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This seems to be a massive problem for a significant minority of people. The right and far-right make a lot of hay out of this issue. Why's is it such a problem?
Racism, fear of others, constant right wing propaganda, they are scapegoats
Others. Always an easy target to strike fear into those "like us". It's just tribalism but given we are at heart social animals we need to look after our tribe.
Just a scaled up version hoping to say we are one and they are not. So vote for us to stay like us.
It's not immigration that's the problem, it's that immigrants are foreign. A whole load of Xenophobes voted for Brexit on the promise it would put a stop to it. It hasn't.
I work with asylum seekers every day and 99% of the people are just wanting to start a new life, job etc. Unfortunately we only seem to hear the negative press about the 1% from the usual rags that pass as "newspapers".
Social media and misinformation being so rampant only fuel the fire with the hatred.
fatmountain
Free Member
This seems to be a massive problem for a significant minority of people. The right and far-right make a lot of hay out of this issue. Why’s is it such a problem?
Fear of the "unknown" and someone to blame for aspects of their life that haven't gone how they planned.
Many is the night I've woken up terrified of the the coming day over the huge negative effects of immigration on my life.
Their lives aren't what they want them to be, for whatever reason, so it's a convenient group of people to blame.
They see pressure on local services - schools, doctors - and blame the immigrants rather than the lack of investment in services.
They've come from environments that don't have much positive exposure to people from different cultures.
Fear of the unknown.
Lack of opportunities to travel to see other countries and people.
Lots of reasons.
They're against it because that's what they've been told to be.
Fear of the “unknown” and someone to blame for aspects of their life that haven’t gone how they planned.
Often stoked up for political reasons by unscrupulous politicians. Now seems a common part of the would be autocrats playbook.
Always slightly freaked me out when I meet people who are thoroughly supportive of the lovely people born elsewhere in the world that look after their relatives, serve them in restaurants, build their houses, run the companies they work for or operate on their gall bladders whilst still clinging on to the idea that the world would be a better place if immigrants in general were prevented from entering the UK.
Which begs the question, if the anti immigration parties were successful in preventing immigration, leaving aside the imminent collapse of higher education, the health service, food production, tourism etc. etc., who would they then seek to blame? Early evidence seems to suggest young people.
Actually I suspect that many of you are just taking the easy way out with your comments or are falling for the trendy propaganda. My objection?
Too many bloody people in the country. We are building on farmland, spending a fortune on roads etc. Screwing the nice places by over crowding. We are full!
I don't care a stuff where the people come from all I want is there to be less coming in than go out and ideally they should be productive and hardworking to allow us to look after those we have. I know many an immigrant who I would rather have in the country than some of the lazy spongers, born and bred here, I meet on a daily basis.
This view is not uncommon and is spread through the generations and "classes" for lack of a better word.
Of course the spiteful, hypocritical and selfish political voice of many of the STW members won't accept another persons opinion.
Most people who are against immigration are not racist. Most immigrants do not want more immigration.
Why?
Where does it end? We have enough problems to deal with first.
Partly because immigration tends to affect specific areas a lot more than others and if that is your family neighbourhood that can be difficult to deal with, one man's vibrant multic cultural neighbourhood is another's death knell of the historic culture. It can also put disporportionate pressure on local services. Immigration does have it's issues.
However mostly racism and and an easy target to blame for their own lack of perceived success in life. Generally the problem is not immigration, its the fact we dont help people to settle and interact with existing communities.
Also worth remembering that to some people, if you're skin colour is "wrong" it doesn't matter how many generations they're family have lived here, they are immigrants and always will be.
That's the kind of mentality you are against in some and I don't see it ever being overcome in people as radicalised as that.
Without immigrants we have a real issue with an aging population and not enough folk to work to provide for them. Immigrants put more into the economy and take less out that the average citizen. We are not that crowded a country.
Immigration soles problems not creates them
Yet, it’s that aging population that has us where we are… it is older people in the main that are motivated to vote for the promise of fewer immigrants. And our demographics mean that it is older people whose votes count more, not just because of their numbers, but because of the seats they live in.
It's not all about economics, what about social cohesion?
I think mattsccm explains the "practical" aspects of the concerns very well - whether the pressure on resources is due to the number of immigrants adding to "homegrown" pressure on resources or a complete failure of long term planning by successive governments is another matter.
That is the appeal of the political and press portrayal of immigration, not just the "they're different/foreign" that is the knee jerk woke-erati opinion, but that "they" are taking "our" resources.
The fact that immigrants contribute more to the economy than they take out, fill jobs that native British people don't want to do or are not trained to do are facts that don't suit the narrative.
:popcorn:
Too many bloody people in the country. We are building on farmland, spending a fortune on roads etc. Screwing the nice places by over crowding. We are full!
i hear this rhetoric a lot round here, but the symptoms of being ‘full’ that people complain about like poor access to doctors, schools, shit busy roads, are actually just a result of massive underfunding.
It’s not all about economics, what about social cohesion?
Whats that got to do with immigration? Immigration makes us richer, richer countries with good social policies are happier. Again immigration is not the issue.
The UK is a nation of immigrants. Despite tracing my family back to the 1600s in the UK my genetics clearly show I am not an ancient briton. I am descended from immigrants
Locally it's a lack of housing that's the main issue (thinking of immigration in its widest sense). That can also be seen as a lack of funding but there is also a desire not to see everywhere built over.
I wonder what direction this thread would take over on Pistonheads?
They’re against it because that’s what they’ve been told to be.
That's the best answer imo.
If people are repeatedly told that "inflation" is a problem they will claim it is a problem, if people are repeatedly told that "the deficit" is a problem they will claim it is a problem, and so on.
Too many bloody people in the country. We are building on farmland, spending a fortune on roads etc. Screwing the nice places by over crowding. We are full!
I can see this might be what people might think they think. But why are these people not also equally vocal about reducing birth rates of those that already live here? It's another perfectly valid cause of population growth.
Most immigrants do not want more immigration.
This is also oddly true. Two of the people in my social circle that are most vocally anti immigration (OK - it's a skewed subset as I'm not big on being buddies with racists) are a first generation and a 2nd generation immigrant. I've always found it a bit weird.
Personally - when I hear what some of these people have been through to get here even if they are purely economic migrants, I normally think "Now that's sounds like the sort of person with enough about them I'd like to have as a neighbour".
Immigration soles problems not creates them
It does both and to suggest otherwise is no better than the people who just focus on the downsides. Generally immigration does have a net benefit to the UK but That's not everybodies personal experience.
Whats that got to do with immigration?
Don't be deliberately obtuse.
Is this discussion about legal or illegal immigration?
The UK is a nation of immigrants.
So are all nations outside Africa.
I don’t see myself as anti immigrant within the current political debate. I’m not racist or xenophobic. I’m close to the changing face of Britain and not unhappy with the changes
But
I’m also aware that my staggeringly high standards of living is dependent on control of our borders
So i think the question of whether one is anti or pro immigration is actually far more nuanced than the debate we have here
Quote
We are building on farmland
Quote
That’s where my house was built. Wasn’t yours?
Rabid lefties out in force, unable to comprehend another viewpoint or even look at the evidence.
Locally it’s a lack of housing that’s the main issue (thinking of immigration in its widest sense).
That's an interesting comment as it immediately made me think of the housing issues for young people in Cornwall.
Cornwall, pro Brexit etc but it's widely known that the lack of affordable housing is largely due to rich second home owners from the SE driving up prices and driving down housing stock quantity.
I think the issue is "complex" and if immigration is an issue, it is only one of many.
Agree with comments re sections of the media, some politicians, etc, ...
In addition the impact tends to be focused on poorer areas with less jobs, lower pay and a failure by Govt to invest in local services. Crewe being a case in point where, when TB and GB opened the floodgates to eastern Europeans because they wanted the rapid (positive) economic impact. As allowed by the EU at the time, other countries were slower in allowing so many in. The impact on Crewe was the rapid overwhelming of local services, with some schools ending up with a majority on non-english speaking pupils which took a huge amount of attention away from existing pupils and issues. Other areas of community life were similarly impacted. Don't know how the rest of us would respond to what we were used to for 20 years was turned on its head in 12-24 months .. .. threatened, ignored, frustrated, worried for your kids future, ....
BGs infamous response (though don't think he was in Crewe at the time) was 'Bigots' when that lady with genuine worries pushed him on these points.
What I think it actually demonstrated was his remoteness and total lack of understanding of the rapid impact of his policies. That or he knew there'd be issues but there was a bigger win so he played the race/bigot card to distance himself.
Do I think the current lot would do any better, probably not.
@cerrado-tu-ruido
Full Member
Rabid lefties out in force, unable to comprehend another viewpoint or even look at the evidence.
Post the evidence and see what people say?
But why are these people not also equally vocal about reducing birth rates of those that already live here? It’s another perfectly valid cause of population growth.
The UK population is not growing because of domestic births. The UK fertility rate is 1.49 live births per woman. The "replacement rate" is 2.2 live births per woman. Like (practically?) all industrialised countries in which women are heavily engaged in the labour force, without migration the domestic population would age and shrink.
Post the evidence and see what people say?
Have a look around Europe and see what parties people are voting for.
That’s an interesting comment as it immediately made me think of the housing issues for young people in Cornwall.
Which is why I made the comment about using a broad definition of immigration 😉
The UK population is not growing because of domestic births.
Not now, but for however many millenia up until Brexit it was.
Have a look around Europe and see what parties people are voting for.
Still waiting for that evidence.
The UK population is not growing because of domestic births
I actually knew that, so maybe didn't put it carefully enough. Over the course of a generation the incumbents efforts to self renew will add 50 odd million newbies to the electoral role. Our reluctance to die and fall off the other end of the conveyor belt is also not helping either. Carving 5 or 10 million off that number would certainly help the situation if your sole aim was to reduce the top line total population number.
@cerrado-tu-ruido
Full Member
Post the evidence and see what people say?Have a look around Europe and see what parties people are voting for.
Anecdotes aren't evidence, where is your evidence? You want it to be considered, fine, simply post it?
Rabid lefties out in force, unable to comprehend another viewpoint or even look at the evidence.
Lets see the evidence then? I understand your viewpoint, its just not in accordance with the evidence I have seen
Most of us are a mix of german, french and danish. anglo saxon? Angles from n Denmark, Saxons from Germany. Much of our "aristocracy" is French. The royal family are german
Personally I am a mix of French, German, Danish and for some weird reason Sami
Sometimes it's best to err on the side of caution because there's no going back. People are so blind to where this is heading. Immigration doesn't affect you but does that apply to everyone? Overall immigration has had a positive affect but where does it end? Do you want a completely open border?
Stop comparing the thousands of years of immigration to what's happened recently, not even remotely comparable.
Immigration solves problems not creates them
the impact tends to be focused on poorer areas with less jobs, lower pay and a failure by Govt to invest in local services.
TJ's statement is overly rosy. It is simply denialism to say that immigration doesn't create some problems that need to be solved. That doesnt mean on balance that immigration (and for that matter emigration) can't be a net benefit for the country or economy.
The biggest problem is that generally speaking immigration doesn't happen neatly or tidily spread across the economy or the country as a whole. Those pressures and dilemmas get felt in particular towns (like Crewe or places in Lincolnshire), some of which are pretty fragile to begin with. Immigrants (and especially asylum seekers, and non-EU immigrants) come disproportionately to London, and less to other parts of the country. No-one's heading where the jobs aren't, which puts more pressure on housing, social services etc where everyone already is.
It's made doubly difficult by the fact that the UK builds few new houses and doesn't teach its kids foreign languages or invest in social services.
And not that the Reform Party cares about it, but "stealing" health workers etc trained at the expense of the Nigerian, Filipino, Ghanaian, Zimbabwean etc taxpayer does have an impact on the country of origin too...
https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/where-do-migrants-live-in-the-uk/
A general question to anyone of any persuasion on immigration, what is your average interaction with immigrants?
This is mine:
Guys are the corner shop, decent bunch from Sri Lanka. Occasional takeaway delivery from people all over the world. Doctors, nurses, hematologist, ditto, from all over the world. Random accents etc in shops or the high street.
No negative effects I see. What do others see?
Any difficulty getting doctor appointments is due to our surgery taking on patients from a surgery that was closed and being unable to hire enough GP's to compensate. Housing stock shortage due in no small part to council houses being sold off and not replenished. New houses facing massive nimbyism even though the activists live on land that was arable till a couple of generations ago... They are fine with that if course.
Immigration is just one small part of a massively complex puzzle. It's simply daft to blame all the countries woes upon it imo.
That said, as per original question I posed, are people seeing a different side of immigration that I'm not?
@cerrado-tu-ruido
Full Member
Stop comparing the thousands of years of immigration to what’s happened recently, not even remotely comparable.
You're just making emotional arguments, not stating facts.
That said, what are the obviously negative impacts on your life immigration has made. Help us understand? Tell us what they are?
Evidence to the contrary, if you can't see it maybe you need to move somewhere more cultural enriched.
Immigration has had a positive affect on my life but that doesn't mean I want open borders.
cerrado-tu-ruido
Full Member
Immigration has had a positive affect on my life but that doesn’t mean I want open borders.
QED.
A general question to anyone of any persuasion on immigration, what is your average interaction with immigrants?
To be perfectly honest, absolutely zero in my town but it’s in a rural area of Galloway so I admit I am absolutely ignorant of the situation down south/elsewhere in the country apart from what I read online so perhaps I should be more understanding rather than jump to the usual response.
Last time I was south of Carlisle would have been at least 16 years ago, so I’ll sit this thread out.
Any difficulty getting doctor appointments is due to our surgery taking on patients from a surgery that was closed...
Did the old doctors retire or emigrate to Australia/New Zealand/Canada...?
A general question to anyone of any persuasion on immigration, what is your average interaction with immigrants?
I have some Slovak friends here in town, a Norwegian couple. Lots of English too. My Dutch friend (our bridesmaid) left for home and then moved to France a few years ago. Lots of others - mainly Eastern European - workers in bars, restaurants, shops etc.
"Stop comparing the thousands of years of immigration to what’s happened recently, not even remotely comparable."
Tell that to all the people murdered and molested by those pesky Vikings!
Stop comparing the thousands of years of immigration to what’s happened recently, not even remotely comparable.
This is correct and since Brexit it's all government controlled.
what is your average interaction with immigrants?
Based on the fact that 41% of Londoners, including myself, were born outside the UK, quite high.
What have I won?
Did the old doctors retire or emigrate to Australia/New Zealand/Canada…?
The other surgery that closed down was due to GP's retiring.
The GP at my surgery that I've been under since my late teens has only been working one half day a week for years but has finally retired this year.
Proper old school GP, he pushed for tests that lead to life saving neurosurgery for me in my my 20's, Chiari Malformation, decompressive surgery. I'll always owe him for that. Another GP told me to my face I was imagining the symptoms.😑
What have I won?
kudos or a slightly used one man sex pond.
Id take the Kudos to be honest. 😉
I think the issue is “complex” and if immigration is an issue, it is only one of many.
Immigration is indeed a component of lots of other related issues, taking a simple example; healthcare is both subject to additional demands due to immigration and of course benefits from immigrant labour. As with education, social services, etc, etc.
The headline promises (ref the dreaded 'B' word) from the right for the last decade or so have been along the lines of "taking back control" which implies being able to keep out those deemed to be a drain on national resources, and let in those who would contribute... So when can we expect that to start? It sort of feels like in the panic to prevent 'wronguns' coming in we're keeping the 'rightuns' away too.
The thing is the UK had grown quite reliant on immigration, and then we kind of cut that source of labour back in a very short period (plus a pandemic happened TBF), and now we find ourselves in a bit of a pickle. "Controlling" immigration seems to have focussed more on restrictions than on identifying where immigration is a benefit.
Stop comparing the thousands of years of immigration to what’s happened recently, not even remotely comparable.
You sure about that?
Ok we've got our current set of lines on a map and miscellaneous geo-political issues going on, but wasn't it ever thus? Explain to us why this isn't the same issue as it's always been i.e. People in a relatively privileged position who've landed up on the right side of a border, looking to keep everyone else out with harsher rules before anyone else reduces their perceived share of the pie...
"The UK is a nation of immigrants."
It is now, 1 in six of the population was born abroad at the last census, only Germany has a higher level in Europe - but historically we weren't, mass immigration only started after the second world war and the amount that took place in the 50 and 60 was tiny compared to what has taken place in recent years, without anyone really making the case for it in an election - it has just kind of happened. The economic case isn't clear cut - what most of the studies that say it is positive ignore is that the immigrant population skews young so they don't take into account the future costs when they get older. The House of Lords did a good report a few years ago that there was no clear economic positive effect.
And not that the Reform Party cares about it, but “stealing” health workers etc trained at the expense of the Nigerian, Filipino, Ghanaian, Zimbabwean etc taxpayer does have an impact on the country of origin too…
Indeed it does - the healthcare one particularly annoys me. Spain trains too many nurses - their surplus used to come here. Post brexit we are taking nurses from developing nations where there is a shortage. In a previous drive to recruit overseas nurses one of the carribean counties had to lose its ICU because we stole all the staff.
This is part of the tragedy of brexit
The rest of what you say PCA could be controlled and mitigated.
Western Europe is ****ed without immigration. Falling birth rates. Ever increasing numbers of old codgers who need care. Kids of the old codgers not wanting nor willing to do those jobs that mean getting physical or dirty..... Anything from wiping bums to laying bricks is below them.
Mefty - so how far back do you have to have roots here not to be an immigrant? Normans? House of Saxe Coburg Gotha? or once you are born here is that OK even if your parents were immigrants? How about the Italians in the 30s ( I think that was the big period of Italian migration to the UK?) They have left their mark all over scotland "traditional Italian fish and chips" Or the Jews in the 30s?
UK has always been a nation of immigrants. ~sure some periods its less and some more but its a constant theme. When I lived in manchester you could trace the amount of time various immigrant groups had been in the UK from how far they traveled up cheetam hill road
FFS our prime minister is the son of immigrants.
Did the old doctors retire or emigrate to Australia/New Zealand/Canada…?
Was a piece on The Rest is Politics where Campbell was talking about the number of British ex-NHS workers he met out in Oz.
Germany has lots of health care workers coming from Eastern Europe. Many German health care folks end up in Switzerland.
Was a piece on The Rest is Politics where Campbell was talking about the number of British ex-NHS workers he met out in Oz.
I quite often see targeted ads on TV these days looking to lure NHS workers to Australia.
My lad, long term, has said he will consider the move which obviously saddens me but I totally get it. (He's not in the NHS though.)
When I play podcasts, the Spotify app injects ads from the Western Australian Health Ministry (or whatever) trying to hire doctors and nurses from the UK.
UK has always been a nation of immigrants. ~sure some periods its less and some more
It is literally true that there has always some volume of immigration to and emigration from the UK (and its predecessors). But the change in volume is massive and undeniable and important.
Evidence to the contrary, if you can’t see it maybe you need to move somewhere more cultural enriched.
Can you please show us this evidence?
what is your average interaction with immigrants?
I was a healthcare worker. The majority of my colleagues where first generation immigrants. I'm a migrant myself being English born and living in Scotland. I have two good friends who are immigrants and others who are migrants from England
We are also a nation of migrants - I have family all over the world.
To be perfectly honest, absolutely zero in my town but it’s in a rural area of Galloway
Lot of immigration in KBT from England. (Me included - although my Mum is scottish and I was born in scotland - does that count? ). Locals bitch massively about "Incomers" on social media. Think there are a lot of people are struggling for money and housing and its not nice if you fall on the wrong side of the divide so easy to see where the frustration comes from. I do voluntary work in the town and have received anti-English racist messages because of it. As a white, middle aged, financially secure male I was a bit shocked. I cant imaging how horrible that would have been if I was less advantaged.
People need an outlet for their desperation and the media exploit this. Beyond that I dont understand it.
Which is why I made the comment about using a broad definition of immigration 😉
Please explain, thanks
The Norman Conquest, as George Trevelyan said in his History of England:
It is a commonplace to say that the British are a people of mixed
blood… [But] it may be as well to say, at the outset, that the
entrance into our island of the races who people it today was
completed in main at the time of the Norman Conquest. With that
event, which itself made less racial than social and cultural change,
we come to an end of migratory invasions and forced entry behind
the point of the sword. Since Hastings there has been nothing more
catastrophic than a slow, peaceful infiltration of alien craftsmen
and labourers—Flemings, Huguenots, Irish and others—with the
acquiescence of the existing inhabitants of the island.
PCA - why is internal migration between the nations of the Uk different from migration from France or the Netherlands? Edinburgh has a huge english population and its changed it. Hard to see a moral or practical difference? Internal migration from london to less well off parts of the UK like cornwall creates the same pressures on housing and services as from other countries