Immigration – Illegal and Legal
Immigration has become the foremost hot potato.
Illegal Immigration (June 2023-June 2024) – 38,784
Legal Immigration (June 2023-June 2024) – 1,160,000
The wealthy have been looking for a scapegoat to blame in order to take the attention away from their exploitative, greedy behaviour. They used the media, Tory Party and Reform to drum up fear and hatred against foreigners.
This racism was largely responsible for the hugely damaging Brexit (from which the wealthy made a killing).
Before Brexit we had a lot of eastern European immigrants providing cheap labour for the caring industries, hospitality, field work and NHS. We were told that if we gave up our rights to travel and work in Europe the British would fill these gaps in the market. That hasn’t happened.
Instead, we now bring in immigrants from India, China and Africa. Where the Eastern Europeans were mainly transient – coming to work for a few years to make some money and then heading home – the immigrants from further away are settling and bringing their families.
We obviously need immigration for our economy and because we have a retracting population. What we have done is replace one set of immigrants with another and we’re paying a fortune for the privilege and losing our freedom to travel in the process.
9/11, militant Islam and mass immigration (due to war, climate change and economics) has created a fear of immigrants that the right-wing have focussed on to deflect from what they are busy doing (exploiting us).
The huge focus on illegal immigrants is phony in my opinion. The real problem is the huge number of legal immigrants. We need to get the numbers and skills right. We also need to show a responsible compassion for those in dire need. That’s what British values are based on. We need to control it. It isn’t the illegals that are the main problem – it’s the number of legals that need regulating. It seems to me that the major problem with the illegals is the slow speed of the processing. They need sorting quickly instead of being stuffed in hotels rotting away at our expense. They should either be gone or working!
In my view, there is nothing wrong with immigration. We need immigrants to keep the country working. They are good for us and the economy. Without them things don’t work. It is merely a question of getting the numbers right, processing the right people and controlling it. As for the illegal immigrants – obviously we should have been providing legal pathways, processing them, shipping the ones who should not be here back to where they came from and assimilating the ones who qualify so they can work and contribute. Putting them in hotels at huge expense is stupid!
Then we come to the thorny subject of assimilation!!
I think the xenophobia is just an extension to the racism. Especially since I’ve noticed people only have issues with specific visible minorities.
Yes they are related! But in this part of the country it wasn’t just about colour – the Eastern Europeans were the focus of a lot of hate. They were bringing a lot of fascist ideology with them too.
Oh I see, that’s interesting.
I find it all a bit depressing. I want to live in a rich cosmopolitan world without the selfish greed of fascism. I base my life on compassion and empathy and constantly find that life intrudes with this complex stupidity.
I think many of us do and I have noticed that a lot of people are beginning to wake up and stand up against the fascists.
from the depressing look of the US polls not enough people are waking up. I can’t believe that lying rapist conman garners such support.
The fact that almost half the country supports him is terrifying.
it’s beyond belief. Hitler had less support.
Totally agree, Opher. But there is another problem behind that. What I object to is that the legal immigration has been planned by government. My take is that they are encouraging these people to come, (a) because they want people with certain skills, particularly for the NHS, and (b) to provide a tax base for the future. Essentially, the government is using them to further its own agendas, while neglecting the knock-on impacts on the rest of the population, such as the housing crisis, the road infrastructure falling apart, and the huge bill for their hotel stays. This is not government serving the people, as it ought to. It is government selfishly serving itself.
I partially agree Neil – though I don’t see it as serving themselves so much as meeting the needs of the economy.
We have a problem. There are lots of jobs – carers, NHS, field work, hospitality, catering and other menial tasks, that we can’t seem to get British workers to do (another story). With a retracting population we need these people. They used to come from Eastern Europe, now we import them from India, China and Africa.
They take the focus of the 1.16 million legally imported by making a fuss about the much smaller number of illegals. But we do need workers. I think this has to be talked about and reconciled rationally, with intelligence and practicle solutions.