between that year and 2011 had claimed more in benefits than they paid in taxes, mainly because they had more children than people already living in Britain.
The academics also found that recent immigrants from the EEA – the EU plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – participated more in the labour market.
And if you are still in doubt follow the link below :
http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidnicholson/2014/10/20/xenophobia-is-bad-economics-5-reasons-why-britain-should-welcome-immigration/
Simon
On those occasions that I have visited Rochester and Strood, most of the people I have met have been those who tick the box “White British” on Census and equalities monitoring forms (as I do, incidentally). In the part of London where I work, however, there is a very large minority of people who do not tick that box, and there is also minimal support for UKIP. Even in mono-cultural parts of London like Richmond, there is minimal support for UKIP. Might it be the case that when White British people become familiar with immigrants they lose their fear of them?
UKIP has been great at collaring what I call the Alf Garnet vote: those within the working-class and lower middle-class who genuinely believe that the 1950s were wonderful. Those who are nostalgic for the “good old days” and feel left behind by modernity.
It would be interesting to see what impact UKIP is having among women. Is Mr Farage’s saloon bar philosophising any more appealing to English women than Mr Salmond’s “braveheart” separatism is to their Scottish sisters? At least Mr Carswell stuck to fruit juice.
Sesenco
Have Ukip really won so many euro election and council seats without the support of thousands of votes from women and young people? Don’t underestimate them, they didn’t win Clacton and nearly take Heywood by just attracting middle aged white male voters with “Alf Garnet” views. We are getting ever nearer to a GE and the polls show their share of the vote about double the LibDems – actual election results have shown it to be far higher. I find it hard to believe all those UKIP supporters are white middleaged males. Simon may fall into that category , but there are many more who don’t.
Rabi Martins,
I apologies for adding to the chorus of people who have been side tracking the points you where highlighting. Personally, I don’t doubt that immigrants adds to the economy, but I suspect the arguments are not really driven by economics. It’s more about people seeing their towns and cities changed and maybe the possibility that people are sort of tribal. Here what’s strikes me. When ever I talk to members of my family about travelling they will bemoan expats setting up chip shops or how this or that place has lost or retained its character or congratulate themselves about finding nice places unspoiled by fellow Brits or Americanisation. Why are they not celebrating the cultural diversity of Benidorm and the huge economic benefits of to the local job market delivered by McDonalds.
I’m a liberal, would not vote UKIP if I was paid too, but I do sometimes myself pondering cultural ironies.
@Glenn 22nd Oct ’14 – 11:22am
‘Your solution to the vastly unpopular issue of mass immigration is to spread it throughout the country!. Plus It’s not just London is it. Go to Boston, Leicester, Birmingham or basically anywhere in the Midlands to South Yorkshire.’
I never suggested it was London only. In London and some of the other places you mention there are long-standing communities originating outside the UK who have been established for half a century or more and are well-integrated into the larger society. Some of them may worship in their own way, or speak a different language with some family and friends, but nearly all can socialise, do business with, take part in politics and be educated in English as well as their neighbours who think of themselves as more British. They can be a vital bridge to those recently arrived from their former homeland.
The places I had in mind would have had a much wider range than you listed, but I am aware that badly co-ordinated dispersal policies can be unhelpful.
‘ The reality is that 72% of the population want no more of it and are beginning to vote in a way that could have serious political consequences.’
No, that shouldn’t be the way democratic politics work. It smacks of ‘I am their leader, I must follow them’, which seems to me to be the course that Labour and Tory parties are tending towards. It’s precisely the sort of tendency that brings politicians into contempt.
This party, right in the preamble to its constitution, has different principles. Some people may never accept that and some may be persuaded to vote against us for the moment, but we can not abandon our principles.
People here says we have NO power hence good reason get out of EU and we do have power we can impose restrictions and the treaty that binds that be dammed ITS OUR COUNTRY Not EU’s
Rabi
I’ll also apologise, if I am to be counted among the side-trackers. In mitigation, this whole question, and how as a country we seem to be going in the wrong direction, is something I think a lot about and have been considering an article for LDV for some time. If it comes it would agree with what you said without duplicating it too much.
The “central point” of this article has been challenged by a number of commentators, so I don’t see why Rabi should complain that it hasn’t. What has happened instead is that the challenges have been ignored. This indeed is typical of the British political response, which has been to use immigration as a football rather than address the issues and find solutions in a responsible way.
The article makes the point that immigrants earn money and maybe don’t receive as many benefits as indigenous people. That simply does not equate to “being good for Britain”, particularly if immigrants in jobs is one reason why more indigenous people are indeed on benefits. Immigrants have a number of effects in British life, including the following:
> altering the balance of power between workers and employers,
> changing the indigenous culture in good and bad ways,
> changing how life is in some neighbourhoods,
> increasing pressure on schools, the NHS, the police, housing, the planning system, …
> changing indigenous people’s opportunities for earnings and ownership,
> bringing skills that may fill a gap, but may also encourage employers not to train indigenous workers,
> bringing money in to the UK economy, but also remitting money out of the UK economy
> making the environment more dangerous, in reality sometimes, and in perception often
> removing energetic people from their source countries, possibly damaging those countries.
Any credible defence of immigration needs to address at least some of these issues, as does any credible policy. A focus on money isn’t enough. Personally I don’t have a big issue with immigration, but I do have an issue with those defenders of it whose defence misses the important issues and thereby encourages people to oppose it on mistaken grounds.
Ian,
I live in Leicester and lived in Highfields for years after I went to Leicester University. It’s not about dispersal policies. Communities are formed by people gravitating towards each other and other people moving out. It’s not a sign of integration or progress when you end up with a street of mostly eastern European shops or an entire area full of barbers takeaways and mosques. It’s merely a sign that a lot of Eastern Europeans or Muslims are living there just like the Scottish accent of a lot of people in Corby is the result of lots of Scots moving to Corby. . I’m not knocking either group by the way. Immigration doesn’t really bother me at all. But maybe it should bother politicians that it bothers so many voters.
Democracy in its simplest form is a way delivering representative government. There is nothing binding the electorate to the world view of their elected representatives beyond lending them their vote. When voting habits change, which they plainly are doing, the nature of politics changes whether you want it to or not.
” in the hope somebody would pick up the central point of my article – namely that immigrants even from the EU are good for Britain”
I’m not aware of any here commenter arguing that immigrants haven’t been good for Britian, the argument is more around moving forward as many people recognise you can have too much of a good thing, particularly as the bills are starting to pile up…. So do we really need hundreds of thousands of immigrants arriving each year or can we achieve better results by having significantly lower and more manageable levels of migration?
The key ONS numbers behind the headline net immigration figure of of 212,000 for 2013, are: “526,000 people immigrated to the UK in the year ending December 2013, … whilst 314,000 people emigrated from the UK”. Which gives some context to the positions of the major parties; even if the Conservatives could get net migration down to zero, there would still potentially be circa 300,000 new immigrants arriving each year! among whom we can reasonably expect to be some “would-be immigrant entrepreneurs”. I suggest the challenge will be in trying to increase the number of “would-be immigrant entrepreneurs” among them.
Hence the debate isn’t so much about immigration being good or bad, but in getting the numbers right so that it becomes manageable and sustainable and above all a real long-term benefit to British society. Hence why we do need to lower the temperature of the political debate, but that isn’t going to be achieved by simply waving banners and banging the pro-immigration drum.
Roland
“I’m not aware of any here commenter arguing that immigrants haven’t been good for Britain”
You haven’t been reading the comments by simon or Charlie, then? Come to think of it, I don’t blame you.
Richard, if there were really “indigenous” people in this country, it might make this debate simpler. However, the only people I am aware of who can be truly described as “indigenous” (as per aboriginals in Australia) to Great Britain were the beaker folk/Neanderthals, who were all wiped out by a large ice cube. We are all immigrants or descendants of immigrants – even Celts like me.
@Glenn
The Eastern Europenas mostly concentrate not so much because they want to be with their own (after all, they don’t all come from the same nation, and have their own rivalries), but because these are the places where there are factory jobs, which they can do without knowledge of English, and not enough available labour. the result, however, is the same as Brighton Beach in New York, large swathes of Miami, and, closer to home, parts of Birmingham and Leicester. I was in Boston a couple times , and it made me remember the sad Brighton Beach joke: “why do we need English? we don’t walk out to America!”.
Roland you say —
“….The key ONS numbers behind the headline net immigration figure of of 212,000 for 2013, are: “526,000 people immigrated to the UK in the year ending December 2013, … whilst 314,000 people emigrated from the UK”…”
212,000 would be a lot of people to try and fit into my front room.
But how many hundreds of thousands of people enter and exit a football ground on the average Saturday afternoon?
In that context 212,000 suddenly seems a much smaller number.
Capacity crowds from a few Premiership grounds would easily outnumber your 212,000.
The problem with “big numbers” taken out of any sort of context is that they can be used by unscrupulous people to whip up all sorts of emotional responses and fears of the unknown.
So to answer your question — “… do we really need hundreds of thousands of immigrants….?” I will pose a different question to you —
Do we really need 212,000 home fans at Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford, St James’ Park, White Hart Lane and the Emirates every other week?
NB — If there are any premiership nerds checking the numbers I am making a wild guess at the combined gate for the five grounds mentioned.
Paul Walter
Would the ‘beaker folk’ include Danny Alexander? 🙂
@Paul Walker
That’s just your way of avoiding seeing what many of the electorate feel. It’s incredible how Libdems spend so much effort trying not to see things that matter to voters! Not seeing is a good way into political oblivion, isn’t it?
“You haven’t been reading the comments by simon or Charlie, then? Come to think of it, I don’t blame you.”
Oooh get you. 🙂
You should be grateful for the two of us. You guys live in such a bubble, talking to people who think like you, talking liberal nonsense on here, reading your own views in the media by the commentariat, congratulating yourself on your tolerance and moral superiority to the great, bigoted, unwashed, white working class. The Gillian Duffy’s.
Like the latter and Gordon Brown, we are the closest you will ever get to the views of (some) actual, real world voters outside your latte lapping Guardianista ghetto.
John – talking of taking numbers out of context, in answer to your question: “Do we really need 212,000 home fans at Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford, St James’ Park, White Hart Lane and the Emirates every other week?”
I expect the clubs would rather these fans left after the match and returned to watch the next match rather than simply occupy seats in the interim, this permitting them to maintain the stadium and use it for other things between matches. So given these stadia have the capacity and facilities to support 212,000 home fans for the duration of a match this number of fans is manageable. {Aside: I’m working to the same assumption you made.]
My point was that zero net immigration wasn’t the same as zero immigration and hence supported the point I thought Rabi was making in his article, about the tone of the debate and some of its unintended consequences. In some respects the emotive rhetoric being by the politicians and media about immigration has parallels with the rhetoric they used to denigrate football fans back in the 80’s and so part of the battle the clubs subsequently had was attracting the new fans, particularly families, because the popular impression was that football grounds were unsafe.
Richard
“@Paul Walker
That’s just your way of avoiding seeing what many of the electorate feel. ”
No, it’s not. It’s my way of ensuring that the Queen’s English is not abused.
Malcolm Todd – “You haven’t been reading the comments by simon or Charlie”
Well yes and no! Whilst their views do reflect those current in significant sections of society they aren’t actually calling for zero immigration…
@Paul Walter
Incredible. Is this a general LibDem characteristic, seeing the words but not the meaning? How many of the electorate do you think speak the Queen’s English?
Roland and Malcolm Todd — if either of you can really work out what Charlie is actually trying to say you have the advantage over me. But i can certainly tell that it is racist.
Roland
I can agree with you –“that zero net immigration wasn’t the same as zero immigration”
I can also agree about –“the emotive rhetoric being (used) by politicians and media about immigration has parallels with the rhetoric they used to denigrate football fans ,,,”
Richard
I’m just proud of our language. In my many conversations with voters on the doorstep, only one person used the word “indigenous”. It’s hardly a word you hear down the pub is it?
In a complex policy area, I think it is right to use language accurately. Words contain and convey meaning. That is what they are for. If we make assumptions about what people mean it tends to be a never-ending guessing game. When someone uses the word “indigenous” do they mean the word’s true meaning or do they mean “white”? I don’t know. Many hundreds of thousands of immigrants to this country are white people who are returnee white Britons or white American or white Canadian or white New Zealander or white Australian. Are they included in your use of the word “indigenous”? How can I tell what you mean if you are not, it appears, using the word in its usually accepted sense?
Nowhere have I dismissed concerns about immigration. Indeed I think it is a top priority area and have spent much time, voluntarily, in discussions to prepare our latest immigration policy, which I think is very rounded.
https://www.libdemvoice.org/julian-huppert-mp-writes-lib-dem-immigration-policy-paper-is-strong-balanced-and-compassionate-38293.html
The Queen’s English refers to grammatically correct and coherent written expression in the English language, as recorded in the Oxford dictionary. Given that even words such as “well jel”, “innit” and “reem” are in the Oxford Dictionary, I would say most people in the UK use it, at least in so far as the correct usage of words is concerned anyway. Indeed, you, Richard Dean use the Queens English 99.9999% of the time in your prolific comments here.