The United Kingdom Elections 2010

[Furunculus]

Indeed, it's one thing to come looking for a better life for yourself & your family but there is (for me) a minimum of tolerance to local customs and laws which behoves an immigrant. Ironically, people who support Islam4UK and other groups which want to impose a different order on the UK are usually second generation immigrants, i.e. British.

Immigration policy isn't what determines how immigrants adapt to a new home and how well or not they integrate. There are much broader social and identity issues, its certainly not at all just down to the newcomers themselves. People are scared of what they don't understand and aren't used to.

maybe that's because we have supported and encouraged those multi-cultural ghettoes?

ditto.

[al Roumi]

maybe that's because we have supported and encouraged those multi-cultural ghettoes?

Uh? I think you mean uni-cultural ghettos.

Ghetto-isation is a bigger issue than simply with reference to ethnic or other groups. It's a much bigger problem in terms of segregation of wealth and class. In seeking to avoid it, you are also fighting against a simple urge that people have to be near people like them; be it their family or people of the same culture, same religion or same social class.

[Beskar]

Furunculus, you didn't comment at how the basics such as immigrants being unable to vote (as British Citizenship doesn't grow on trees) somehow translates into Labour votes in the Torygraph.

[Furunculus]

Uh? I think you mean uni-cultural ghettos.

Ghetto-isation is a bigger issue than simply with reference to ethnic or other groups. It's a much bigger problem in terms of segregation of wealth and class. In seeking to avoid it, you are also fighting against a simple urge that people have to be near people like them; be it their family or people of the same culture, same religion or same social class.

the ghetto might be uni-cultural, but its existence stems from multi-culturalism.

the point is to operate an immigration policy at a level so minimal that natural dispersal and assimilation occurs, i.e. by the time the second bangladeshi arrives on the street the first one is already a happy and accepted brit within his community. if ten arrive at once and start demanding a mosque the locals are going to get spooked; their community is being changed from the happy comfort zone of familiarity, and it their happiness and welfare that i look to first.

Furunculus, you didn't comment at how the basics such as immigrants being unable to vote (as British Citizenship doesn't grow on trees) somehow translates into Labour votes in the Torygraph.

no, no i didn't.

but at the time this was happening, there were no strict controls regarding citizenship and immigrants, and we were facing a policy of repeated mass amnesties for illegal immigrants whilst stricter policies were put in place.

against that backdrop the anodyne mention of immigrants voting labour from the article i linked; "Voting trends indicate that migrants and their descendants are much more likely to vote Labour." was both pertinent and accurate.

[Beskar]

against that backdrop the anodyne mention of immigrants voting labour from the article i linked; "Voting trends indicate that migrants and their descendants are much more likely to vote Labour." was both pertinent and accurate.

Have they attempted to account for why this is the case? Is it because immigrants are generally poorer backgrounds than the typical Eton silver-spooned tory who would want to institute more ploicies which shifts more burden from the rich (who can pay) to the poor (who can't pay) ?

[Furunculus]

Have they attempted to account for why this is the case? Is it because immigrants are generally poorer backgrounds than the typical Eton silver-spooned tory who would want to institute more ploicies which shifts more burden from the rich (who can pay) to the poor (who can't pay) ?

i don't care why immigrants might choose to vote labour, what is disgusting is that labour chose deliberately to engage in social engineering (for whatever) reason. labour are the servants of the people, not mad scientists in charge of a fun laboratory.

That's just not how the world works. Immigration is (or should be) linked to economic opportunity and the availability of jobs. Your "1 Bangladeshi at a time" is devoid of a relation to real reasons for why immigration happens and is instead driven by a personal intolerance.

You would be happier with the French system of "we are all equal as the same" than the British "we are all equal as individuals". You should emigrate to France. LOL

no, immigration should be permitted for the good of the nation, and thus the inhabitents of that nation, asylum accepted.

i don't understand the second part.........?

[al Roumi]

the ghetto might be uni-cultural, but its existence stems from multi-culturalism.

the point is to operate an immigration policy at a level so minimal that natural dispersal and assimilation occurs, i.e. by the time the second bangladeshi arrives on the street the first one is already a happy and accepted brit within his community. if ten arrive at once and start demanding a mosque the locals are going to get spooked; their community is being changed from the happy comfort zone of familiarity, and it their happiness and welfare that i look to first.

That's just not how the world works. Immigration is (or should be) linked to economic opportunity and the availability of jobs. Your "1 Bangladeshi at a time" is devoid of a relation to real reasons for why immigration happens and is instead driven by a personal intolerance.

You would be happier with the French system of "we are all equal as the same" than the British "we are all equal as individuals". You should emigrate to France. LOL

[Louis VI the Fat]

Me, I'm not impressed.


Just about all Western countries have seen a massive increase in immigration in the past decade or so. Many under rightwing governments. All but one, not under New Labour.

I see no reason to qualify it as 'social engineering'. Save, of course, to fit the Torygraph/ Daily Mail practise of fueling constant outrage. To reinforce their tiresomely repeated notion that Labour is about leftist, Orwellian, big government, intrusive, nanny-state politics - and all that in perfect secrecy too.

Not only would all policy be 'social engineering' by this standard: housing, education, employment. I bet there are reports about the effects of policy choices in these fileds as well). But one wonders what the Torygraph makes of the simultaneous rise in immigration under George Bush. Social engineering too?

What is written in that report are pretty much the standard considerations of immigration policy, as they were espoused a decade ago. You can read the same everywhere else. What is behind the report are commonplace social taboos, 'reasoning towards' the manifold benefits of immigration, trying to fins a justification for mass immigration, etc.

It was written in the atmosphere of a decade ago, when any opposition to mass immigration was deemed 'racist', and mainstream thought - whether academia, the media or politics - didn't dare touch with a ten foot pole what a lot of people were already thinking.
It was the time when statistics agencies thought it should be their task to massage the numbers to downplay immigration and demographic developments. When it was next to impossible to get any numbers concerning crime, education, healthcare and immigration - and even if some did trickle down, any criticism based on them was matter-of-factly dismissed as first, false, secondly, hard-right scaremongering, and thirdly, as not conducive to a climate that would help integrate communities.

My verdict is: no social engineering, just standard policy, and nothing particular about Labour either. (Not that I even remotely approve of the report, mind)


...having said all that - anybody seen a copy yet of that report that I just bluffed five paragraphs about? My Google-fu fails me...

[InsaneApache]

Try googling Andrew Neather.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Try googling Andrew Neather.

Okay.

Somehow this has become distorted by excitable rightwing newspaper columnists into being a 'plot' to make Britain multicultural. There was no plot.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A former Labour adviser at the centre of claims that the government secretly encouraged mass immigration to turn Britain into a "truly multicultural society" and undermine the Tories today made clear "there was no such plot".

The shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, challenged ministers in the Commons today over remarks by Andrew Neather, a former speechwriter to Tony Blair and special adviser to Barbara Roche when she was immigration minister.
But Neather, now comment editor of the London Evening Standard, said an article he wrote in the aftermath of the television appearance of the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, had been twisted out of all recognition.

"There was no plot," said Neather. He pinpointed a shift in immigration policy in 2001, when he wrote a speech for Roche outlining changes to make it easier for skilled workers to come to the UK. The speech followed a sensitive report on migration from the Downing Street performance and innovation unit.
"Multiculturalism was not the primary point of the report or the speech. The main goal was to allow in more migrant workers at a point when – hard as it is to imagine now – the booming economy was running up against skills shortages," Neather wrote in the Standard.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/oc...andrew-neather

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Me, I'm not impressed.


Just about all Western countries have seen a massive increase in immigration in the past decade or so. Many under rightwing governments. All but one, not under New Labour.

I see no reason to qualify it as 'social engineering'. Save, of course, to fit the Torygraph/ Daily Mail practise of fueling constant outrage. To reinforce their tiresomely repeated notion that Labour is about leftist, Orwellian, big government, intrusive, nanny-state politics - and all that in perfect secrecy too.

Not only would all policy be 'social engineering' by this standard: housing, education, employment. I bet there are reports about the effects of policy choices in these fileds as well). But one wonders what the Torygraph makes of the simultaneous rise in immigration under George Bush. Social engineering too?

What is written in that report are pretty much the standard considerations of immigration policy, as they were espoused a decade ago. You can read the same everywhere else. What is behind the report are commonplace social taboos, 'reasoning towards' the manifold benefits of immigration, trying to fins a justification for mass immigration, etc.

It was written in the atmosphere of a decade ago, when any opposition to mass immigration was deemed 'racist', and mainstream thought - whether academia, the media or politics - didn't dare touch with a ten foot pole what a lot of people were already thinking.
It was the time when statistics agencies thought it should be their task to massage the numbers to downplay immigration and demographic developments. When it was next to impossible to get any numbers concerning crime, education, healthcare and immigration - and even if some did trickle down, any criticism based on them was matter-of-factly dismissed as first, false, secondly, hard-right scaremongering, and thirdly, as not conducive to a climate that would help integrate communities.

My verdict is: no social engineering, just standard policy, and nothing particular about Labour either. (Not that I even remotely approve of the report, mind)


...having said all that - anybody seen a copy yet of that report that I just bluffed five paragraphs about? My Google-fu fails me...

I've seen excerpts, said report contains the phrase "social objectives" repeatedly.

I don't mind immigration in principle, but the country is crowded and Labour is trying to prevent a fall in population (that we need) by importing people. Worse, we have never had a labour shortage because there have always been more people out of work than there are jobs going. So what Labour has basically done is import social problems, when we already had enough of our own.

Immigration also depresses wages, which has further hurt the British working class.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I've seen excerpts, said report contains the phrase "social objectives" repeatedly.

I don't mind immigration in principle, but the country is crowded and Labour is trying to prevent a fall in population (that we need) by importing people. Worse, we have never had a labour shortage because there have always been more people out of work than there are jobs going. So what Labour has basically done is import social problems, when we already had enough of our own.

Immigration also depresses wages, which has further hurt the British working class.

Mass immigration is not a Labour invention, never mind New Labour. The UK pixel perfectly follows the pattern of the whole of Western Europe, and even North America and Oceania.

Mass immigration in Europe started in the 1960s, at the behest of...the right. Amidst fierce protests from the left and the unions that this would undermine wages and the negatioting power of the workers.

[al Roumi]

I don't mind immigration in principle, but the country is crowded and Labour is trying to prevent a fall in population (that we need) by importing people. Worse, we have never had a labour shortage because there have always been more people out of work than there are jobs going. So what Labour has basically done is import social problems, when we already had enough of our own.

That is a fantastic misunderstanding of how the economy of a country works and its relation to employment and immigration.

Immigration also depresses wages, which has further hurt the British working class.

True, people ready to work for less does keep wages down and does affect those also competing for the same jobs as those the immigrants take. But, this is a good thing for businesses (more profit) and encourages the overall economic growth of the country. It was an important contributing factor to the UK economy's good performance (until the recession) accross sectors involving low/unskilled manual work: e.g. farming & manufacturing.

Unemployment is a figure which is usually best kept at around 5% for an economy to run well. If unemployment goes below 5% and starts approaching zero, there is a chronic inflation of wages -initially good for those working the under-resourced jobs, but crippling for the companies on whom those very same employees depend for a job.

That's a very broad generalisation, what you also get is particular industry sectors which require particular skills. A local population may not be able to provide adequate coverage for the demand of these sectors, in rich western countries it is often the more menial jobs which are left understaffed and it is to do these jobs that the locals don't want to do that migrants come.

To give you an example from the UK: A few years ago the agricultural industry was particularily badly under-staffed, British people were not doing such jobs for what ever reason -e.g. its hard work, boring, repetitive and uncomfortable (cold, wet, unsociable hours). After their accession to the EU and access to non-Schengen countries (of which the UK is one), Poles came over in droves and were happy to do such jobs for what was a comparatively high Polish wage. British businesses profited from a willing and hardworking workforce. Now that the British economy is in recession and Poland's is in comparatively better nick than before, many Poles have gone back to Poland.

The new points based system for immigration to the UK is designed to favour the UK's need for particular skills at a given time. The system the UK's is based on, the Australian, is well known to have encouraged the emigration to Australia of that key group of skilled workers: Hairdressers, as they were particularily lacking. It's also worth being aware of the crippling effect of this "brain drain" (a term perhaps not best suited to Hairdressing) and how elites from poorer countries are siphoned off by countries better able to pay wages for rarer skills.

[Fragony]

How much of this is credible, knowing where it's coming from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ltural-UK.html

[Furunculus]

How much of this is credible, knowing where it's coming from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ltural-UK.html

i imagine this part is 100% word for word accurate, given that it is unredacted transcription of the offending document:

The highlighted text below was contained in the original draft of the document drawn up in 2000 for a discussion on immigration policy - but deleted from the version published in 2001.


1) The emerging consensus, in both the UK and the rest of the EU, is that we need a new analytical framework for thinking about migration policy if we are to maximise the contribution of migration to the Government's economic and social objectives.

2) Indeed, over the medium to longer term, migration pressures will intensify in Europe as a result of demographic changes. But this should not be viewed as a negative - to the extent that migration is driven by market forces, it is likely to be economically beneficial. On the other hand, trying to halt of reverse market-driven migration will be very difficult (perhaps impossible) and economically damaging.

3) Chapter 4, focusing on the Government's aim to regulate migration to the UK in the interests of social stability and economic growth, argues that it is clearly correct that the Government has both economic and social objectives for migration policy.

4) The more general social impact of migration is very difficult to assess. Benefits include a widening of consumer choice and significant cultural contributions. These in turn feed into wider economic benefits.

5) In practice, entry controls can contribute to social exclusion, and there are a number of areas where policy could further enhance migrants' economic and social contribution in line with the Government's overall objectives.

6) It is clear that migration policy has both social and economic impacts and should be designed to contribute to the government's overall objectives on both counts. The current position is a considerable advance on the previously existing situation, when the aim of immigration policy was, or appeared to be, to reduce primary immigration to the 'irreducible minimum' - an objective with no economic or social justification.

[Fragony]

i imagine this part is 100% word for word accurate, given that it is unredacted transcription of the offending document:

My understanding of English isn't subtle enough to really read that, that is hard enough as it is in Dutch. If half of it is true I expect a rain of FragonyIamsosorry's.

[Subotan]

Immigration increases the size of the labour force. Claiming that it harms the economy is as silly as claiming that population growth hurts the economy.

[Louis VI the Fat]

i imagine this part is 100% word for word accurate, given that it is unredacted transcription of the offending document:

The highlighted text below was contained in the original draft of the document drawn up in 2000 for a discussion on immigration policy - but deleted from the version published in 2001.


1) The emerging consensus, in both the UK and the rest of the EU, is that we need a new analytical framework for thinking about migration policy if we are to maximise the contribution of migration to the Government's economic and social objectives.

2) Indeed, over the medium to longer term, migration pressures will intensify in Europe as a result of demographic changes. But this should not be viewed as a negative - to the extent that migration is driven by market forces, it is likely to be economically beneficial. On the other hand, trying to halt of reverse market-driven migration will be very difficult (perhaps impossible) and economically damaging.

3) Chapter 4, focusing on the Government's aim to regulate migration to the UK in the interests of social stability and economic growth, argues that it is clearly correct that the Government has both economic and social objectives for migration policy.

4) The more general social impact of migration is very difficult to assess. Benefits include a widening of consumer choice and significant cultural contributions. These in turn feed into wider economic benefits.

5) In practice, entry controls can contribute to social exclusion, and there are a number of areas where policy could further enhance migrants' economic and social contribution in line with the Government's overall objectives.

6) It is clear that migration policy has both social and economic impacts and should be designed to contribute to the government's overall objectives on both counts. The current position is a considerable advance on the previously existing situation, when the aim of immigration policy was, or appeared to be, to reduce primary immigration to the 'irreducible minimum' - an objective with no economic or social justification.

Thanks.

This shows that indeed this has become distorted by excitable rightwing newspaper columnists into being a 'plot' to make Britain multicultural. There was no plot.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

That is a fantastic misunderstanding of how the economy of a country works and its relation to employment and immigration.

One of the cleverest ways of winning an argument is to define the terms of an argument. By importing cheap Labour you A: keep wages low and B: further reduce the value of the jobs the migrants do.

If a sector is under-represented the system will right itself, in the medieval period during labour shortages women were allowed to fill the gap. Right now "menial" jobs are allowed to remain menial with wages that keep people bellow the poverty line, and no respect because, "those are jobs for immigrants".

[al Roumi]

One of the cleverest ways of winning an argument is to define the terms of an argument.

No, that should be the starting point of any proper discussion. I am not "trying to win an argument" I'm trying to better inform you about this issue.

By importing cheap Labour you A: keep wages low and B: further reduce the value of the jobs the migrants do.

If a sector is under-represented the system will right itself, in the medieval period during labour shortages women were allowed to fill the gap. Right now "menial" jobs are allowed to remain menial with wages that keep people bellow the poverty line, and no respect because, "those are jobs for immigrants".

Again, no:

Menial jobs are just that because they require little training to do. People from rich western societies generally have access to better jobs through education, this and other factors allow them greater choice to pick and choose their employment. This naturaly skews the job market leaving gaps in hard/unpleasant/less interesting/poorly paid areas of work. In response to this low take-up of hard/unpleasant jobs, many would-be employers react by raising the wage and hence the appeal of a job, e.g. this is why bin-men are paid better than one might expect.

There will always be a requirement for jobs that are unpleasant,menial or undesirable in another way. These are the jobs that offer an opportunity to people who are looking for one. It just so happens that migrants are usually those more desperate for any opportunity.

Finally, there is absolutely no conspiracy to keep people thick and poor -which you seem to hint at. Never mind its social consequences and immorality, such an agenda would be a massive dis-service to the Uk's economy. If any party were to have such a policy, Labour (for all their failings and unfullfilled promises) would not be it.