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Is the UK becoming anti-immigration?

With the conservatives winning the election, I feel that the UK will now begin to detach itself from the rest of Europe. Were the UK to vote YES on an EU referendum, how will immigration be affected? I've a feeling that the UK will become richer and more racist, and that it will become like Switzerland in that London will have a lot more banks! What is Cameron's take on the EU?

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Reply 1
The UK also had one of the least amounts of asylum applications in 2014.

https://twitter.com/AFPgraphics/status/598042072000565249/photo/1
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Michael P
With the conservatives winning the election, I feel that the UK will now begin to detach itself from the rest of Europe. Were the UK to vote YES on an EU referendum, how will immigration be affected? I've a feeling that the UK will become richer and more racist, and that it will become like Switzerland in that London will have a lot more banks! What is Cameron's take on the EU?


Cameron has clearly said that he wants the UK in the EU but the EU has to change. No great shakes there as anto EU feeling is running at an all time high throughout Europe.
Reply 3
Original post by MatureStudent36
Cameron has clearly said that he wants the UK in the EU but the EU has to change. No great shakes there as anto EU feeling is running at an all time high throughout Europe.


The current version of the EU with its emphasis on political and financial unity bears no resemblance to the trade zone we originally voted to join, aside from Germany and the UK, only the eastern member states are showing any domestic growth, France, Italy and Spain are barely treading water. if the EU is to prosper it must return to its original concept, as the euro has been a disaster and the drive for political union has been totally undemocratic.
I have no problem with asylum seekers. If they want to get away from evil people that want to kill them, we should be helping them do that. We're the guys with the money, resources and morals and we should be bringing peace to those regions.

That is a very ideal statement. To be honest I'd love it if we could fund efforts to bring peace (doesn't have to be violent), but are we really the kind of people who turn away those who desperately need help?

"The UK is full", well I'm pretty sure that we aren't as 'full' as that argument makes it sound, seeing as there's room all over the UK and not just in your the-corner-shop-man-is-an-indian villages. Scotland has room. The North has room, we should look after them (maybe give them some form of earn your keep work which gives them skills when we return them back to their country) because we ARE decent human beings. It would be great if the EU would pay for their travel and housing here, seeing as we could take the weight from Germany's shoulders.

Becoming anti-immigration / anti-asylum seekers is a downgrade in cultural development in my opinion. Of course, we are an island which does mean we have a body of water that keeps us separate from Europe and this lets us stew in our own ideas without having to face border challenges and language barriers like they do.

Sorry I had a rant here. Most likely off topic.
Reply 5
Original post by JoshDawg
I have no problem with asylum seekers. If they want to get away from evil people that want to kill them, we should be helping them do that. We're the guys with the money, resources and morals and we should be bringing peace to those regions.

That is a very ideal statement. To be honest I'd love it if we could fund efforts to bring peace (doesn't have to be violent), but are we really the kind of people who turn away those who desperately need help?

"The UK is full", well I'm pretty sure that we aren't as 'full' as that argument makes it sound, seeing as there's room all over the UK and not just in your the-corner-shop-man-is-an-indian villages. Scotland has room. The North has room, we should look after them (maybe give them some form of earn your keep work which gives them skills when we return them back to their country) because we ARE decent human beings. It would be great if the EU would pay for their travel and housing here, seeing as we could take the weight from Germany's shoulders.

Becoming anti-immigration / anti-asylum seekers is a downgrade in cultural development in my opinion. Of course, we are an island which does mean we have a body of water that keeps us separate from Europe and this lets us stew in our own ideas without having to face border challenges and language barriers like they do.

Sorry I had a rant here. Most likely off topic.


I have been to many places in Europe, where I've seen far more 'foreigners' than I have in the UK. Granted, London has many, but as a global capital, that is to be expected. Have you been to Paris? The black to white person ration must be like 3:5. There are far, far more black people in France and Germany than in the UK (outside of London). The UK is actually still quite behind in terms of immigration. I fear that the UK will regress even further under the Conservatives. I see the UK being incredibly difficult to live in for both immigrants and natives (if poor that is...)
Reply 6
There's a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment but it varies somewhat through the country.

In the south the main opposition is to eastern Europeans because of the public service affects, in the north the opposition is more cultural (anti-Muslim in areas like West Yorkshire) because large groups have congregated (Bradford is known locally as Bradistan) and it does not feel English.

This is also bourne out politically. In the south, Ukip is most successful in very white constituencies with little immigration. In the north, Ukip polled 24% in Bradford South (no shortage of immigrants), 9000 votes in my own constituency (contains Batley with no shortage of them) and back in 05 the BNP took 9% of the vote in Keighley.

The only place that seems to be happy is London but that's because it's completely unrepresentative of the country. In London no non-British ethnic group makes up more than 12% and the second largest with 12% is white anyway (Europeans i assume), that's multiculturalism. But this is not the case in other cities, Bradford has 25% Muslim (will be 30%+ at the next census) to only 45% British (will be sub 40% at the next census). That's not multiculturalism, it's one ethnic group rivaling the natives.

..

I should add that i support high immigration, but i have to suspect that people who talk about this diversity nonsense have never gone north of the Watford Gap.
I'm still waiting for the 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians that were meant to "devastingly flood the nation" in 2013.

Anti-immigration is pure scaremongering by overly patriotic people with slight preferences in ethnicity.
Original post by Iggy Azalea
I'm still waiting for the 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians that were meant to "devastingly flood the nation" in 2013.

Anti-immigration is pure scaremongering by overly patriotic people with slight preferences in ethnicity.
even if it's 29 romanians and bulgarians, that's 29 too many
Original post by Iggy Azalea
I'm still waiting for the 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians that were meant to "devastingly flood the nation" in 2013.

Anti-immigration is pure scaremongering by overly patriotic people with slight preferences in ethnicity.


My neighbourhood is full of romanians and bulgarians
Original post by Iggy Azalea
I'm still waiting for the 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians that were meant to "devastingly flood the nation" in 2013.

Anti-immigration is pure scaremongering by overly patriotic people with slight preferences in ethnicity.


29 million Bulgarians and Romanians now indeed have the right to live, work and settle in the UK. You are trying to ridicule a position which has never been made in an effort to signal your virtue.

In 2014, 187,370 Romanians and Bulgarians were given National Insurance numbers, up from 27,700 the previous year. Haven't heard many apologies from those who said raising this issue was "scaremongering".
Original post by thesabbath
29 million Bulgarians and Romanians now indeed have the right to live, work and settle in the UK. You are trying to ridicule a position which has never been made in an effort to signal your virtue.

In 2014, 187,370 Romanians and Bulgarians were given National Insurance numbers, up from 27,700 the previous year. Haven't heard many apologies from those who said raising this issue was "scaremongering".


Yes, and I personally believe they should have the right to live/work in the UK.

I don't understand your exact point here. I'm ridiculing the fact that some Eurosceptics have dramatised the whole thing to promote their cause, when in reality has pretty much been a normal wave of migration.
Original post by BrightBlueLight
My neighbourhood is full of romanians and bulgarians


Is that necessarily a bad thing?
Reply 13
in some parts of the country yes

my area is becoming overloaded with muslims for example while other nearby areas are overloaded with Romanian and Bulgarians
Original post by Michael P
With the conservatives winning the election, I feel that the UK will now begin to detach itself from the rest of Europe. Were the UK to vote YES on an EU referendum, how will immigration be affected? I've a feeling that the UK will become richer and more racist, and that it will become like Switzerland in that London will have a lot more banks! What is Cameron's take on the EU?


The UK as a whole was NEVER pro immigration. There are only 2 types of people, occupying a small slice of society but with power at the top that do support it. They are

1) Labour metropolitan elites, who culturally sneer at its working class English support and wanted an influx of immigrants, who typically vote Labour to replace its core support. This is racial gerrymandering, btw.

2) Die hard Tory capitalists who realises an influx of cheap labour will reduce wage inflation.

Well, I suppose there is a 3rd category of people that do support uncontrolled mass immigration, on some wishy washy hippy principles and the like from Lib Dems, Greens etc. They are

3) The deluded people.

What do I think?

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(edited 8 years ago)
Personally being from a Bulgarian family and growing up in the UK this makes me feel a bit sick...

When I was younger no one had even heard of Bulgaria and there was not one negative comment, some occasionally taking interest in what the culture there is like etc.

Now, I don't even tell people unless im sure they are not one of the 'your stealing our jobs' nutjobs.

It's horrible to overhear my classmates make negative and racist comments about polish/romanian/bulgarian people when I'm sitting right ****ing there!! cause they dont realise im not 'proper' british and don't even think haha
Original post by Michael P
The current version of the EU with its emphasis on political and financial unity bears no resemblance to the trade zone we originally voted to join, aside from Germany and the UK, only the eastern member states are showing any domestic growth, France, Italy and Spain are barely treading water. if the EU is to prosper it must return to its original concept, as the euro has been a disaster and the drive for political union has been totally undemocratic.


Essentially wealth is being transferred to the eastern states. This is good though as it makes them less likely to roll over for Putin. The EU expansion into the east is for cheap labour and geopolitics. Bottom line whatever you think about the EU is we need it to compete with the other large regional power blocs both economically and militarily.

It says a lot that economies in Western Europe still can't deliver growth even with the cheap labour. It's because we already have everything we need in this part of the world, so we are inherently a zero-growth place. The sooner we accept that and stop blowing up bubbles for fake growth the better.
Original post by contradicta
Personally being from a Bulgarian family and growing up in the UK this makes me feel a bit sick...

When I was younger no one had even heard of Bulgaria and there was not one negative comment, some occasionally taking interest in what the culture there is like etc.

Now, I don't even tell people unless im sure they are not one of the 'your stealing our jobs' nutjobs.

It's horrible to overhear my classmates make negative and racist comments about polish/romanian/bulgarian people when I'm sitting right ****ing there!! cause they dont realise im not 'proper' british and don't even think haha


Something is not racist if it is true.

It is fundamentally true that every unskilled position fulfilled by an Eastern European immigrant is a job that could have gone to an unemployed native British younster.

Any country would welcome skilled migrants to alleviate temporarily short term skills shortages, long term is of course better training. No sensible country adopts an uncontrolled border and mass immigration.

ARE Bulgarians stealing your classmate's parents jobs? In a sense yes, but in a very real sense no. Because the British upperclass stole it from them first and gave it to the Bulgarians. "Stealing" is just a technicality.
Original post by thisistheend
Something is not racist if it is true.

It is fundamentally true that every unskilled position fulfilled by an Eastern European immigrant is a job that could have gone to an unemployed native British younster.

Any country would welcome skilled migrants to alleviate temporarily short term skills shortages, long term is of course better training. No sensible country adopts an uncontrolled border and mass immigration.

ARE Bulgarians stealing your classmate's parents jobs? In a sense yes, but in a very real sense no. Because the British upperclass stole it from them first and gave it to the Bulgarians. "Stealing" is just a technicality.


My dad's first job here was a government contract for 6 months as a computer programmer. He spoke literally NO english. It's clear that the english people applying just didn't have the skills otherwise why would they go out of their way to hire someone who can't speak the language?

Also you think unskilled entitled white british 16 year olds are gonna go do backbreaking labour picking fruit in fields??

I agree there should be border control and a limit to migration but the tone of debate is what annoys me.
Original post by contradicta
My dad's first job here was a government contract for 6 months as a computer programmer. He spoke literally NO english. It's clear that the english people applying just didn't have the skills otherwise why would they go out of their way to hire someone who can't speak the language?

Also you think unskilled entitled white british 16 year olds are gonna go do backbreaking labour picking fruit in fields??

I agree there should be border control and a limit to migration but the tone of debate is what annoys me.

In your dad's case, it's obvious there was a skill shortage and I have no more to say on that subject as I support it.

On "backbreaking labour picking fruit in fields" however. Those sort of jobs don't even pay minimum wage, it's illegal for a start to hire a Romanian picker and give them 20 quid a day, even if you let them camp in a caravan. Even if it is minimum wage job, have the farmers considered the travelling costs to the people that take the jobs in the middle of nowhere, presumably there's not enough hands in the village? and food and accomodation.

If a job on minimum wage is so ****ty that no one wants it, has the farmer thought of altering their business practises and SHOCK SHOCK HORROR HORROR, pay the workers MORE, give extra traveling, accomodation expenses etc. This is what happens when some of my mates in construction have to travel to another part of the country to do a job, they get paid much more.

If a farmer in the middle of nowhere can't get the labour because the job is so **** and he can't afford to pay more. Perhaps he should rethink the sustainability of his business practices as he deserves to go bust. Not to be propped up by cheap desperate Eastern European labour.

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This thread is good practice for me, as I've recently joined UKIP IRL.
(edited 8 years ago)

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