More Doom: Immigration cap will devastate UK companies, employers fear

[Spacecadet]

I dunno. I did a contract at the beeb a few years ago. on the tube, most days, I never heard a single conversation carried out in English.
I didnt like it

London != England

as for the tube, that's for permies. Get a car + driver ffs

[EternalOptimist]

London != England

as for the tube, that's for permies. Get a car + driver ffs

you haven't addressed my envelope

[sasguru]

This subject always brings out emotional, inconsidered responses on both sides.
Here are some facts:

Contrary to popular belief, Labour did not change the policy for non-European immigration.

The mistakes they made were mainly three-fold:

1) Allowed the EU accession countries unlimited access to the UK labour market.
2) Turned a blind eye to the abuse of the ICT system allowing most multinationals to get cheap labour through the back door.
Every company in London has its floor full of Bobs nowadays.
3) Made it harder for non-genuine asylum cases to be refused.

Now as far as I can see, in London at least, all the menial jobs are being done by Eastern Europeans who seem to have displaced the lower classes of all races who did those jobs.

@Xog, I would dispute your assertion that the lower paid do not contribute economically. From observation London would grind to a halt without the people who come in on the 5 o'clock night bus into town to do all the support work that allows the rest of us to make big money.
The NHS would not exist without the cleaners, nurses and doctors from abroad who comprise 1/3 of its staff.

One observation I would make (again this is London specific) is that immigration is a mixed bag.
The 2nd/3rd generation Chinese and Indians (especially the East African Asians) seem to be invariably hard-working and almost always in professional jobs or running succesful businesses.
Its more of a mixed bag with people from a Muslim background and Afro Caribbeans who do not seem to thrive as much. Their kids are bottom of the educational pile.
The Eastern Europeans will be indistinguishable after a generation apart from their funny surnames.

Of course a policy that looked at the ethnic origin of succesful immigrants would be deemed to be racist.

[Gibbon]

The 2nd/3rd generation Chinese and Indians (especially the East African Asians) seem to be invariably hard-working and almost always in professional jobs or running succesful businesses.

The Eastern Europeans will be indistinguishable after a generation apart from their funny surnames.

Agree about the EA Asians. There was a load of poles in Bradford just after the second world war. They just disappeared as they assimilated and a lot took on their wives surnames. But then they're not culturally too far away from us.

And that's what the main problem is, not race or colour but the vastly different outlook on life that are stretching the Toleration preached by John Locke.

There are too many taboos that we don't do anything about for fear of being labelled racist.

For instance

http://www.channel4.com/.../dispatch...octors-feature

Mrs Gibbon helps look after a family where all seven brothers have severe and profound Learning and Other Difficulties. You would think they would have realised to stop after two. This is costing the taxpayer Tens of Thousands a week.

The trouble is that it isn't just cousins marrying once every 10 generation but every generation. But then again it's the will of Allah and nothing to do with defective genes.

[xoggoth]

Always happy to be contradicted by anyone who puts a civilised rational argument SAS, you are quite right that if one simply threw out all low paid migrant workers out there would be chaos. Whether it is wise to keep increasing dependence on them rather than address our welfare problems and get, if necessary force, our own workshy into the workforce is debatable. Before we allow any worker to take a UK job we should ask far more searching questions than we do, not only check that worker thoroughly but the usefulness of the business he is working for and the possible impact on our own future skills base. Even leaving aside all these issues about society and economy, there is also a basic concern about population.

Agree with other points. The welfare stats do show Indians/Chinese are lower than average on welfare. Think most have no problem with useful types of any origin.

On your last point, this is my objection to the silliness of our policies. A policy that looked at the race of migrants should rightly be called racist, race as properly defined is irrelevant. However, ethnic origin, ie the culture they come from, is not irrelevant because people bring their cultures with them. As you say, Indians/Chinese are useful and those two countries are the most dynamic of all the emerging economies. That is not coincidence. If there have been failures to integrate a specific minority in the past, that should be a rational reason for not continuing to make the same mistake.

One would think that even those who choose to dismiss any objections whatever by white British as racist ought not to overlook the impact on existing ethnic minorities who may be the ones most affected by the loss of lower paid jobs. Can't be bothered to look for them now but polls have indicated that concern about the nature and scale of immigration is pretty high among minorities too. People always imagine that all conflicts are about white vs the rest but they aren't, there have been violent frictions between ethnic groups too.

Fragmented societies simply do not work, we need to try and find out way back to some semblance of a common culture rather than keep exacerbating our problems.

[d000hg]

There is another thread on here about the Battle of Britain, I wonder how many of those guys would have looked at Britains ethnic make-up today and thought exactly the same

Were they the ones that secretly thought Hitler had the right idea?

[SupremeSpod]

Were they the ones that secretly thought Hitler had the right idea?

Henry Ford had the idea before Hitler.

Eugenics - probably the most evil branch of biological science yet devised.

[Gibbon]

Henry Ford had the idea before Hitler.

Eugenics - probably the most evil branch of biological science yet devised.

But it's making a comeback with genetic engineering. It fell into disrepute after WWII and the Nazis' over zealous application.

Ancient societies such as Sparta and Rome used it to prevent bringing up unproductive people.

[SupremeSpod]

But it's making a comeback with genetic engineering. It fell into disrepute after WWII and the Nazis' over zealous application.

Ancient societies such as Sparta and Rome used it to prevent bringing up unproductive people.

Yep, AtW and Sasguru just wouldn't have cut the mustard. What did the Romans ever do for us?

[xoggoth]

Henry Ford was a Nazi? He would certainly have brought a real production line efficiency to the extermination process. Would have been like a chicken packing factory I worked at once but scaled up a bit.

I'm still annoyed with the missus because she just came back from Berlin and didn't bring me a vodka glass with Adolph on it.