To wonder why people hate immigration/immigrants so much?

[PeachyParisian]

I don't mean to the UK specifically, but within Europe, worldwide..

Does it boil down to a sense of entitlement? i.e. I was born here so i deserve to reap the benefits of my ancestors hard work.
Also I suppose economic migration is completely different to fleeing to claim asylum although I see no differentiation made in the UK media.
Its always about "benefits tourism"/"generous benefits given to asylum seekers".
I'm an expat, DH is non-EU and we are planning on moving to the UK this year and I'm tired of all the raised questioning eyebrows incredulously asking me if he really is forrin.

I find it hard to get my head around the idea that I am worth more, deserve more etc just because I was lucky enough to be born a British citizen.

Marmalade are you referring to the fact that there was an ice age and the original indigenous population left then? Or is it something else we are failing to realise?

I found I understood alemci's post so long as I didn't enter the realms of pedantry.

Peachy - I feel for you, it seems cruel and unfair. Would the Surinder Singh route be an option for you at all?
I can't believe how lucky I was that the EU's freedom of movement enabled me to give my relationship a shot when I fell in love with my now husband so we could build a life together. I don't know if we could have if we had been subject to the current restrictions for non EU nationals.

Alemci - how many generations do you have to go back to be a pure-blood Briton who should be put first before "newcomers"?

I assume you'd like to see me and my children removed, but what about their father who has one immigrant grandfather who came over after the war?

Does it make a difference to you if a newcomer has made the active commitment to their chosen home and obtained citizenship or are you one of those who think citizenship should never be granted to foreigners?

Hating immigration and hating immigrants are 2 very different things.

OK parts of Somalia were a British and Italian colony and remaining areas were under UN Trusteeship in 1949. I'm fairly sure the British public have had plenty of advantages from their colonisation of Somalia so this is just the trade-off.

And they are refugees, not economic migrants, escaping from all kinds of shit we wouldn't wish on our worst enemies.

It's not right that they take priority housing but that's down to our absurd housing system, not their fault, it's the system at fault. Most countries don't have social housing like ours. As refugees also, they are not allowed to work for a certain amount of time (I think that may have changed now?) so that forces them onto benefit and subsistence. They arrive here with nothing but the clothes on their backs usually, and stand in a council office until they are allocated some kind of roof over their heads. What do we do, dump them somewhere?

No-one should have priority based on where they were born. People should be prioritised on a needs basis, as long as they are legally in the country. Which is why I would support a contributory system, with safeguards in place for those who genuinely cannot work.

In the Dutch system there are different kinds of benefits - one for people who have worked and contributed, which is called WW. This is a minimum of 75% of your daily wage for the first 2 months and 70% thereafter. You get a month's WW for each full year you have worked, up to a maximum of 38 months.
When your WW runs out, you can get Bijstand - this is much less, but still not bad: for someone who is married it's equal to Dutch NMW, for a lone adult it's half Dutch NMW. It is means tested and if you have savings or own property, this is taken into account.
It isn't riches by any means, but it isn't bad.
Then there's the Dutch equivalent of ESA/PIP, which has been slashed but is still better than the UK one.

Best of all, the principles of the above apply equally to everyone in Holland who is legally resident there. It's contributory but sensible. I'd far rather see a system like that here than go the UKIP route and just say forriners get nothing, irrespective of how much they've paid in.

"Marmalade are you referring to the fact that there was an ice age and the original indigenous population left then? Or is it something else we are failing to realise?

I found I understood alemci's post so long as I didn't enter the realms of pedantry."

Umm, no.

It is a fact that we are a mongrel race. We don't have an indigenous population and haven't had one for quite some time. So insisting that certain benefits of living in Britain are only to be reaped by a mythical population is problematic. How would you determine who is indigenous when form-filling, for example? Who decides how many generations to go back when deciding whether someone is an indigenous Brit? It's a stupid thing to come out with.

normalish xenophobes say that to make themselves feel better about it, to an immigrant it doesn't really make a difference that you don't hate them as a person if you feel they shouldn't be here.

My experience of the things immigrants to Sweden are given is that it is much more generous than the UK, for example if you move to Sweden with children under 7 you get a year and a half parental leave. Parental leave is paid at about 800 pounds a month if you didn't have a job before taking out the leave.

You also have free Swedish lessons, free university education, I actually get a grant to study at university despite already having a degree from my home country.

My child goes to daycare which is pretty much free, I was given a bonus for completing my Swedish course which was equivalent of about 1500 pounds, I have the same healthcare as Swedish people ( which is amazing, I am terrified of getting ill in the UK and having to use the NHS). Immigrats that can't swim get free swimming lessons.

I live with my dp but immigrants who need housing are provided with housing.

I have never been an immigrant in the UK but I don't imagine it's a better deal than being an immigrant in Sweden.

I am concerned with the scale of immigration and the effect on jobs and the economy. What I don't like are immigrants who whish to benefit from our country but are not willing to integrate. I don't mean for them to give up their religion or culture but to be tolerant of ours.

Ikea, I can confirm that immigrants in Sweden get a better deal.

www.economist.com/news/special-report/21570836-immigration-and-growing-inequality-are-making-nordics-less-homogeneous-ins-and

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html

One of my best friends was a refugee from Bosnia at around 12 years old. They came with nothing after all the men in their family were rounded up. They think her dad and uncles died in a concentration camp.

She is the face of immigration for me. DH has travelled extensively in romania, was horrified by what he saw. He can understand why romanians are desperate to come here

I don't want anyone to be removed but I think you can see my point.

Some of my relatives were immigrants in the 20th century and I accept everyone has mixed heritage but there has just been far too much in the last 15 years' and we cannot sustain it IMO.

Aga Panthers, you have made some interesting points on this thread and earlier summed up the situation very well.

Widow It's mainly why we are in France now I'd like to finish university in the UK so moving here permanently isn't an option just yet. The irony is that if DH came to the UK on a spouse visa he would have absolutely no recourse to public funds but under SS, he will!

How can you determine fairly who will and will not integrate at the point of a visa application?
How is it okay to say, well it's fine my immigrant ancestors came to Britain but enough is enough and nobody else should be allowed the same opportunity. How would you feel if you were born into desperate poverty in Eastern Europe and the only way you could improve your life and the lives of your DCs was to move elsewhere? Which may entail relying on state funds until you get on your feet.

why aren't the Somalis in France?

Ooh did I miss the memo where you are only allowed to emigrate to your colonial forebear?

Why should Somalis only flee to France? It's not even as if they share any kind of common language! You can at least see why Zimbabweans and Jamaicans may choose the UK to claim asylum.

alemci no I can't see your point. I arrived 9 years ago exercising my treaty rights. Started in a low skill low pay job, but always paying taxes. Also using NHS from the beginning. Only benefits ever claimed were tax credits, when joint income was too low, but more than 5 years after my arrival. Long stopped claiming since. Should I not be here?

To be clear, we do not take a large number of asylum seekers in the UK.F France takes more than twice as many asylum seekers as we do.

My bringing up Somalians was only in response to the claim that British people are bigger % users of benefits and housing than immigrants. It was not intended as a wider debate on Somalia or its people.

The impact of Somalians on the UK as a whole is low, although in specific areas, schools, etc., there will be major impacts.

The biggest sources of immigrants to the UK are India, Pakistan and Poland. Different types of visa/immigration law will predominantly apply if you are looking at Poles compared with Somalis compared with Pakistanis.

Millie: What about defeating Hitler? Invention of forceps, anaesthesia, small pox vaccine, penicillin, steam engine, the industrial revolution? To name but a few. You clearly have no grasp whatsoever of British history.

OP: I said most, not all, of Britains 'accomplishments' and you seem to be skimming over an awful lot of history that isn't convenient to your point. So perhaps it is in fact you who needs to revisit your history textbooks?

I'm not skimming over anything. I'm pointing out that as a matter of fact, "most" of the UK's accomplishments have NOT been to the detriment of other nations. Far from it. What you said is WRONG as a matter of fact.

You seem to be wilfully ignorant of the huge benefits that British science, medicine, legal system, education, technology (not to mention defeating fascism) has brought. Not just to Britain, but globally. Why are you not able to admit this? Is the idea that the UK may have made a positive contribution so very upsetting to your liberal UK bashing agenda?

I notice you are strangely silent on specifics. You don't elucidate as what exactly are the "MOST of the UK's accomplishments" which have apparently been to the detriment of other nations. I guess you're finding that it's easy to make unsubstantiated assertions, but more difficult to justify them! As an MA in history, I feel reasonably competent to query what you're saying.

Sorry if it upsets you to have your propaganda questioned.

Defeated fascism? Sorry, have you not heard of UKIP, BNP et al?
I'm not entirely sure why the specifics of which activities in the History of Britain are abhorrent to me are relevant to why people see immigrants/immigration as a problem today.
Having studies Archaeology at Uni, I may have gone a little bit further back into the history of human migration and "British" History too. I wasn't aware you had to be qualified to hold an opinion either.
Funny how you call me a liberal like it's a bad thing.

News just in: Nigel Farage 'literally Hitler'.

truffle I think that many that are very anti-immigrants/forriners actually don't have any idea why they have chosen to move to the UK. Lucky them, growing up somewhere where your basic rights are protected and you don't live in fear for their lives.

DH is from Kosovo originally and some of the things he witnessed as a child are beyond horrifying, nobody should have to have experiences like that and I cannot blame his family for trying to move away during the war.

Apologies for my spelling, am on phone.

Further news just in: Hitler not history's only fascist.

So, OP, you make a comment and then...when asked to justify it...suddenly you decide its not relevant? Hmmmmmm, ok. Call me curious, but then I can't help wondering why YOU felt the need to bring it up in the first place?

And, for the avoidance of doubt, I do think your form of liberalism is a bad thing (only judging from the simplistic but militant posts you have made on here - you may be quite rational in RL). It seems to consist in insidious attempts to chip away at any remaining sense of UK national pride, publishing sweeping and inaccurate statements, using emotive language, ignoring realities, trying to reinvent history to suit your own agenda and generally denigrating the UK.

Also, UKIP and BNP are not one and the same. Not a nice mistake to make, but I guess along with other so-called "liberals", you like to stifle debate by labelling things. Freedom of speech so long as you agree with the liberals, otherwise you are promptly labelled an "ist" of some description. And the debate is ended.