Immigration

[Al Gorithum]

Well, just for the purposes of discussion.

I have no real skin in the game (almost retiring) or an agenda. Just a concern for the future generations.

Full disclosure; born into a working-class home-renting family in London who did OK and moved to the ''burbs to own property. Been in business all my working life.

Living in what is a leafy very well respected area of North London that has become a st-hole for a certain demographic of a not particularly well respected folk from an area of E.Europe. This truly has an impact on my life.

So although I'm very much "business-minded" so should be right wing, to increase consumption, and left-leaning due to human compassion so should be left wing. I'm conflicted.

Do we need more immigration to fulfill vacancies and create wealth, or less immigration to reduce demand on resources?

My kids are just starting out in their careers - hence the concern.

[deadtom]

Edited by deadtom on Thursday 13th April 17:14

[The Ferret]

IBTL

I'll give it an hour

[Rivenink]

I'd prefer a competent government who'll make housing affordable, invest in public services, and properly fund the criminal justice system.

Some people want to blame all that on immigration. I blame it on incompetent governance.

[InformationSuperHighway]

The problem is that for every 1 problem you see on the news (Crime, over reliance on benefits etc..) there are hundreds of hard working immigrants contributing positively to society and fitting right in.. but they don't make for good headlines.

[Skeptisk]

Being as this is NP&E this should be interesting (although thread could get closed down quickly).

[crankedup5]

Hasn’t Government introduced a points based working visa scheme, recognise skills set shortages then encourage applicants to apply.Like the Australian scheme.

[HustleRussell]

OP could you stop lobbing hand grenades into the pub and running away please.

[anonymous-user]

crankedup5 said:

Hasn’t Government introduced a points based working visa scheme, recognise skills set shortages then encourage applicants to apply.Like the Australian scheme.

This is the Australian priority migration skilled occupation list

in a developed country like Australia, with good standards of education to 16, the vast majority staying on until 18 and at least half attending post 18 education, I’d guess it’s fairly similar to our own skill set shortages, indeed Andrew Neil, among others, is insistent that we are a “service economy” now

So What skill set there shortages do we have in the UK and what would make the UK, at present, more desirable than any other country with the same skill set shortages? When people see the struggle Junior Doctors are facing for a fair salary commensurate with education and training, why would anyone consider the UK

[Skeptisk]

The problem with using the word “immigrant” is that is covers such a wide range of people, for example;

- asylum seekers
- refugees
- seasonal workers
- students
- unskilled eg cleaners
- skilled practical eg nurse
- highly skilled eg doctors, CEOs

On top of that could divide people up based on

- age
- married status
- children
- intention on staying in the U.K. (months to forever)

Lastly you can group immigrants by where they come from, their ability to speak English and ability and willingness to integrate into British culture

Most likely your own feelings towards (or against) immigration will influence what sort of “typical” immigrant comes to mind when this topic is brought up.

[s1962a]

I'll talk about the elephant in the room since no one else will..

As the son of an immigrant (I was born and grew up in London), I see mutplie sides of the immigration argument. The NF, skinheads, and the closet racism I experienced whilst growing up never made me forget that I can't be truly British in their eyes, and the hard work my dad did working manual jobs so we could have a life and get educated gave me very good morals that I take forward with me. All I saw around me growing up were hard working people trying to make a better life for their families, and I only really saw/heard about the dodgy immigrants on TV or on the radio.

Immigration from my point of view is about people going somewhere else to better their life, and hopefully add value to the host country. It was a bit of a no brainer for my dad to come here after the partition of India as times were very bad back home and the UK was looking to rebuild after WWII and was desparate for labour to come and fill the jobs. Due to my dad settling roots here, I grew up as a Londoner, and i'm proud to be English and British.

When I started working and we had free movement of people from Europe start in the early 2000's, part of me thought this makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of people here who are not ethnically European (like me) and having more Europeans coming over helps keep Britain looking more like a European country, with less migration from non-white countries (this is all my personal opinion and it is a bit biased), so all seemed fine from my point of view. I have a good job so never thought these people were taking away anything from me in terms of the reason people wanted to end FOM, and being able to have friends and work with E.Europeans, is great in my view.

Move forward to post brexit, and we have a huge need for labour for a variety of jobs. Rather than rely on our European neighbours and having more ethnic Europeans coming over to fill those jobs, we are now relying on India and other world countries to supply us labour, and we are getting labour by the back door in terms of asylum seekers that come over on boats and people from Ukraine. In my personal opinion jobs should first be offered to skilled people in Europe before being offered elsewhere to keep the dynamic of our "European country" more like it is/was and keep our multi-cultural Britain balance that we have.. again my personal opinion as the son of an immigrant who sees this from different sides.

So in short, yes we need immigration to fill our job vacancies, and we need it from Europe before we offer it to the rest of the world. We also need to convince our youngsters and those not economically active, to try and train for the jobs that currently have vacancies.

Edited by s1962a on Thursday 13th April 17:57

[Derek Smith]

I'm half Irish. Three of my four kids have married the children of immigrants, two from significantly different cultures. I suppose I'm a wee bit biased.

We have a skill shortage. We have a shortage of unskilled workers. We have an expensive further education system. While I consider it wrong, on a basic level, to take skilled workers from other countries that have paid for their education, and are in need of their expertise, I'm practical.

One of my children-in-law has remarkable skills, was on an Olympic shortlist, and runs their own business, despite having two children under the age of three, the younger one being born at a little under 28 weeks, with all the extra care that entails.

Another has three degrees, one a law degree in a language not their first. Or their second.

When I think of immigrants, my outlook is somewhat different to what I sometimes see on PH threads, especially those where the OP wants, for whatever reason, to start an argument.

[BikeBikeBIke]

Skeptisk said:

Most likely your own feelings towards (or against) immigration will influence what sort of “typical” immigrant comes to mind when this topic is brought up.

It really doesn't. People are sick of development. Pretty much anyone coming here will provide additional growth regardless of their profession. It's the growth itself people don't want. Yes the field at the bottom of my garden is worth 1000 times more with houses on it than it was with crops. But I preferred the crops.

It's got to the point where the only way I can do my favourite walk without meeting other people is in the dark or rain and on a sunny day my nearest beach is crowded to an insane degree.

[BikeBikeBIke]

s1962a said:

When I started working and we had free movement of people from Europe start in the early 2000's, part of me thought this makes a lot of sense. There are a lot of people here who are not ethnically European (like me) and having more Europeans coming over helps keep Britain looking more like a European country, with less migration from non-white countries (this is all my personal opinion and it is a bit biased), so all seemed fine from my point of view. I have a good job so never thought these people were taking away anything from me in terms of the reason people wanted to end FOM, and being able to have friends and work with E.Europeans, is great in my view.

Move forward to post brexit, and we have a huge need for labour for a variety of jobs. Rather than rely on our European neighbours and having more ethnic Europeans coming over to fill those jobs, we are now relying on India and other world countries to supply us labour, and we are getting labour by the back door in terms of asylum seekers that come over on boats and people from Ukraine. In my personal opinion jobs should first be offered to skilled people in Europe before being offered elsewhere to keep the dynamic of our "European country" more like it is/was and keep our multi-cultural Britain balance that we have.. again my personal opinion as the son of an immigrant who sees this from different sides.

From a purely selfish POV I find Indian accents really easy to understand and most European accents mystify me. Perhaps it doesn't matter in the days of Slack but I'm always happy when we get a new Indian guy over a European. (This is irrelevant, but I've typed it now so I'm gonna hit submit.)

[crankedup5]

pablo said:

crankedup5 said:

Hasn’t Government introduced a points based working visa scheme, recognise skills set shortages then encourage applicants to apply.Like the Australian scheme.

This is the Australian priority migration skilled occupation list

in a developed country like Australia, with good standards of education to 16, the vast majority staying on until 18 and at least half attending post 18 education, I’d guess it’s fairly similar to our own skill set shortages, indeed Andrew Neil, among others, is insistent that we are a “service economy” now

So What skill set there shortages do we have in the UK and what would make the UK, at present, more desirable than any other country with the same skill set shortages? When people see the struggle Junior Doctors are facing for a fair salary commensurate with education and training, why would anyone consider the UK

Yup, that’s the challenge and we are certainly a ‘service economy’, the only way to make the U.K. even. more attractive to overseas workers will be offering better T&C with a good standard of living.
Unfortunately the U.K. has been engaged in a race to the bottom in recent decades.
Our strengths include our construction, tourism, tech, sciences and of course finance. The U.k. still offers a relatively high standard of living to those who wish to come here to work.
Agree regarding public service sector, it’s being in a managed decline for years.

[Fundoreen]

Yes its crowded now. No more europeans but no doubt a million extra indians a week lol.
Obviously it would be less crowded without brexit as those of us fed up could decamp to a quiet part of europe will little fuss.
Bit more difficult and costly now though.
Thread was probably started by an indian stoked up by the ignorant and stupid braverman,put in a job by the other indian sunak.
Uk has outsourced everything else so racism was always going to join the list.

[Terminator X]

People clearly were not happy about immigration which came out loud and clear during the very many Brexit debates. Here we are though with vastly more immigration 7 years later! Trouble is Govt are hooked on the tax take from all these new people.

TX.

Edit

Edited by Terminator X on Thursday 13th April 22:32

[SteveStrange]

The OP has form. They also opened the thread/poll about non-binary kids that turned in to a pretty bitter, nasty thread.

They pull the pin, drop the grenade, and fk off.

Maybe PH should consider banning them from starting threads.

[ATG]

Another thing to consider is the UK's aging population. People are living longer (generally a very good thing) and they're having fewer kids (which is fine individually). But that does leave us with a mighty big problem. The workforce is going to shrink relative to the economically unproductive chunk of the population that they support, and the degree of support for each individual is going up too as they age. The old can have as much savings and pension income as they like. That has no impact at all on the productive output of the young having to be given in ever greater proportions to the elderly. It is not at all obvious to me that the young will continue to "honour the contract" of accepting money from the elderly in return for concrete goods and services from the young. At some point the young will say "your savings are worthless to me", and then all us savers are well and truly fked. I really don't think people spend enough time letting that idea sink in. As a fifty-something, it scares the bejeezus out of me.

One way to mitigate this is to import youth. It's cheap too. Collectively we don't pay for immigrants' childhoods nor a big chunk of their education. You get to import a load of productive labour. And then a fair percentage choose to go home, so you aren't just kicking the demographic timebomb problem down the road. You're genuinely defusing it. They get to earn, save, develop their skills and they can take that back home to help back home.

The average age in the UK is 40. In Nigeria it is 18. That's a problem for both countries. We could help each other.

[Biker 1]

My 2p worth:

I lived abroad for some 10 years from 1989, so I've experienced being an immigrant: if you take the attitude 'when in Rome....' & assimilate & learn the local language, much can be achieved.
I basically couldn't give a crap what colour your skin is, what religion you are or where you are from - it seems we need specific people in the UK, such as medical professionals, so an Australian type points system looks like the way to go.
What happens to the 'illegals' is another matter: the Rwanda scheme is a joke as are some of the others such as the proposed barge accommodation etc.