According to the figures available, those who immigrated to the UK since 2004 make up nearly 1 in 60 of the population.
The imminent EU accession of Romania and Bulgaria represents a new source of immigrants to the UK. There are voices, not least Frank Field, who are calling foul, but there’s really no justification for restricting immigration from these new members.
The EU is about free movement of people and free trade. Now anyone with even a small idea of the EU’s working will know that we are not getting anything similar to free trade in many, many areas. So the only tenet of the EU that Britons signed up for under Heath and that is actually functioning is free movement of people.
If we turn around now and say “Sorry Romanians, sorry Bulgarians, you cannot come to the UK because, though we want access to your markets, we don’t want your people.” then we are removing that final part of the EU that we all agreed to.
I agree that the UK is suffering a change in culture… A sort of negative zionism by multiple cultures. And I agree that the time has come for a serious look at our immigration policy… But I don’t think that should mean double-standards on the EU. Let’s leave the EU and say what we really think! Let’s join schengen, let’s sign a free trade agreement with the EU and remain a country in our own right.
At the same time, let’s let English culture redefine itself to include our newest members. Let’s prepare our schools to cope with the children of our mostly young immigrants when they are born. And let’s not confuse immigrants (those who come here) with the legislators that we think are getting the policies wrong.
According to the BBC’s The World programme on BBC Four this evening, Italy, Spain and Malta are struggling with the number of illegal immigrants coming from Africa to work here (where “here” is the EU). As Leanne said earlier on this blog, the people who manage to leave Africa are probably the very people who could reverse the problems Africa so evidently has.
Let’s work harder and more seriously at improving the economies of Africa so that there’s no reason to jump on that ship in the first place. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy’s abolition would be a good starting place.
August 22nd, 2006 at 7:48 pm
I heard the figure was roughly 600,000 immigrants to the UK since the ‘accession’ of the 8 new member states from eastern Europe to the EU in May 2004. That is a lot, of course, but it NOWHERE NEAR the “1 in 60″ of the population you refer to, more like 1 in 100.
As I mention already, that is still a lot, but I think it is better to be as factual as possible, rather than sensationalist, when discussing these matters. I’ve not heard discussed in recent days the other immigrants over this period (from Iraq or Afghanistan etc), in quantitative or even vague terms, but I suppose they might have boosted the ‘new Europe’ immigrants a bit, but not by another 400,000 I wouldn’t have thought.
August 22nd, 2006 at 9:36 pm
I should have been clear that I was quoting Frank Field’s figure… But to be honest I wouldn’t doubt that 400,000 have come here in 2 years given that there is a 100,000 net figure each year…
Update: I note that the National Statistics figure shows 223,000 net immigrants in 2004 alone: NSO.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:12 pm
What you are actually saying is that you don’t have facts to back up the wild assertions you have made!
What Frank Field says - well, there’s something we need to take account of.
I accept fully that facts on this sensitive subject are very diffiicult to come by as neither this government nor the last one keep proper details on who comes and goes. On the other hand people like me are vehemently opposed to the concept of having an ID card or a biometric passport with a massive central databse to back them up. It is a conundrum I readily accept.
What you “wouldn’t doubt”, however, is meaningless without facts and your original posting was completely bereft of supporting links. Your conflation of your views on the EU with this matter tells me all I need to know about the feelings which have most likely prompted you to write as you did. I’ll factor this in for the future when reading your blog.
August 22nd, 2006 at 11:40 pm
Bill, Gav does have the facts to support what he say, we have had roughly 250,000 immigrants a year for the last few years not including the EU ‘workers’ which add another 600,000+. So in the last 2 years we have had 1 million immigrants or more.
A Polish guy writing for a British Polish paper was on skynews claiming that the numbers were much much higher than 600,000 because he thought there was a lot more unregistered than the government.
Immigration on this scale is unsustainable no matter who those immigrants are.
We are not a nation of “immigrants” we are a nation of English, Scottish and Welsh, but our government is doing its best to change that.
They want to dilute our identity to make us simply a ‘European’ region.
Unemployment is rising and will start to rocket, our own people are being screwed by this, but ofcourse Libertarians wouldn’t give a shit about that.
The south-east is being concreted over to build housing for ‘immigrants’ in flood plains which also strangely have a water shortage.. Great idea!
The people of this country never wanted this bullshit gav, they voted for a trading block thats all.
>> “The EU is about free movement of people and free trade.”
Strange that no one told the rulers of Europe that, France and Germany.. who are not allowing freedom of movement.. wow I’m so supprised.
August 23rd, 2006 at 1:17 am
For a whole range of reasons, you risk-adverse guys left in the UK are screwed (technical term). Forget that “rats leaving the sinking ship” rhetoric, move emigration to the top of your priority list. Because to paraphrase Bitch Boy Blair, “Things can only get worse”. As a single man that can get into character as an “English gentleman”, you have options coming out of your ears. Fortunately here in Asia, reality has not yet caught up with image, so get your act together and seek your fortune in the colonies.
August 23rd, 2006 at 5:42 am
Dave
“we are a nation of English,Scottish and Welsh”.I thought Northern Ireland was still part of the UK. Maybe you have never heard of it?
Gav
The EU is the UK’s largest trading partner. According to the Office for National Statistics, trade worth 21.3 billion pounds in June.
One of the arguments for joining the Common Market as it was called then was to boost exports of the British car industry.Of course the car industry went into steep decline.But whose fault was that?
August 23rd, 2006 at 11:37 am
I don’t feel, Bill, that I have made wild assertions… There are large numbers of immigrants and there are large numbers of immigrants working on the black market. The debate, surely, is not whether there has been unparalleled immigration but whether that immigration is dangerous to national unity, the countries they are leaving and the economies of both.
Andrew Milner’s right — my friends that have moved to the Far East and other parts of Asia have told me of all the bad but also of the good that outweighs that!
Immigration cannot be spoken about in isolation. We need, when having this debate to conflagrate the EU, economics, emigration and many other factors… Even if that seems convenient of makes one uncomfortable.
People keep talking about the EU being the UK’s biggest trading partner, but none of us who are for leaving the EU are in the slightest bit opposed to free trade — what we’re against, I think I’m safe in saying, is the bureaucracy that goes with it… The interference in our state and the apparent desire of the EU’s machine to expand in an imperialist way.
If I wasn’t clear that I know that people wanted a trading bloc when they voted for the EU (before I was born by the way) then I am sorry, but that was my intention. The EU is a monster that has outgrown Briton’s intentions. We must either demand its realignment (which isn’t going to happen realistically) or leave and negotiate Norway-esque free trade etc.
August 23rd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Tony, a large part of my family is Irish, however not many immigrants go to Northern Ireland that is why I didn’t mention it, also the Unionists in N.Ireland are largely of Scottish and English decent anyway.
Since 1997 we have had 1 million non-EU immigrants and then 600,000 EU migants in the last two years. I’d guess 95% of them come to England, I doubt Bill sees many up in Scotland and that is why he is more sceptical.
England has approx 50 million people, so with new influx of 1,400,000. 1 in 35 people in England are here since Labour came to power, they have absolutely no right to make such a dramatic change to this country without a specific mandate to do so.
Its no wonder people in the South-East have a water ’shortage’, the infrastructure can’t cope with that kind of sudden change.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:48 pm
Indeed Scotland has an opposite crisis of emigration… Or so the SNP says.
August 23rd, 2006 at 4:54 pm
Dave
There are immigrants in the RoI.The economy in the south has undergone a transformation. Something not unrelated to the fact that the country is part of the EU.
Gav
Norway has to adopt much of the EU regulations.So how independent is it?
August 23rd, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Tony, I know the Republic of Ireland has a lot of immigrants, more than the UK by proportion to population. If I was Irish I would be concerned, but since I am British I am more interested in whats going on here.
The Irish economy had made a transformation before large scale immigration.
Norway may have adopted a lot of EU regulations but they also have the freedom to change if they want to, we don’t.
August 24th, 2006 at 8:36 am
No, Norway only has to adopt regulations to take effect on companies that export. Further, if it doesn’t want to adopt those legislations there is no legal requirement for it to do so unless laid down in its negotiated free trade agreement.
As you point out, Ireland has benefited from EU membership as have plenty of other poor countries. By the same logic there’s only one way that can be happening (and it blatantly is): at our cost!
August 24th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
Norway has to adopt the regulations because of economic necessity.Sovereignty in the modern world is increasing a theoretical concept.
August 25th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
All official estimates have been and remain palpably wrong. The new Tory policy response is wholly appropriate. You don’t appear to have a grasp of the realities of Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. Our fellow members who shut their door in 2004 show that we don’t have to play by the “rules” as you perceive them. We should do what is in the UK interest from both an economic and social perspective.
August 25th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
Gav,
You have just committed a cardinal sin in the eyes of the Cameroons by thinking like a fruitcake. Welcome aboard!
August 25th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
Gavin, thanks for the visit and for the welcome. 1 in 60…yes.
What you say here re Spain is very true, boatloads (albeit small)arrive at the Canaries and are shipped to the Mainland. Only yesterday a small plane load arrived in Barcelona “by surprise”, they will be kept in secure accomodation for 15 days then released onto the streets!!! Don’t forget the amnesty last year effectively added a million (+/-) to Spain’s population and that will only encourage more…as you say, for Spain read EU read possible road to England!
Re exams…my lad was comparing with mainly girls! …phew!
August 29th, 2006 at 8:58 am
UKIPPER — I’ve not changed my opinion on this: UKIP are right about the EU and largely on immigration…!