to not care about immigration?

[StuckinTheMiddlewithYou]

So many people seem to have a huge problem with it and I really don't understand why.

The crazy thing is, I live in a hugely multicultural area and most of the people I know who have a problem with this, live in predominantly white suburbs.

We have a problem here with alcoholic homeless people fighting and screaming in the streets - none of them are immigrants.

In my family it's the non UK born who have the most negative to say about immigration. My dm is from a commonwealth country and has seen her 'homeland' change beyone belief in the last 40 years and blames EU migration. My dh is from EU country and blames everything on eastern europeans.

Immigration hasn't done me any harm. Having said that I've never lived in an area with limited services, never lived in poverty and never lived in a high crime area. I have no idea what it is to live in a place where english language is a minority.

I've seen some non UK nationals behave badly - but no more so than people with UK accents.

Swings and roundabouts. I just feel we're getting very tightly packed here though.

"People have the right to these things because their parents, grandparents, etc etc worked and fought for them to have them. They didn't just happen at random."

In that case you have also got a responsibility to the countries your grandparents screwed up during colonisation.

OK, I'll put it out there - I have been directly affected by immigration.

I live and work in The Netherlands although I am British. I was a computer programmer until a few years ago when my multinational company decided that it could employ someone from the sub-continent for $10 (approx) an hour. Productivity did not come in to it. The people at the top could not grasp the fact that when it took me 6 minutes to fix a bug, it would take my esteemed colleagues up to 10 days working as a team of two to fix it. It's all about the hourly costs. Using long-term working visas these people were brough to europe on 15-week rotational basis and on various tax loopholes and the like, were put up in 2k a month apartments. Waaaaay beyond my spending power. As a result I've had to move from that town as I cannot afford to rent there because there are so many multi-nationals prepared to pay these inflated rental prices. Some of these workers are then given 2 year contracts to come over, rent paid, health insurance paid, flights home, etc., etc. Food & clothes they need to pay out of their own wages - again, all a big, fat tax fiddle. After these extended contract these people are allowed to apply for jobs outside of our company and apply for visas to stay in the EU. More competition for me work-wise - and of course many others in this "knowledge" industry.

Meanwhile, my spending power diminishes as this puts deflationary pressure on the wages throughout the industry.

This is immigration of "skilled" workers - but with students graduating with software engineering degrees finding it difficult to get work, I have to ask - wtf? Why are we bringing over "skilled" techies from India when there are so many already within europe wanting work?

Never mind the "un-skilled" and perhaps illiterate immigrants.

Then again, my boyfriend is delighted - as a "low-skilled" worker from Glasgow he is at least employed here.

We've had to move to a "cheap area" because that's as far as my wages go these days. The primary school around the corner is multi-cultural and although my 10 month old will be fluent in Dutch when he starts school, I am worried about the affect of immigration towards his education. Because in this town, it's not skilled workers coming here, the women are largely SAHM's - so the kids don't go to daycare and therefore don't learn Dutch - see where I'm going with this? I can't afford to send my child to private school.

CCP "skills has fuck all to do with it".

We are plenty skilled up actually, and we pay the going rate. Which in many cases is six figures. Which is why we have a viable business.

If you can't be bothered to learn a new skill, drop your sense of aggieved self-entitledment and try learning a new language CCP.

These discussions always leave me frustrated. I think it is naive to deny that mass immigration has had a negative impact on some communities in some parts of the country, and this impact could have been mitigated if things had been better managed. We do need to have a serious debate about these issues.

The trouble is, any debate ends up infuriating anybody who actually understands our immigration legislation because there is so much ignorance out there - so many assumptions are made about how easy it is to get into this country, how easy it is for people to claim benefits etc. It's a complete waste of time trying to have an intelligent discussion with people who get all their "facts" from the Daily Mail.

RobF, it is offensive and ignorant to suggest that the uk is a wealthy country today purely because our ancestors worked hard. Even the most basic knowledge of history will tell you that much of our growth and prosperity was the result of our exploitation of other countries, so please, give the superiority complex a rest.

FWIW, I live in a very multicultural area and I do love the diversity. My dd has a high proportion of children in her class who don't have English as a first language, but the school handles this very well and I don't feel that it is at all detrimental to her education. However, most of the immigrants around here are well-educated professionals, and their kids are bright and motivated. I find it interesting that five of the eight children on the "top table" in dd's class are bilingual with immigrant parents, so they are hardly holding the other kids back! However, I realise that the demographics will differ from one area to the next, and so it's impossible to generalise about the problems that might arise.

I wish it were possible to have a real intelligent debate on this issue, without all the Daily Mail stereotypes being trotted out, and in which people have a proper grasp of the facts. Alas, I think we're a long way off that yet. :(

"RobF - what do you do to make sure that other countries have the same things that we do? Or do you believe that you have no moral responsibility to do anything because of where you were born?

If you believe you have a moral right to a comfortable life because of what your grandparents did, do you also believe that people whose grandparents were not themselves so fortunate have no moral right to a good life now?

What did your grandparents actually do? Or do you just mean that because they were lucky to have the good fortune to have the benifits of life here, you should too?"

What do I do make sure other countries have the same things we do? Nothing. It is none of my business. It is the business of people in those countries.

It is up to people to work hard now so that their children and grandchildren can reap the benefits. That's how life works. That's how humanity has improved things over time.

My grandparents? My grandad fought in WW2, was on a ship that got sunk in the Battle of the Java Sea, and ended up in a POW camp on Borneo for about 18 months. My grandmother was a schoolteacher. My other grandad worked in a munitions factory during the war.

Magimummy-could you please point out one DM stereotype on this thread because i haven't seen one.

FWIW i am a benefit advisor as part of my job and i know the rules when it comes to claiming. I also have to know the upto date laws across the board.

Birtsgottafly - I have made an assumption about RobF, but he has not dedended himself yet. I your father paid taxes here for a certain period of time he would be entitled to benefits. And I did agree that there should be some laws to regulate the situation, but I don't agree with being so totally against immigration.

"RobF, it is offensive and ignorant to suggest that the uk is a wealthy country today purely because our ancestors worked hard. Even the most basic knowledge of history will tell you that much of our growth and prosperity was the result of our exploitation of other countries, so please, give the superiority complex a rest."
How do you suppose we got into the position of being able to "exploit" other countries?

Do you suppose your area "full of well-educated professional immigrants" is typical of the country as a whole?

Why do you "love the diversity" as a matter of interest?

"Birtsgottafly - I have made an assumption about RobF, but he has not dedended himself yet."
What is your assumption? I've just looked back and I couldn't see it.

But then these debates should be in the politics section, i usually shy away when they are in AIBU, for the same reasons. I did think that todays was unusually constrained, people must be out visiting.

"How do you suppose we got into the position of being able to "exploit" other countries?"

The same way people from other countries are today able to "exploit" Britain?

I don't know if you're trying to say that it is ok for Brits to exploit other countries but people from other countries should not exploit Britain?

i dont care for the diversity when it costs us hundreds of millions of pounds just in translation services

gabis- My father is now dead, he wasn't from an EU country and still wouldn't be entitled if he were alive today, only through what was his union (now disbanded).

However I suspect my ancestors (at least on my mum's side) were poor and were exploited. The rich did very well out of colonisation, slavery etc but I don't think it was that great for the poor people of GB who probably were akin to slaves working in mines and factories, during industrialisation.

Also colonisation did bring positives say India with railway etc. No we shouldn't have gone there and done it but that was what most European countries were doing. Is it that great now in some of these countries?

I think some immigration is okay but it is totally out of hand and it is very crowded. Plus we are always being told to tighten our belts but there still seems to always we infinite resources for people who have made no contribution whatsover to the exchequer.

India would not be in the position it is in today were it not for colonisation.

Oh dear, it's "the white mans burden"

RobF did you do history at school?

Birdsgottafly - one example would be the comments further up the thread about it being easy to get into this country. For most non-EU citizens, it is not easy at all. I find that very few people actually have any detailed knowledge of the legislation that exists, and that makes informed debate difficult.

As a benefits adviser, you will no doubt be aware that most new immigrants to this country (non-EU) have no recourse to public funds until they have paid into the system for a couple of years.

RobF, I love the diversity because it makes life more interesting. The local community benefits from the wisdom and traditions of many different communities. And I am confident that my dd will not grow up as a nasty, narrow-minded little bigot.

"RobF, I love the diversity because it makes life more interesting."

Do you appreciaate that while it might make your life "more interesting" it results in those less fortunate than you living much harder lives than their parents did. Is it a sacrifice you would be prepared to make yourself?

"The local community benefits from the wisdom and traditions of many different communities. "

Could you explain how this works please? It sounds like something one of the "modern parents" would say.

almemci-You are right. The workhouse system in the UK that the working class had to rely on was as bad as what any person in a colonised country suffered.

We would worry about taking better care of our own population and its education if it wasn't so easy to ship people in whenever there was a skills shortage so like it or not immigration is changing society and our attitude towards each other and needs debating.

I do often feel its like the working class don't matter anymore to those in power because we no longer need 'cannon fodder', which at one time is all that they were.

Magic- even EU citizens have to have 'paid in', in their own country or return home. They still need an reason to be in the UK. Even those with 'indefinate leave' have a battle for benefits.

RobF, I am not convinced that it does. I have acknowledged that immigration could have been better managed in some parts of the country, but it also generates wealth for the uk which is fed back into the economy.

You are worried about the sacrifices that people "less fortunate" are having to make as a result of immigration to the UK, but you do not seem to have the same concern for the sacrifices forced on the peoples of the countries that we colonised. Why is that?

Oh, and I completely agree about India, by the way. Things would have been very different now if we had not colonised it.

RobF - if it is none of your business that other countries do not enjoy the standard of living we do, then why do you feel it is your business that other people choose to leave those countries rather than stay and suffer deprivations whilst trying to make that country better? If the situation affects you as you claim it does, then surely it is your business to do something about it? And unless you are sure that everything you buy from abroad is fairtrade and ethically sourced, then it is your business because you are contributing to the problem.

FWIW, I don't see that your grandparents have done anything more than most people of their generation from the UK and commonweath contries to create the standard of life that we have in the UK. It seems they benefited more than created.

RobF- although i sometimes agree with you, i will say that immigration has happened so it is pointless to argue about it being more interesting etc because it has happened and some have enjoyed the change. Now we need to concentrate on were we go from here not debate wether it should have ever happened. The UK needed immigrants in the past because of a skills shortage that should not be the case now.