to finally be able to say there has been too much immigration

[moogy1a]

Now that UKIP have made massive gains in local elections,conservatives stating that major changes need to be made and labour admit that they made a big mistake in having an almost open door policy can I finally say this in public without the hysterical accusations of being racist?

The fact that people have worried about an issue fo 60 years says nothing at all about whether or not the current situation is something we should be worrying about.

Are people just going to make up their minds on the following premises:

1. I'm uncomfortable around people who are different to me. So immigration is bad,
2. I think some people are racists, so immigration is good.

Both arguments are surely not very helpful.

I must point out I was not being serious in case anyone doesnt know me and reports me for being Enoch Powell.

Pat I'd be interested in seeing where you get your figures from.
From various articles it would appear that Pret in fact only employs 31% from ethnic minorities. That's a whole 69% that would be british, then.

To answer some points in this thread, some interesting stats from an LSE study:

cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/ea006.pdf

The UK has a lower share of immigrants in its total population (10.2%) than Australia (25%), Germany (12.9%) or the United States (13.6%).

Immigrants, on average, are less likely to be in social housing than people born in the UK, even when the immigrant is from a developing country.

There are potential economic benefits associated with migration, especially to fill gaps in the UK labour market ? where there are shortages of workers, whether highor low-skilled. While there may be costs to particular groups, there is little evidence of an overall negative impact on jobs or wages.

Many new immigrants ? those who have been in the country for less than a year ? are not primarily from the poorest countries, but from developed countries or wealthier emerging countries like South Africa.

Unlike in the United States, where the skill composition of immigrants is tilted towards the unskilled, the skill composition of immigrants to the UK is more biased towards skilled workers.

A recent study of the fiscal impact of immigration of workers from the eight EU accession countries of Central and Eastern Europe (the A8) concludes that because this group of immigrants are more likely to be in work and make less use of welfare and other public services, their net contribution is positive.

Nevertheless, there may be some downward pressure in the low wage labour market where (despite their higher relative education levels) many new immigrants tend to find work.

There has been some concern that rising immigration puts extra pressure on schools and on the housing market. These are areas in which there is still little hard evidence.

Dawn Donna, that doesn't even make sense. Lots of British people are members of ethnic minority groups.

It seems to me you can't really win, if you're an immigrant.

If you don't work, you're scrounging off the British taxpayer... if you do work, you're taking British jobs.

I was refering to another point saying that only 18% of Pret staff were british.
This sort of scaremongering is ridiculous. That was the point I was trying to make.

I hardly ever post, but had to add my voice to the no camp. There is not too much immigration, just too much ignorance, hatred and blind attacking of easy targets. Very sad.

DB, I can see there is an economic benefit to having migrants doing skilled jobs where there is a skills gap. How does that help children in my family? Doesn't it mean the Government has no incentive to train the current population to fill the skills gap, meaning my children are less likely to receive educational opportunities that would allow them to get a skilled job?

But you haven't made the point DD. You've just presented an equally meaningless statistic.

www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/9129410/Smiley-culture-Pret-A-Mangers-secret-ingredients.html

"While branches outside London are about 40 per cent British, the proportion of UK staff across the company is only 18 per cent."
"The number of nationalities working for Pret is currently 106, with Poles, at 13 per cent, Colombians, 10 per cent, and Italians, seven per cent, the best represented"

In London Pret a Manger branches are in many cases 100% foreign staffed. Outside London it's 'merely' a majority that are foreign. A representative figure would I guess be around 90% British, as opposed to the true figure - 18%.

This one says 19% British: www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/why-cant-a-brit-get-a-job-at-pret-7310609.html

I think the UK is at capacity as regarding demand for schooling and health services. Quite whose fault that is I wouldn't like to say.

How many immigrants is enough?
Another 3 million or 30 million?

MrsDeVere I know, you're probably right, but I can't quite give up yet

I'm also really not worried about the apocalyptic scenarios.

I'm not sure you can even say the current levels are historically unprecedented, given that the huge influxes of migrants during the colonial era were not really tracked or recorded.

From the 1600s to the First World War, the world experienced incredible globalisation -- much more similar to today. It's the 20th century that is really quite anomolous, due to the massive impact of the world wars and decolonisation.

The level of insight on here is profound.

The impact of colonisation was disastrous for many people both in the UK and in the colonies. I don't know if I'd consider starvation, clearance, workhouses, industrial revolution style working conditions, whole families living in cellars or on the streets and the worst state of health that Britain has ever seen are apocalyptic, but I don't want to reproduce them now. I doubt any if those things have much to do with levels of immigration now, one way or the other.

At the place that I work, we have over 40 nationalities. If immigration was curtailed, we'd be fucked. It's such a specialist area, that there are literally two or three people in the world capable of doing some of the jobs here.

If the UK wants to be at the forefront of technology, we have to accept that that will mean people coming here to do specialist jobs. If we are successful in the specialist areas, there will be more jobs all round. That might mean people come here to get non specialist jobs, competing with UK citizens. I'm ok with that, as it's a sign of a healthy economy.

I think it's a great thing, actually.

Freya that's a good question.

I think the problem is a collision of politics and economics.

Politically, the government would prefer to train its own citizens and give them the skilled jobs. But economically, they are not willing to put the necessary money into it. I don't know if this is because there are immigrants available, or because education funding is just not generally seen as a high enough priority.

DB, which itself creates particular patterns of immigration. There is an incentive to come to the UK and work, but no incentive for skilled workers to have children here, because those children will have less opportunity as British educated than they would do if they were educated elsewhere. It makes Britain into a workplace rather than a society.