UKIP second in Eastleigh...anyone from Eastleigh care to comment?

oh dear, I mentioned Poles when I should have been talking about those naughty people with a completely different culture.

Still, if you want to make sure that Sharia law doesn't become law in the UK then 1) keeping the Human Rights Act and 2) staying in the EU seem like good ways to go about it.

Interesting to see this thread in discussions of the day. I seem to remember that UKIP didn't exactly cover themselves in glory when they came on MN for a webchat at the last election. Didn't Farage make some awful remarks about keeping women in the home? And excused one of his party quoting the Third Reich by saying he was 'a bit of a character'

I remember my jaw was on the ground when I was read it. It think it showed their true colours and I can't believe they've changed much since. And because they are the one party successfully managing to exploit Conservative Party divisions and public dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the main parties, they are getting all this attention. But they are a very unpleasant bunch. They've just tidied up their shop front.

Oh look. "Influx of Polish children into UK schools 'has helped improve British pupils' grades.'"
article here.

"Prof McNally said this [the research results]] could be due to better education standards in countries like Poland, as well as the work ethic of their parents, who had left their homeland to seek employment in Britain.
She said: 'It may be the fact that immigrants from East European countries are better educated and more attached to the labour market than the native population.
'The children of such immigrants may be a welcome influence in the schools they attend.'

Going by the Czech educational system, at least, then the combination of parents who put a lot of emphasis on getting things right, together with the more creative approaches of UK schools, could well, I imagine, produce some good educational results.

"I would like to live in a world where people are blind to race and nationality and just see human beings. I'm overjoyed that my own country is becoming more attractive to migrants and streets are full of people talking in different languages. "

It is this [I am a superior person because I Care So Much] wishful thinking which I was talking about. The West is sleepwalking to disaster and you don't even notice! The use of immigration to solve a declining birthrate and an ageing population is a terrible solution! The skating over of what kinds of immigrants are being let in and 'The Poles' as the usual safe substitute of discussion. I am not talking about The Poles. I am talking about the badly educated, completely different culture etc. immigrants that we have been so successfully persuaded we are going to use to 'change the world for ever'. No, it won't. It is ensuring your eventual cultural and economic destruction. It won't happen soon, but in 100 years...

'A destructive aspect of unconscious functioning is also postulated. Thoughtout the ages, humans have attempted to harness their instinctual levels of consciousness and civilisation. This process seems to have been bought at a price. While governments advance humanitarian principles and notions of civilised, rational interactions between races and nations, never before has humankind had such capacities for worldwide destruction and mass exploitation. What we see is that the more conscious and moral certain nations become, the more their aggressive and greedy needs become hidden from consciousness.... [A Basic Introduction to Psychoanalytic Thought ed J Watts].

What happens when the WRONG kind of person you are being oh so nice to, gets into a position of power, and has a weight of numbers that you can't do anything about? Tower Hamlets comes to mind.

You all might think that you have gotten rid of your aggressive and greedy impulses for ever and ever (because Labour votes are GOOD people, of course and Tories are Evil especially That Woman who is Super Evil] - but they haven't.

You kid yourselves at your peril.

All well and good about the Polish people working hard etc and I don't dispute that but where does that leave the English/British people who do work hard and want jobs. Isn't that stereotyping the British people implying that they are lazy etc.

I take your point about the empire etc but that wasn't the fault of my generation and other European countries did the same.

Also Indahouse as long as in 50 years' time we are still in a position to be able to practice christianity. Are you sure everything who arrives is so tolerant as we are of this freedom

MisForMum - see the third comment at the end of this article for one guy's reminiscences...

Many moons ago I lived near Eastleigh and went to Barton Peveril 6th Form, swam and went to holiday club at Fleming Park, oh the memories.

Something that doesn't ring true to me is this bit about Polish immigrants. Eastleigh and Southampton, from my understanding as a teenager, had a post WW2 influx of Polish people when the concentration camps were emptied because they were dispersed people. For many their families had become separated and their communities decimated by war. The war destroyed their homes and communities there wasn't a home to go back to. We're talking going on 70 years ago now aren't we?

I haven't been to Eastleigh for 15 years now though so it could have changed a fair bit since my day.

There was certainly a big Polish community centre with Polish food shop on the way to Southampton and a lot of Polish spoken in the area in the 80's.

BIWI
My Brother and his family went to Spain at Half Term.
They got heckled at the airport by out of work Spaniards shouting "English Go Home"

We also, Talkinpeace, never consider the fact that we think it our right to go anywhere in the world that we want - look at all the expats in Spain. Or all those who line up to go to Australia or New Zealand.

Thus making the Brits the immigrants.

As an immigrant I find it hysterically funny that the British
who merrily invaded and took over much of the world

imposing their culture, language and rules
now object to a few people coming here for work

And why do companies hire Poles?
Because they work hard - they get few benefits so they either work or go hungry.
Companies I do accounts for switched to using Poles because their hourly rate was a tad higher (yes really) but the amount they got done in a shift was double the lazy arsed English people.

There really is no such thing as a British culture that is defined by one nationality.

We have always had immigration (and emigration, actually)

and before anyone starts banging on about preserving British culture - there's a fair amount of it about, but if traditional culture is going down the pan it's not the fault of immigrants. Focus on preserving it in your own families.

There were hardly any benefits in the past, HillBilly76, that's why people worked, but there's no going back to that.

Taking into account WTC and CTC the minimum wage for people with children is around £26000 if I remember correctly. How much do you want it to be - £30000, £40000? And what would be the point in studying and working hard if you could get £40000 in a supermarket? If employers were to rise wages, the prices would have to rise accordingly. Would you be happy to pay double for your weekly grocery shop to have everyone working in supermarkets and their suppliers on £15 an hour?

Hearing different languages on the street is great because it's what humanity and Christianity is all about - everyone is equal and the more people mix and match, the less division there will be between races, religions, nations. Hopefully we'll be less likely to repeat the horrible things that happened in the past (and are happening now to some extent), because some groups of people thought less of other groups of people.

Not that it was particularly peaceful - there were periodic anti-foreigner riots. In Canterbury and Sandwich a third of the population in the late 16th century was foreign, in London about a tenth. After the Huguenots came, they alone made up about 5% of London's population, and there were complaints that there wasn't enough English spoken in the streets etc. Then there were the 300,000 Jewish immigrants who came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

HillBilly76 - why is having streets full of people speaking only English a good thing?

Britain has always been full of people speaking different languages.

Hear hear, indahouse.

There are something like 38,000 non-British EU citizens claiming JSA, of which 13,000 are from the accession countries. Of course that leaves out things like housing benefit and child benefit, but why shouldn't other EU citizens claim those, if British people can?

'Why on Earth does everyone assume Poles come here for the benefits?'

Agree indahouse, Poles come here to work not for benefits and I think very few will be on benefits.

Why on Earth does everyone assume Poles come here for the benefits? Because of the misleading DM headlines rambling about Child Benefit and quoting figures rather than ratios no doubt. The hard facts is that very few Eastern Europeans claim benefits. They are working their elbows off to keep this country running.

No one has any idea how to wean hundreds of thousands of Brits off the benefits without causing outrage and DM being full of stories about starving children. No unskilled job will be more attractive than security of life time benefits. Topping up wages with tax credits isn't helping much.

If there were no migrants here, there would probably be hardly any British products in stores and everybody would have to cook their own meals. Doesn't sound bad, but also without all the extra people producing and buying stuff economy would be in far, far deeper shit than is now.

The huge problem is there's no debate based on facts, but it's all about resentments and anecdotal evidence from DM. There's so much nonsense on this thread..

I would like to live in a world where people are blind to race and nationality and just see human beings. I'm overjoyed that my own country is becoming more attractive to migrants and streets are full of people talking in different languages. There were no foreigners here for decades because people blamed all their woes on them and voted NSDAP.

Outrageous - off with your head!

BIWI
Speaking as a first generation economic migrant ......
the UK government has absolutely no idea how many foreigners live in the UK because the ones (like me) with "Indefinite Leave to Remain" have never been counted.
The first public guess, about 5 years ago was 250,000 - until the US Embassy pointed out that it had more than that number of registered voters resident here!!
THe current estimate is around the 2,000,000 mark
BUT
because most of us with ILR are in work, we are invisible to UKIP
(who actually asked me once if I thought immigrants should be sent home)

I saw some figures reported recently, and this thread reminded me of them.

This is the bit that stuck in my mind:

^"Overall, the level of immigration to Britain fell from 589,000 to 515,000 over the year to June 2012, while emigration from Britain remained broadly stable with a rise of only 10,000 to 352,000 going to live abroad for more than 12 months.

The difference between the level of immigration at 515,000 and emigration at 352,000 gives the net migration figure of 163,000."^

Article here

Yes wobbly the people trafficking is a real concern. I went to an event about is and a police officer came to talk to people about it. The people are seen as a commodity and even if they go back to their country they are still in so much danger. This could get worse in 2013 if there is more movement from eastern Europe as alot of the trafficked people are coming in from there.

also alot of chocolate products apart from fair trade are being produced by child slaves on the ivory coast who get paid nothing.

It was quite shocking.

you talk alot of sense and none of the mainstream parties are listening to the genuine concerns of their constituents.