UKIP Vs Good Old fashioned self interest

[doodab]

I don't know. To start with you'd need a breakdown of who's leaving and who's arriving. The trouble is, the studies on recent arrivals suggest they're mostly working and are mostly net contributors; that's why I say there's a problem of feeling, or perception. Even if most arrivals are working and contributing, some people percieve them to be milking the benefits system or 'jumping the housing queue'. That perception might be harder to deal with than it is to simply quote figures.

Or taking up school and hospital places, "stealing our jobs" and so on. Ms doodab got in a right strop when one of our neighbors kids, who happens to have a polish mother, got a place at the school we wanted jr to attend and jr didn't. He did eventually though. I think the fact they claimed HB upset her as well, esp as ms doodab would have liked to but wasn't allowed because she owns three houses. I keep telling her HB is for poor people and you aren't poor if you own three houses...

Personally I think a lot of it is being whipped up by the media & politicians. We have quite a few eastern Europeans at client co for example (I hired some of them), but if we didn't have them we'd have empty desks or people from somewhere else cos it's not like there is a plentiful supply of Brits with the right skills. I guess things might be different at the lower end of the job market if there were discrimination against locals but if that's happening then you have to wonder why. I personally think the state of the economy has more to do with the difficulty people face in finding decent work. It seems there is a lot of part time & zero hours stuff around but less "normal" jobs, although that could just be my perception.

[vetran]

What point? A large amount of immigration from the commonwealth after the war?

Continued immigration over my lifetime, in the last 40 years the population has gone from a foreign born face or accent has gone from a rarity to a near majority in many places. This may be a result of 'white flight' or other heinous crimes but from less than 1% in most areas when I was a kid to 10-20% or higher in most areas.

Its a real situation in the South, up north in Yorkshire and we walked around for a few days and suddenly realised that everyone was white English.

Now I'm not saying its bad, just that its different and the voters were never asked.

Some of this is due to immigration but many are Asylum seekers, and many of those came through the EU to arrive at this Island.

[doodab]

Some of this is due to immigration but many are Asylum seekers, and many of those came through the EU to arrive at this Island.

But they would have come through those countries to get to the UK whether the EU was there or not and whether we were in it or not, because the UK is where they want to be. Hitting out at the EU is complete red herring and won't change anything. It's mostly an accident of history (the empire, English being a global language, the UK having a successful economy with good employment prospects etc) and if it's anyone's fault then we need to blame successive UK governments.

Where I live for example has a massive Korean population, which is here because some Korean companies set up here post WW2 and consequentially lots of Korean refugees fled here during the Korean war. That was at the start of the 50s, so it's rather difficult to blame the EU for it.

[Mich the Tester]

But they would have come through those countries to get to the UK whether the EU was there or not and whether we were in it or not, because the UK is where they want to be. Hitting out at the EU is complete red herring and won't change anything. It's mostly an accident of history (the empire, English being a global language, the UK having a successful economy with good employment prospects etc) and if it's anyone's fault then we need to blame successive UK governments.

The EU is not entirely a red herring as it's one channel that the UK can use to influence policy in other EU countries, and to try and get agreements on spreading immigration in Europe.

Just for a moment, imagine you are a potential migrant in Africa. You want to get out of the hellhole you're in and you're looking at different places where you think you'll stand a chance of making a better life. Although right now quite a lot of Africans with the Portuguese language are moving to Brazil where they see opportunity, and China where they also see opportunities, there are still many who speak English as one of their languages but no other European language. Many, many Africans see European television on satellite, some rely on BBC and increasingly Al Jazeera and CNN for their news, they watch British, German and Italian football and they have to take a decision with this limited information. Maybe they also have friends or family in Europe and get information from them.

Right, so now, being a potential migrant, you've got to work out where to go. You might first arrive in Spain via Morocco, or Italy via the Libya sea route. Spain doesn't look appealing at all; bad economy, although you might make a living for the summer selling stuff on the beaches on behalf of a local criminal gang, and Italy doesn't look appealing either beyond a summer picking tomatoes; the economy is slightly better than Spain, but it's a society where there is deeply seated latent AND blatant racism, perhaps because Italy never really resolved the old fascist-communist conflict. Your friends who've been to Italy have seen the pictures of Mussolini in the shops in some towns and they've experienced open racism from people in power. So Italy and Spain are out. France? Well, economy isn't great but arguably livable, and maybe you speak French (lots of Africans do), but you've heard from your mates about the 'banlieue' of Paris or Marseille where councils seem to want to concentrate all the people at the bottom of the economic ladder and keep them out of town with tulipe public transport (even though France actually provides excellent public transport in most white areas), impossibility to get jobs based on your postcode, organised crime etc. How about Britain? Well, switch to British TV and what do you see? Black African or Caribbean faces presenting the news, holding positions in politics, singing, acting an performing, playing football, winning Olympic medals, or working in the city and what do you conclude? I'd say you conclude that Britain is a place where you can get on in life.

Britain is percieved, rightly or wrongly (rightly in my own view), in many parts of Africa to be a less racist society than other European countries that offers opportunity, a state with a proper protection of the rule of law for everyone and a place with a good economy.

It isn't easy to deal with that, and I don't think many people would see the answer as being 'well let's be more racist and give our black folks less opportunity' ( I certainly wouldn't want that), but there is a channel through the EU to try and influence the other EU countries. There is also a possibility that Britain could make moves toward allowing or encouraging circular migration into and out of the EU and encouraging migrants to invest in their home countries. There is going to be a lot of migration from the poor word to the rich world, so long as that huge division exists. The approach to dealing with this needs to be more enterprising than the current 'fortress Europe' approach which, let's be straight about it, isn't working. Britain actually has the experience and knowledge of relatively succesful 'integration' AND it has the network of succesful migrants who can contribute to a better approach, which is more than can be said for most places in Europe. It could even give Britain a stronger foothold in the fastest growing economies in Africa if the approach encourages two way investment; at the moment, China and Brazil have got the lead and stand to benefit most.

But you have to start by looking throug the eyes of the migrant and then thinking about it. Just putting in more border checks, as has been done in the last 20 years, and building fences, is not working and will not work because the fear of getting your pants ripped by a barbed wire fence or being arrested and put in a British detention centre or even selling your arse for cash on the streets in a rich city is nothing compared to the fear of being blown to bits by some bunch of Islamist psychos from Boko Haram, who might also kidnap your children and sell them as sex slaves; I raised that issue yesterday but some people seem to struggle to see the connection with their own complaints and fears about migration.

[darmstadt]

Where I live for example has a massive Korean population, which is here because some Korean companies set up here post WW2 and consequentially lots of Korean refugees fled here during the Korean war. That was at the start of the 50s, so it's rather difficult to blame the EU for it.

Frankfurt has a very large Korean population (around 5,300) and you could blame the EU for that as this area also contains German and European headquarters of large Korean companies such as Kia Motors, Hyundai, Samsung Electronics, LG International, SK Network, etc. who all want to do business in the EU

As you said, you can't blame the EU for them and I was surprised at the amount of South Koreans in the UK:

According to the Overseas Korean Foundation, between 1999 and 2005, the U.K.'s Korean population nearly quadrupled from 10,836, surpassing the older community of Koreans in Germany to become the largest in Europe. Among those recorded in MOFAT's statistics, 3,839 were British citizens, 9,170 had indefinite leave to remain, 19,000 were international students, and the other 14,820 had other kinds of visas. About two-thirds resided in the London area.

[doodab]

Frankfurt has a very large Korean population (around 5,300) and you could blame the EU for that as this area also contains German and European headquarters of large Korean companies such as Kia Motors, Hyundai, Samsung Electronics, LG International, SK Network, etc. who all want to do business in the EU

As you said, you can't blame the EU for them and I was surprised at the amount of South Koreans in the UK:

One knock on effect is that I have a massive Korean supermarket on my doorstep, which is fantastic for all sorts of Asian foodstuffs. They sell cherries in 2kg trays at half the price of the regular supermarkets when they are in season as well.

[DodgyAgent]

The Koreans all live in New Malden and refuse to try and integrate.

[Mich the Tester]

The Koreans all live in New Malden and refuse to try and integrate.

??

[speling bee]

Continued immigration over my lifetime, in the last 40 years the population has gone from a foreign born face or accent has gone from a rarity to a near majority in many places. This may be a result of 'white flight' or other heinous crimes but from less than 1% in most areas when I was a kid to 10-20% or higher in most areas.

Its a real situation in the South, up north in Yorkshire and we walked around for a few days and suddenly realised that everyone was white English.

Now I'm not saying its bad, just that its different and the voters were never asked.

Some of this is due to immigration but many are Asylum seekers, and many of those came through the EU to arrive at this Island.

Is white flight a heinous crime? Seems a bit harsh.

You are right that voters were never asked directly about immigration but I guess that's the Parliamentary system.

However, if 'voters weren't asked about x' is a critique of x, then presumably it's also a critique of:

- The monarchy
- The Parliamentary system
- The criminalisation of drugs
- The legal status of alcohol
- Capitalism
- The benefit system
- Private land ownership
- Public access to the beach below the high water mark
- The Green Belt
- Various wars
- A whole host of other things.

[speling bee]

The Koreans all live in New Malden and refuse to try and integrate.

How do you know they're not trying to integrate but failing?