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.

I think people have a right to worry about immigration if they have lost their job or their wage has reduced significantly because of competition from immigrants who will work for less. There is also no doubting that immigration has put a huge strain on school places, housing, the NHS, the welfare state. It's not racist to worry about such things.

There are plenty of countries who do not approve of foreign peoples/cultures settling in their countries such as Japan which is something like 99.9% homogenous and it is very hard to get Japanese citizenship. Also most of the Arab world is very against any kind of Western colonies in their countries yet nobody ever accuses these places of being racist/xenophobic/anti-immigrant? Why is it that the West is accused of being racist yet the West allows a large number of immigrants to come and settle in their countries? Seems like double standards to me!

Imagine a room with three people in that have sufficient space, food and water. Add another person, then another, then another. Not rocket science is it.

vitaminz the 'will work for less' argument can readily be put to bed with proper enforcement. A lot of the jobs immigrants start out in are NMW jobs - an employer cannot pay less than that, it is illegal. So if they are paying less, they need to be slammed with the full force of the law. Outside of that argument, Brits will simply have to compete to get the jobs.

Then there is the 'well, they all live a dozen to a spare room so can afford to do NMW jobs whereas we can't'. Which is an argument with some merit, but blaming immigrants for this situation is pointless. Let's put the blame squarely where it belongs - with the politicians of all colours who allowed the sell-of of council housing, who refused then to rebuild enough affordable/social housing to replace it, who refused and still refuse to legislate the rental sector properly.

Lastly re Japan and the Arab world - what makes you think people don't accuse these countries of being racist and xenophobic? Of course people do just that, and vote with their feet by not going to live and work there unless funded by employers offering very good wages and relocation packages. Oil and technology keep people coming, without those things the Arab world would be an economic desert and so would Japan. You have only to read the news about stories of migrant workers and the way they are treated in Qatar and the wider Middle East to see that actually there is a lot of condemnation for the way these countries behave.

And anyway, two wrongs do not make a right.

We could avoid long threads such as this by just handing out medals to OPs for right on-ness from the start.

IMO this one deserves a consolation prize; bronze at best.

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.

OP, I'll be round later to live in your house and eat your food. I hope you won't be so rude as to suggest that I am less entitled to it than you are.

And if there are more people, and therefore more taxes being paid, is there not more funding for the resources?

To a certain extent, yes. Providing that the new people are earning enough to pay tax. Even if they are willing many will be paid very poorly. That's often the reason governments allow immigration. So they can have a cheap labour force.

Also this ignores so many factors. When more people move to an area there are not suddenly more homes, roads, schools and shops. Immigration works if it's slow over many years so the economy grows in step.

Some immigration is fine, but people who believe it should be unlimited should be willing to explain where we'd put them if a natural or economic disaster meant that half the population of China moved here.

If you think "oh well of course we'd have to say no to that" then you do believe in immigration controls.

also I think some of the immigrants here are xenophobic towards their host country and treat it with contempt. Also anti semitism seems to be linked.

alemci if you mean people on this thread you are probably wrong, but re people in general you are probably right. And I do thoroughly disapprove of people who come here and want to change fundamental things. Some of this has already happened and should not have - sharia courts of any description, for instance, should never have been permitted. There is a perfectly good legal system in place already, they were never needed.

Me, I came here because I love this country. I wanted to live here from the moment I first spent any length of time here - 3 months in 1976-7 when my father was on a secondment to Oxford University and then that feeling grew stronger when I spent a year here in 1978-9. However, loving this country does not mean I want to naturalise, nor should I have to (though if the UK leaves the EU I will). It should also not mean that I have to support the England football team, stop eating proper licorice and feeling bewildered about people who think poly/cotton bed linen is a good idea. I'd be worried about people who want immigrants to abandon all of their own culture and turn themselves into clones of the host country.

Limited, I'll gladly accept a wooden spoon.

Would there be such a furore if there were too many white British children and not enough school places? No.

BackOnly. You seem to have missed my point entirely. I am saying you should not feel entitled to something you,personally, have not worked for. I have earned the money for my food so, no, I will not share.

I think we can all agree that wanting to keep Sharia law out of the UK is a separate issue to immigration. It's tricky when two cultures are so fundamentally different, how can they assimilate when that means compromising their principles? Obviously, there shouldn't be a huge divide though.

thanks Pointy interesting post:)

I don't mean people on here.

Also some of the immigrants hate other immigrants as well and they bring alot of baggage (not the suitcase kind) and their own issues.