to be concerned re. what is going on re. immigration and population growth?

[ClarityJane]

So many non-English voices, especially East Europeans, but so many different nationalities en masse it seems have moved here in the last 10-20 years - completely unprecedented historically. And in an already very over-crowded island.

Today I read Labour MP Frank Field say that the population increase due to immigration by 2031, i.e. less than 20 years, will be approximately 10 million and will require building something like seven new Birminghams! Or another London! Based on latest predictions in the papers today anyway.

Did Blair and Mandelson envisage this when they signed up for European Community rules on immigration and refugees? Or did they cynically not care because it meant cheap labour, cheap votes, increased profits (via membership of the European Community).

Did the architects of this policy not consider how it would affect housing, jobs and education and the resulting massive investment needed there, and the over-crowded population we have already.

I believe we have never been consulted or told anything honestly about what the consequences of EC membership was immigration-wise, if indeed there was ever any plan (doesn't seem to be, just a kind of opportunistic carpetbaggers philosophy approach of selling England by the pound).

I feel deceived and hoodwinked really. But are there any more positive thoughts on this? I find it v. depressing.

You of corse are more than welcome to leave the thread and leave us to discuss father ted

It is not a geographical issue. It's a matter of social conscience. It's a matter of intelligence, of coherent thought. Whilst we are capable of that, we have to fight against this.

There's not going to be an extra 10million people. The estimate I believe was 500,000 I believe which I still question you are not going to wake up in January to find yourself 'surrounded by 10m more Foreigners'. Honestly I'm losing the will to live here. Anyone else want . I'll put the Kettle on. :)

LemisaFucker as my Dads' favourite quote is apt here. "It is because people are scared of the unknown'".

I agree with you 100% pur.
I worded my first post very badly.

Yes its understabdable. My dp is from Lewisham and his parents were utterly discombobulated by the infux of black people back in the day. Now they are part of the same community and not a second thought is given.

would be lovely, Misspixie.

And OMG, I have just realised, I AM A CHILD OF IMMIGRANTS! Worse, ECONOMIC MIGRANTS!! My Dad was South African and came here in the 1950's to work for the GPO! My Mum's family are Irish! Waah! No wonder I is a fuking racist

See LoveCat your Parents took someone's Job again. This has been 'appening right since the 50's! How dare they when WE was born 'ere!

My dear 83 year old neighbour is surrounded my foreigners. He's not a racist but is naturally bewildered by this, and has no-one to talk to.

If your neighbour has no neighbours to talk to how did you manage to find this information out from him?

Sorry, to get back to a serious point - it is entirely fear of the unknown, which is why I think you get this whole 'I have black friends, I can't be racist' thing - on an individual level most people aren't threatened by the 'other', because it's hard to be threatened by someone smiling and offering you some sweets for Diwali. It's the amorphous, faceless threat of 'immigrants swamping our country' that some sections of the press are very happy to whip up that makes people worried.

That and certain parts of the country don't have great infrastructure and any incomers, (whether immigrants in rented flats or the naice MC families moving into the new estate built on that farmer's old field), will cause a strain if town planning isn't done in a joined-up manner. Which it rarely is.

I grew up in a very white area (if I'm allowed to say that) and didn't see a 'forrin' face til I moved down to London. It was a complete culture shock. But a good one. It's interesting that my NDN (3rd generation Indian) had a moan to me a year or so ago about "these Eastern Europeans coming in and taking over..." but he now employs several Polish girls in his shop and is very impressed with their work ethic.

It will be odd, I think, when in twenty five years time the population of Holland is 80% white and the population of Britain is 70% non-white

So bloody what!

Oh and shock horror, my 4 British DC are all non-white. What exactly is wrong with having a population that isn't white?

Yet people still come on to this thread and claim that there is no need to shout racist. Really? Really?

My dear 83 year old neighbour is surrounded my foreigners. He's not a racist but is naturally bewildered by this, and has no-one to talk to.

So your neighbour is surrounded by foreigners and has no one to talk to. Yet you, I am assuming, are his neighbour, are not foreign and have in fact talked to him!

No JaquelineHyde because that's known as playing 'The Race Card' in such circles. Because you know White people are allowed to dictate what other nationalities should or should not find racist/offensive. You only need to look at Facefuck for things like that to be mentioned.

OP when your elderly neighbour needs hospital treatment he'll be glad of all the foreigners with their funny accents and medical qualifications who work in our hospitals and care homes. Because if they didn't the NHS wouldn't be treating anyone.

But don't let that cloud your Daily Fail version of real life.

Actually silly me, just ignore what I have said.

I realise now that as a white British woman who has married and procreated with a black immigrant my opinion is probably not valid.

Maybe Chaz Germany and France do have more refugees. But I bet we have lots more immigrants.

Total number of immigrants? Germany has a lot more than us (9,845,244 to our 7,824,131) while France has slightly fewer (7,439,086). As a percentage of the population we do have slightly more (UK 12.4%, Germany 11.9%, France 11.6%) but there's not a huge difference. Switzerland, Croatia, Sweden, Austria and Spain all have more immigrants as a percentage of their population than the UK does.

mylovelyboy for a good example of immigrants complaining about other immigrants (and yes this does happen a lot in the UK, in fact since you're so obsessed with Tower Hamlets I can confirm that my friend taught geography there and was a bit surprised at how anti-immigration all the second gen immigrant kids were, it's a common and somewhat illogical phenomenon)

Please see DM subscribing English expats in the Dordogne. "When we moved here it was a lovely French village wasn't it love? And now there's bloody English immigrants everywhere. Now let's go and get ourselves one of those nice pastries, what's the French word for croissant again?"

PS I lived in TH for many happy years.

"A figure often quoted is that less than 10% of the population of Britain is non-white. What the figure hides is that almost 40% of the under 18 population of Britain is non-white."

No, it's not. Looking at England and Wales from the 2011 census, 9,495,175 of the 11,970,367 under-18 year olds were white. That's 79.3%, leaving 20.7% who are non-white. I've not looked up the figures for Scotland or Northern Ireland, but their non-white percentages are significantly lower than for England and Wales so the percentage of under-18s who are non-white certainly isn't going to be any higher than 20.7%; it's probably going to work out around 20% or lower (which is quite a bit less than 40% -- if you're describing 20% as "almost 40%" you should probably go back and resit KS1 Maths).

But seriously guys, i worry about this - do you think that father ted, whilst we know he is not a racist, is maybe a teeny tiny bit mysogynist? I can't spell

Wtaf is going on here?!

Ps, in the interests of full disclosure, I live in britain and very rarely hear an english accent in my home town. Non-english in my street, the schools, the shops, the hospitals, all public services in fact.

What with living in Wales and all...

I got bored halfway through rtft

Pachacuti, perhaps, when deliberately skewing figures with a racist bias, fake-tan orange is classed as non white?

One interesting (although unsurprising) detail -- of the under-18 non-white population (you know, the 20% who presumably just run around really fast so that they look like 40% ) nearly a quarter are of mixed or multiple ethnic heritage; for the non-white adult population the proportion is only 11.5%.