to be shocked that less than half of people in London are white

[Ilovecoffeeandchocolate]

I was reading the article below and was shocked to see how much this country especially London has changed over the last ten years and feel concerned that immigration is too high for what is an already overcrowded island especially in the south east!

//www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/dec/11/census-2011-religion-race-education?intcmp=239

[Wallison]

You do realise that there is a difference between an immigrant and a refugee, don't you? Only you appear to be conflating the two and using the terms interchangably, which makes your points hard to read and detracts from what you are saying.

[Spero]

I wonder what proportion of my clients from Afghanistan completed tertiary education. Not many I guess as none spoke English and not many could read or write their own language.

I agree that immigration can benefit a country. But to refer back to the Hugenots for eg is jus not helpful. The world very different now. Global movement is massive, facilitated by criminal gangs of traffickers and I think the presents a serious problem for our major cities re integration and provision of basic services such as education.

[Wallison]

Oh and now we're onto trafficking.

[Spero]

Wallison - sorry, thought I had already made my point re immigration/refugee. I worked on asylum claims from 2000 - 2003 when applications were at their height. I would say 80% or more of my clients were not in fact refugees according to the UN definition. Escaping situations of war and grinding poverty, yes, but not groups subject to persecution.

I think a large part of the problem is that the Uk is the only country who gives asylum seekers indefinite leave to remain, rather than five years or so. That certainly encouraged a massive amount of applicants.

[Spero]

So you don't think trafficking is an issue? I think the UN disagree with you there.

[cory]

Agree with Wallison that the conflation of terms is not helpful.

The OP started out with colour as somehow a problem - which would imply that white immigrants are not a problem or that coloured non-immigrants somehow are. Or that all immigrants are coloured. Or that all coloured people are immigrants.

Now we are onto refugees, with no sense of how we got there: does that mean refugees are a problem but other immigrants are not?

And that refugees make up the bulk of immigration (this I do not believe)?

I am still struggling to see exactly how illiterate, indigent and amoral I am supposed to be, because the goal posts keep changing all the time.

[maillotjaune]

Spero a debate about the impact of immigration would be fine. But this thread started by referring specifically to colour.

And that's the problem isn't it? The large number of Portuguese or Polish immigrants in areas near me might draw comments, but not as many (or as negative) as the area with a lot of south Asian immigrants 5 miles down the road.

If a debate on immigration focuses only on immigrants who are not white then it is not a fair one.

The part of London I live in is very mixed in terms of country of birth, race, wealth, religion and culture. My experience is that race might be the most obvious difference between people, but it is not the most divisive.

[Spero]

Cory - sorry if I am being confusing.

The problem as I see it, having experienced the legal system for asylum apps and lived in Brixton for two years, is there has been a large influx of people into the UK which has not for various reasons been monitored. A large proportion of those people have come from appalling situations of poverty and war. They are not well educated or skilled. Quite understandably they wish to make a home with people they can talk to.

So in the cities we are building up, effectively ghettos. People who can't speak english are massively disenfranchised. It is difficult to make plans for the education and health provision of a community when it isn't clear how many are coming and going and many members of that community have significant needs - for eg interpreters in schools, hospitals and courts.

[Spero]

I agree that if you object to people because of their colour, you are a mindless plank. But I also object to the fact it seems difficult to discuss all these issues without being accused of racism. The majority of my clients were a slightly different colour to me. So what? I am much more concerned about how they are going to make a life for themselves in the UK when there was very little in place to help them integrate - in fact worse than that, the prevailing attitude seemed to be that to expect integration was somehow oppressive and racist.

Your culture and language are very important. But there has to be integration, and this can happen without losing either.

[cory]

But surely the largest element of non-white people in London - which is what this thread title was about- are not asylum sekers, but immigrants or the descendants of immigrants from former British colonies?

The OP itself was about immigration- of which, again, the asylum seekers form a relatively small portion.

I can't help thinking you are posting on the wrong thread here, Spero, and adding to the general implication that all immigrants and all coloured people belong to the same group, and that this group as a whole is morally questionable.

[Kendodd]

We have never travelled so much and so easily before people all over the world are moving, here, there, and everywhere. I remember reading a while ago that some people don't like the way we are being 'swamped' so are moving to Spain.

I expect a big chunk of the non whites living in London are born there anyway.

Although I do think you have a point about pressure on services from to many people, maybe the government should try to encourage people to have fewer children? Although I can imagine the outrage if the government expressed an opinion on this.

[ChazsBrilliantAttitude]

Surely the UK will know how many people have been granted Refugee status as they will have granted the status to them in the first place and issued a travel document in lieu of a passport.

Dinky - the vast majority of DH's friends are well educated and hard working (and some of them came over here as Refugees from countries having civil wars etc).

[ThinkAboutItOnBoxingDay]

Haven't read the thread, sorry. At 14 pages it's probably all been said already!

I am as boringly white British as they come. I live in London. On my way to work I can hear 10 different languages each morning. I LOVE this about london. It's why I live in London and not the quaint but dull provincial town I was born in!

[Wallison]

I don't see what's so great about integration per se. Plenty of Brits abroad never integrate at all. And all of this talk about 'It's for their own good' and 'Really I'm just worried about them' smacks of something paternalistic to me - you know, how you can't possibly be happy unless you do things in a certain way. Everyone has their own way of living.

[cory]

Were the Jews escaping from Nazi Germany also all totally amoral? Surely a fair few of them must have told a few lies to the Nazi authorities- otherwise they would hardly have got away with their lives. So how much has the country suffered from this influx of amorality?

[JassyRadlett]

I think cory is spot on - focusing on asylum seekers isn't going to give you a picture of the true immigration landscape so again can be misleading in terms of the wider debate (and also what can, legally, be done if people feel there is a problem.)

And Spero, with due respect to your experiences I'm wary of anectode as I'm unconvinced that an individual's case load is even a true representation of the full picture of asylum seekers, let alone immigrants, and I'm wary of conflating the two.

I'm an immigrant - white other, living in London. My son is one of those pesky children born to a mother born outside the UK. The fact that his father is British-born is apparently immaterial. I'm fairly literate, I pay my share of taxes and I like to think have a decent moral code.

It might like to help dinky, in making comments about how most immigrants are amoral and illiterate due to the strife-torn countries they left, to actually read the Census and learn where the majority of recent migrants have come from.

[jjuice]

Amberleaf how bizarre you should call the OP a liar.

If she is lying for the sake of this thread then she must have a crystal ball as she clearly says on this thread in Marchwww.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/a1438950-Is-saying-half-caste-racist-if-so-why#30889166

that she is of mixed race and you yourself are on that thread. I didn't read it all so I may have missed something.

Nice to see everyone patting themselves on the back for outing a racist though. Well done.

[Spero]

I contributed to the debate because people were making comments about numbers of people who enter the UK - whether as immigrants, refugees or economic migrants. And I am pointing out we just don't know because for a very long time the UK system of border control has not been fit for purpose.

If you maintain the position that it is ok for people to move countries and make no efforts to become part of the society in which they now live, I think that is a recipe for great tension as well as doing a great disservice to people who find themselves disenfranchised by their lack of ability to communicate.

I don't pretend t be some all knowing oracle of wisdom about everything. But nor do I accept you can dismiss my experience and knowledge as mere 'anecdote'. I worked specifically in the asylum/immigration field for 3 years ( and remain a member of the immigration law practitioners association, so keep up to date with my reading). I have also lived in Inner London on and off since 1989 and worked all over the city, mainly in it's most deprived areas (my specialism now is family). So I do have some idea what I am talking about from direct experience of issues in question.

[FrothyOM]

Has mumsnet had a sudden influx of racists?

[cory]

So what are your thoughts on the Jews fleeing Nazi persecution: did the lies they had to tell lead to chronic amorality? Or is this a modern phenomenon?:

[Spero]

That is exactly the kind of comment that pisses me off. I think people have quite genuine and reasonable concerns about uncontrolled and unmonitored entry of people into a country where there is already considerable pressure on the provision of basic services.

I do not understand why that makes someone a racist. It's not a colour issue. To shut down debate by crying 'racist' is both irritating and dangerous.

[Spero]

Cory- I dealt with a lot of young men from Africa, Afghanistan etc. Countries where basic standards of living had broken down. Officials were uniformly corrupt, the rule of law was non existent or existed only if you could pay for it. T grow up in that kind of society does lead you to internalize certain ways of behaving. You learn not to be honest with people in power, because it gets you no where, would even harm you.

nazi Germany was a whole different problem. A functioning and well run state, poisoned by an evil ideology.

The world is different now. People are more aware of what they are missing out on due to the Internet. They want a better life, and who can blame them. But they are often not people who are persecuted for their race or religion, just people having a really shit time in their country of origin.

[FellatioNelson]

Pah, trying being Qatari. In a country of 1.75 million people only 300,000 of them are indigenous. How's that for feeling swamped out by immigrants?

[RebeccaTheHallsMumsnet]

Hi all,

We don't want to censor discussion of this country's immigrants patterns (although it might be quieter day at MNHQ if we did!).

But we'd like to remind you all of our Talk Guidelines, please - in particular the rules about no personal attacks (feel free to attack the opinion but not the poster) and about making generalised, negative and discriminatory statements about a particular cultural or racial group.

[dinkybinky]

Pah, trying being Qatari. In a country of 1.75 million people only 300,000 of them are indigenous. How's that for feeling swamped out by immigrants?


But expats in Qatar are only allowed to stay for as long as their visa allows, they're not allowed to use free schools or hospitals or be a drain on their society.