Has immigration had an overall positive or negative effect on Britain?

MakeEmLaugh

The upcoming UK general election seems to weigh heavily on the question of immigration. Even Labour have said they are going to introduce "controls on immigration", which flies in the face of previous party policy.

Andrew Neather, a former advisor to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, wrote the following in the Londing Evening Standard in 2009:

"...the innocuously labelled "RDS Occasional Paper no. 67", "Migration: an economic and social analysis" focused heavily on the labour market case.

But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.

I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date."

That they have shifted so much says a lot of how the average British voter feels about immigration and the effect it has had on their country.

While most parties - bar UKIP and (occasionally) the Tories - frequently state that the benefits of immigration far outweigh the drawbacks - what do you feel?

Do you feel that immigration has, overall, had a positive effect on Britain?

I personally think, if you weigh it up, it has had a positive effect. Not to say that people don't have the right to raise questions about it, but if we weigh it up, I would fall on the positive side.

BoJack Horseman

Positive.

For Reals

The descendants of German immigrants, such as the Queen, have done very well indeed, and do bring in tourist coin. Her Greek husband seems to do well too.

ancapailldorcha

Positive, definitely. It's been carrying on for years. If only the contributions made by immigrants were actually used for more schools, hospitals, etc...

gallag

It was a good thing, but now there are over 10 times as many coming in than we were historically used to it is hurting the working class and putting pressure on services, some imagration is good, without it we would struggle for health care workers etc but to much is definitely a bad thing, especially people who will be competing with the host working class for jobs causing wage deflation or being unemployed themselves. The solution is simple, an Australian points system and mandatory health insurance for immagrants.

ancapailldorcha

Source? Or are you just going to quote the UKIP manifesto here as well?

gallag

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Source? Or are you just going to quote the UKIP manifesto here as well?

A source for what?

afatbollix

More UK living abroad than EU immigrants in UK.

Spain are getting pissed off with the amount of OAPs retiring to the Spanish coast who are filling up the Spanish hospitals.

Also it is one of the hardest country to get benefits when you arrive. People are literally living on the streets for 3 months before they can even think about getting a bed for the night. Most just go home before the 'Money rolls in' if you call £54 a week rolling it in.

cfuserkildare

Bad thing,

We have been through these circumstances many times throughout history.

How come Islam now has more followers than the RC church in Britain?

Because too many were allowed in.

Very soon there will be no such thing as a National Identity.

Not just my opinion either, Look at why Scotland, Wales and Cornwall want to seperate away from England.

ancapailldorcha

gallag wrote: »

A source for what?

Your claims.

Eugene Norman

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Your claims.

His claims of what?

Generally I see advocationof mass immigration to be an neo-liberal ideology. The left supports it in Britain because it's not really a labour movement anymore.

Positive controlled net immigration can be beneficial, large movements can overcome services and housing.

gallag

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

Your claims.

What claims? Also, do you think it's a good idea that all mods in this forum are aggressively pro EU/Immagration, for example, there is no chance of any of the mod team asking the poster below my post for a source simply because his rant is pro Immagration. There is definitely a bullying/fear environment here for anyone not toeing the pro immagrant/EU line.

NIMAN

Surely all those who think that there should be no controls on immigration are living in cloud cuckooland?

Its fine to let in a controlled amount and try to make sure they can be of some use in terms of ability to work, contribution to society etc, rather than a free-for-all who are going to be a drain on resources?

Is that sounds UKIPish, so be it.

ancapailldorcha

gallag wrote: »

What claims? Also, do you think it's a good idea that all mods in this forum are aggressively pro EU/Immagration, for example, there is no chance of any of the mod team asking the poster below my post for a source simply because his rant is pro Immagration. There is definitely a bullying/fear environment here for anyone not toeing the pro immagrant/EU line.

Being a mod just means enforcing the charter. I've not seen any pro-immigrations rants from any of them. You're still allowed opinions. By all means refuse to present one but that just means I can dismiss your points out of hand.

NIMAN wrote: »

Surely all those who think that there should be no controls on immigration are living in cloud cuckooland?

Its fine to let in a controlled amount and try to make sure they can be of some use in terms of ability to work, contribution to society etc, rather than a free-for-all who are going to be a drain on resources?

Is that sounds UKIPish, so be it.

I'll continue to wait for data. If such existed, Farage would have touted it by now. There are immigration controls in place contrary to what UKIP would have you believe.

ancapailldorcha

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Not just my opinion either, Look at why Scotland, Wales and Cornwall want to seperate away from England.

Or they don't want to be governed by Etonian toffs they didn't vote for.

fly_agaric

One thing that amazes me about immigration debate, UKIP's bleatings etc is the willingness to blame it all on "the EU"/"Brussels etc.
From a distance the most dangerous problem immigration has created in the UK is a new cohort of people who hate the place so much they want to leave to fight in wars abroad or if they stay, blow stuff up and murder people on the street.
This immigration (mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh) has nothing to do with the EU. It was UKs main source of immigrants (other than Ireland of course) until accession states joined the EU and afair the "rest of the world"/outside EU is still a very large source of immigrants to the UK, and almost entirely within the UKs govt.'s gift to control as they see fit. This immigration happened because the entire political system agrees (or agreed?) with it (greed for a cheap exploitable bonus army of labour on the right or a brainless heal the world/post colonial guilt-trip on the left).

edit: I suppose its the same everywhere, we need scapegoats. The EU is the scapegoat of choice for most national politicians in Europe on nearly any issue you can think of.

oscarBravo

NIMAN wrote: »

Surely all those who think that there should be no controls on immigration...

...are a figment of your imagination.

Who in this thread has argued for no controls on immigration?

anvilfour

Why not ask the Anglo-Saxons, Jutes, Danes and Normans?

ancapailldorcha

oscarBravo wrote: »

...are a figment of your imagination.

Who in this thread has argued for no controls on immigration?

Anyone who sees through Nigel Farage's nonsense apparently.

klark_kent

Eugene Norman wrote: »

His claims of what?

Generally I see advocationof mass immigration to be an neo-liberal ideology. The left supports it in Britain because it's not really a labour movement anymore.

Positive controlled net immigration can be beneficial, large movements can overcome services and housing.

the middle class pc liberal left supports it as it doesnt infringe on their economic circumstances , the business class supports it because it drives down wages for unskilled work

no traditional labour person should be in favour of large scale immigration

Peter Anthony

The exit polls seem to indicate the British public don't want Labour Islamifying the country any further than they have. The Guardian readers must be in tears, I expect some sort of protest riot.

Fratton Fred

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Not just my opinion either, Look at why Scotland, Wales and Cornwall want to seperate away from England.

there's a major flaw in your argument. They don't.

Nodin

Peter Anthony wrote: »

The exit polls seem to indicate the British public don't want Labour Islamifying the country any further than they have. The Guardian readers must be in tears, I expect some sort of protest riot.

Care to explain?

cfuserkildare

Fratton Fred wrote: »

there's a major flaw in your argument. They don't.

Ha Ha, I think 56 out of 59 Seats says otherwise!!

Benny_Cake

cfuserkildare wrote: »

Ha Ha, I think 56 out of 59 Seats says otherwise!!

While I think that Scottish independence is probably not a bad thing and will happen, the only measure is a referendum.

Wales and Cornwall have shown no appetite for independence. The Cornish party, Mebyon Kernow, support autonomy, not independence and have no representation above the county council level.

NIMAN

oscarBravo wrote: »

...are a figment of your imagination.

Who in this thread has argued for no controls on immigration?

There are ultra-liberals who would advocate it.

Benny_Cake

NIMAN wrote: »

There are ultra-liberals who would advocate it.

I'd be interested to know who these "ultra-liberals" are. I've never seen the removal of all restrictions supported by anyone.

FreudianSlippers

I think immigration has been neutral for Britain.

I do think that immigration is far too broad of an idea though:

1) intra-EU immigration has certainly been net positive for Britain. I think there are certainly EU citizens taking advantage of the UK's welfare system, but there are adequate EU/English laws in place to deal with these people - they just aren't adequately enforced (just as they aren't in Ireland either).

2) non-EU immigration (developing world) has been net negative for Britain. I really don't believe there is a lot of desire to work, integrate or contribute to Britain in many sectors of non-EU, non-Western immigrants. I don't believe they are overwhelmingly negative, but I would certainly argue that for every 1 that does attempt to genuinely be a positive contributor, there are 2 that don't/aren't - and I believe for EU/Western immigrants, this figure is reversed.

I think that gives the media and those who are xenophobic concerned about immigration levels a lot of ammunition to tar all immigrants with the same brush. If EU immigration was more controlled, I think it would be easier to tackle some of the problem areas vis-a-vis immigration/integration.

Lt J.R. Bell

klark_kent wrote: »

the middle class pc liberal left supports it as it doesnt infringe on their economic circumstances , the business class supports it because it drives down wages for unskilled work

no traditional labour person should be in favour of large scale immigration

Funny enough, in Ireland the same applies

For a Non EU person to live here, they must either have

A work permit
Be a genuine refugee, or humanitarian leave to remain applicant
Member of a family who are EU Citizens

There is little Ireland can do about the EU family laws, and refugee if they are trtruthfull

However, work permit are very hard to get right now. Why? Well, lol, all those jobs that, apparently the Irish were not interested in years back (ie cleaner, hotels, restaurants,) are excluded because you will not convince the deparment that you can't get an Irish person or person from the EU to do the job

Oh, guess what? Many of those middle class jobs, you know, lawyers and accountants, they are excluded from the work permit category.So if John from Nigeria wants to be a lawyer here and had no right to be here, he won't get a work permit. How convenient (naturally there is no shortage, but, those classes would never be on the eligibility list.Mary and Sean wouldn't want to be battling for jobs)

Lt J.R. Bell

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

I think immigration has been neutral for Britain.

I do think that immigration is far too broad of an idea though:

1) intra-EU immigration has certainly been net positive for Britain. I think there are certainly EU citizens taking advantage of the UK's welfare system, but there are adequate EU/English laws in place to deal with these people - they just aren't adequately enforced (just as they aren't in Ireland either).

2) non-EU immigration (developing world) has been net negative for Britain. I really don't believe there is a lot of desire to work, integrate or contribute to Britain in many sectors of non-EU, non-Western immigrants. I don't believe they are overwhelmingly negative, but I would certainly argue that for every 1 that does attempt to genuinely be a positive contributor, there are 2 that don't/aren't - and I believe for EU/Western immigrants, this figure is reversed.

I think that gives the media and those who are xenophobic concerned about immigration levels a lot of ammunition to tar all immigrants with the same brush. If EU immigration was more controlled, I think it would be easier to tackle some of the problem areas vis-a-vis immigration/integration.

EU Law seriously seriously restricts member states efforts to stop the welfare claims. It's very easy to be defined as a "worker". Once you fall into that category, and maintain that status, even if you aren't working, right and access to welfare shall be there, regardless of habitual residency rules.

It's next to impossible to deport a fellow EU citizen

FreudianSlippers

Lt J.R. Bell wrote: »

EU Law seriously seriously restricts member states efforts to stop the welfare claims. It's very easy to be defined as a "worker". Once you fall into that category, and maintain that status, even if you aren't working, right and access to welfare shall be there, regardless of habitual residency rules.

It's next to impossible to deport a fellow EU citizen

It's not as easy to be defined a worker as you'd think.

D.M. Levin v Staatssecretaris van Justitie, C-53/81, 23 March 1982

The rules on the free movement of workers cover only the pursuit of effective and genuine activities. Activities which are regarded as purely marginal and ancillary are excluded.

Steven Malcolm Brown v The Secretary of State for Scotland, C-197/86, 21 June 1988

A worker is a person who pursues an activity which is effective and genuine, with the exclusion of activities on such a small scale as to be regarded as purely marginal and ancillary. The essential characteristic of the employment relationship is that for a certain period of time a person performs services for and under the direction of another person in return for which he/she receives remuneration. Union law does not impose any additional conditions for a person to be a worker. Member States cannot unilaterally make the grant of social advantages, as mentioned in Union law, conditional upon the completion of a given period of occupational activity.
A grant awarded for maintenance and for training with a view to the pursuit of university studies, leading to a professional qualification constitutes a social advantage within the meaning of Union law. A national of another Member State who has undertaken university studies in the host State leading to a professional qualification, after having engaged in occupational activity in that State, must be regarded as having kept his/her status as a worker, provided that there is a link between the previous occupational activity and the studies. If it is established that the worker has acquired his/her status exclusively as a result of being accepted for admission to university to undertake the studies, this national will not be entitled to a grant for studies in another Member State.

The Queen v Immigration Appeal Tribunal, ex parte Gustaff Desiderius Antonissen, C-292/89, 26 February 1991

The free movement of workers includes the right for nationals of Member States to seek employment in another Member State. However, this can be subject to temporal limitation. After six months, the person may be required to leave the Member State, unless he/she provides evidence that he/she is continuing to seek employment and that he/she has genuine a chance of finding employment.

I will agree that the bar is quite low, but the argument being that people are coming over and going straight on welfare without ever working isn't necessarily accurate.