Tag Archives: immigration

David Hennigan

Opinion: Is UKIP a threat to community cohesion?

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

ukip-poster-manchesterMuch 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 and | 94 Comments
Giles Goodall

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 and | 22 Comments
Julian Huppert

Julian Huppert MP writes… Improving on the UK Border Agency

By Julian Huppert | 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 and | 10 Comments
Suzanne Fletcher

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 and | 22 Comments
Jonathan Portes

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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Mark Valladares

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
Sam Fisk and Kavya Kaushik

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 and | 46 Comments
Lester Holloway

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 and | 25 Comments
Joe Otten

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
Stephen Tall

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% – On balance, has had a positive effect on Britain
    1% – On balance, has had a negative effect

…

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Posted in LDV Members poll | Also tagged | 16 Comments
Stephen Tall

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

nick cleggToday 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 and | 134 Comments
Caron Lindsay

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 and | 32 Comments
Caron Lindsay

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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Mark Valladares

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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Alasdair Murray

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 | 16 Comments
James Harper

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 | 11 Comments
Stephen Tall

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

UKIP logoConservative 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 , , , and | 51 Comments
Joe Bourke

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
Caron Lindsay

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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Caron Lindsay

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 , , and | 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
Caron Lindsay

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 and | 7 Comments
James Harper

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 and | 5 Comments
Ditch Townsend

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
Alasdair Murray

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 | 7 Comments
Stephen Howse

Opinion: Why aren’t Liberal Democrats complaining loudly about draconian new family immigration rules?

By Stephen Howse | Wed 18th July 2012 - 6:55 pm

It’s not often that I find myself on the same side of an argument as Sayeeda Warsi. It’s even less often that I find myself on the same side when it comes to marriage equality.

I am thankful, however, that the Baroness was in Cabinet to lead the charge – along with Liberal Democrats – against the Home Secretary’s outrageous plans to impose a draconian income threshold (of up to £40,000) on British citizens who wish to bring their spouses to live with them in this country. The Coalition’s harsh immigration cap is hard enough for a Liberal to stomach without …

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 18 Comments
Stephen Tall

Immigration: a supply-side measure to boost growth the Tories fiercely oppose

By Stephen Tall | Wed 18th July 2012 - 8:25 am

I suggested at the weekend that there was one over-riding policy area where the Lib Dems and Conservatives agree more often that we disagree — the economy, and the need for deficit reduction — and that we should focus our combined energies on ‘reforming capitalism’. But of course there are also fundamental disagreements between the two Coalition parties on how best we can boost growth.

The Tories would prioritise implementing in full the ‘Beecroft proposals’ — including no-fault dismissal of employees — to make it easier for businesses to …

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Tom Brake

Tom Brake MP writes… Labour has a lot to apologise for on immigration – it should start with child detention

By Tom Brake | Tue 26th June 2012 - 4:53 pm

On the subject of immigration, Ed Miliband was in apologetic mood this week. And not before time.

Labour has a lot to apologise for on immigration – not just the dog whistle ‘British Jobs for British Workers’ rhetoric and an attitude to the views of ordinary people that resulted in Gordon Brown’s ‘bigoted woman’ slur.

Miliband could apologise for not reintroducing the exit checks abolished by the Tories and allowing our border controls to descend into farce.

He could apologise for wildly underestimating the number of migrants from Eastern Europe when new countries joined the EU.

But if there is one thing Labour really …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 8 Comments
Suzanne Fletcher

New Liberal Democrat group to help seekers of sanctuary

By Suzanne Fletcher | Thu 24th May 2012 - 11:27 am

Liberal Democrats, as a party, have a proud record of standing up for the way our country views and treats with compassion and humanity those who seek sanctuary in our country. This culminated in the ending of the detention of children in the notorious Yarlswood, and the opening of the new pre departure accommodation at Cedars, for those families with children who were sadly being returned to their country of origin.

As well as actions as a party though, there are very many individuals who are both concerned about, and working with and for, asylum seekers in their locality.  This ranges …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 4 Comments
Mark Pack

Official rebukes Iain Duncan Smith over immigration figures (mis)use

By Mark Pack | Wed 25th January 2012 - 7:04 pm

The BBC reports:

The UK’s statistics watchdog has rebuked a minister over his handling of controversial figures on benefits claimed by immigrants.

Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, has written to Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, questioning the way he released the figures almost week ago.

He highlighted that the figures were presented to the public as if they were official figures but in fact had not been through the rigorous and impartial process for publishing such numbers:

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