(I am a long time lurker and a first time poster)
I am an immigrant.
Disclaimer: I am highly skilled, pay taxes, volunteer, respect police, teachers and doctors and a country I live in.
I can understand, why some people dislike immigrants that come to Britain to abuse the system and live of a country that they have not contributed to. As I am angry with them too. But I can also not understand people who are British, able to work and live off benefits all their life and not contribute anything to the system. I believe that both these groups of people are equally bad and should be either forced to work or all state support should be taken away until they start to contribute to the society that they live in. Benefits should be a safety net and not a lifestyle choice (wherever you come from).
It is often easier to blame others than look at what you are doing wrong or where you could improve. Because I have now been living in Britain for more than a quarter of my life I feel that I know where Brits are more likely to fail in a global economy and globalised world.
First of all it starts with education and schools (and I have worked with quite a few).
While visiting British state schools I have noticed that children are given less homework than their peers in European countries (where children would normally spend 2 to 3 hours doing homework.
Another big problem is the way that languages are taught in this country. Children are mostly taught basic phrases that they would need if they went on holiday to France, Spain or Germany, but with that amount of second/third language they would struggle to work in a job where multiple languages are needed (this is a requirement for more and more jobs, as companies open multiple offices around the globe).
Third big problem lies within teachers' inability to interest children in science, maths, IT, geography and history. Instead of encouraging children to be scientists, IT programmers, doctors, lawyers, dentists, economists, historians, politicians, children are encouraged to be creative and artsy and dream about being in a media business.
There is also a lack of imposition of a hard working culture to children from a young age. What you call "pushy parenting", we call "parenting". Children not only do lots of homework, compete in olympiads, but often (up to 5 times a week) attend art, music, sport school, where they have to do homework, take exams yearly and are expected to give performances and attend competitions. I find that in Britain there is this fear of criticising children (we all probably heard about children getting medals even if thy came last) and was surprised when a teacher I know told me that she is not allowed to criticise children to parents.
For example I know couple of young Eastern European immigrants, who both want to go to highly rated universities in Britain, but can not afford this at the moment, so they chose to work for two years in a factory, packing chocolates for 12 hour shifts, 6 days a week (for a minimum wage), live with 4 other people in a rented house and save whatever they can so they can go to university in a two years time.
(Talking about unskilled immigrant labour)
I know of a farmer who lives near-by, once he mentioned to me that he loves immigrants, because they have very strong work ethic and even if the job is unskilled and the pay is low (he is paying his Eastern European staff the same as British staff) they do that job with pride and devotion. He, unfortunately, did not say the same about his unskilled British staff, who would turn up drunk, late or would not turn up at all.
I love Britain with all my heart, as it is my home at the moment. But I am just so tired of verbal abuse I get just because I speak with an accent and constantly think maybe my contribution to the economy and the society would be much more valued somewhere else.