Are people that want zero immigration racist?

[equalstime]

People that moan about migrants coming to this county - taking our jobs - taking our houses - draining the medical system - not settling in the first country they reach for asylum- they're racist right?

There will always be an element of migration and when you take account of UK born people that leave and non Uk people that enter our country, the net figure is no doubt reasonable. They are often willing to work and contribute to our society and economy - so why the hostility?

Why not accept as a country that we have en element of migration and embrace that, if not because your views are racist?

No, they don't, and their citizens don't have an automatic right to come here. People who support zero immigration aren't just arguing that immigrants should meet certain requirements- that's already the case and our requirements are strict too- they're arguing for zero immigration.

But almost nboody actually supports "zero immigration".

It isn’t racism to think that asylum seekers should claim asylum in the first safe country. That is what they are supposed to do. Travelling onward is no longer asylum seeking, it’s economic migration.

It may not be racist, but it certainly isn't Brexit. And since Brexit is the will of the people, I think it's a bit undemocratic to complain about it's effects unless you are a traitor.

Have you read the Express comments section ? Not only do plenty of people support it, plenty more support negative immigration aka "send them back".

This simply isn't true, I'm afraid.

I was just coming to say the same.

But it’s a straw man argument isn’t it. We must support mass immigration because there are people who support zero immigration. If you want any kind of controls on people moving to this country then you are in with the ‘send ‘em back’ brigade.

The majority of people across the world support jess immigration to their countries. In Italy it’s 71%, Germany 52%. But looking at the policies of governments you’d think not supporting mass immigration was a niche view. Do we honestly think that the millions people from we have from abroad are only having a positive effect on life in the U.K.? Many from cultures that are so different to ours and others who actively dislike our way of life and harbour resentments to our nation. Just look at the terrorist attacks over the last few years. Can you imagine an English person trying to bomb a maternity ward? There should be safeguards against people who harbour these feelings or have these beliefs living here. Visas, boarder controls, background checks…I just don’t see these things as controversial.

Cultural cohesion is the foundation of a high trust society in which welfare state policies and the rule of law flourish as you have high cultural buy in from the citizens. The more diverse a society, with groups not integrating, then unfortunately the less social harmony, lower levels of trust in the country. Different groups will then use politics as a means to compete for resources and power. Which will cause resentment and unrest. We are already seeing this in the very poor areas being expected to absorb high migration levels.

Placemarking as a first gen brown immigrant. Interesting reading.

It seems to me that native born Brits are imploding through lack of public services resources brought on by their votes eg
Brexit
Successive Tory Governments
aided and abetted by the right wing media owned by the powerful who couldn’t give a stuff about the general population

It is racist and xenophobic to say it’s immigration causing the strain on public services like the NHS, education, housing, etc. Basically blaming and othering people in the minority, but who contribute more in net taxes to the well being of a nation than the native born population.
Yes there are always a minority of scroungers but in the vast majority immigrants contribute more per capita, and in many cases are better educated than the native population .

Read the Stats migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-in-the-uk/

The other thing that makes me laugh is the very people who voted for Brexit have now shot themselves in the foot as EU nationals contributed more per capita to the economy than their non EU equivalents and culturally and due to historical ties had a huge amount more in common with Brits (including ethnicity which matters a lot to the racists who wanted Brexit) than immigrants from other parts of the globe.

They also voted to restrict their own freedom of movement to work and live in many lovely European countries.
Thats a direct result of ignorance and xenophobia. You couldn’t get more stupid if you tried.

Most of the comments on this thread blaming immigration for the mess GB is in are ignorant at best, racist and xenophobic in most cases too.

It is true people moving here add in taxes etc

It can be done through work visas though. Australia and other countries have systems which benefit and are strict.

If we’re going to have Brexit may as well have a system that matches skills to demand. And after Brexit net migration hasn’t gone down anyway

The study quoted above, and the claim that migrants to the economy bring in more in net taxes is very controversial as it does not look at in work benefits. It is literally one of the only studies to conclude this. The fact that net migration to the U.K. is a steady 300k a year will not have an effect on public service and housing is pie in the sky. That’s a city the side of Portsmouth.

In January 2020 the BBC published an immigration briefing based on research that was published by the governments Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) and carried out for them by Oxford Economics.

This report concluded that in 2016/2017 migrants overall paid in £4.3 billion less than they took out. So okay maybe the claim that "every study" will tell you migrants pay more than they put in was a bit of hyperbole? You found a study by a neoliberal pro mass migration think tank.

And the question still stands, how much migration can a country as small as the U.K. absorb. Per capita we have population density in England (as that is where most migrants settle, not Wales or Scotland) comparable to Bangladesh or Tiawan. We have 430 people per square km.

It is not all about money though is it. If you have a falling birth rate you need young immigrants to come in, work and have children. If you have your own population retiring early and requiring the state to look after them via pensions and then care into their 90s you need the immigration - even if they are on low wages and paying low taxes. They are still contributing to essential services like refuse collection, transport, NHS, care work. Just because someone is paid a low wage and needs top ups that does not mean they are not adding huge value to a society.

Of course we need immigration, but like other countries we need to allow people with the skills required and who are likely to make a reasonably fast contribution to the economy. In all honesty I cannot see that many of the poorly educated young men with little or no English who make up the majority of illegal immigrants are going to become care workers or nurses. Why is it so controversial for the U.K to want to select who comes to live here

Err @Mycatsgoldtooth please link?
The study I linked to is from MAC Oxford and it concludes that immigration in the last year they measured contributed net 20Billion to the Economy, so it’s exactly the same source you’re quoting…
otherwise you’re quoting on hearsay and I can’t take any of your posts seriously.

So on this one thread we have:

(1) We need highly educated immigrants, like doctors or engineers, who can contribute.

(2) We can't take highly educated doctors and engineers from their home countries because it will be a brain drain.

@Lentilweaver - we need both types of economic migrants. Some very skilled ones and some unskilled but hardworking ones happy to do the more menial jobs as well.
@angstridden2 - many young males arrive first and then bring wives over and have children.
As long as everyone who comes works, it benefits the country. If we choose to incentive people to not work or not work as much as they could due to a dis functioning benefits system and too expensive childcare, then that is a systemic issue.

There are a lot of highly skilled & well off people arriving from Hong Kong right now which will benefit the UK. There are also quite a few skilled Europeans who paid a lot into the system leaving post Brexit. It will balance itself out.

Well said.

@angstridden2 I think that you and many others posters in this thread is confusing refugees/asylum seekers with Immigrant Labour and they’re totally different groups of people.

Regarding the specific concerns voiced by many on Refugees/Asylum seekers coming over the North Sea in small boats they’re a very small number of people, maybe many of them would already be making a useful contribution to society if they were allowed to work instead of languish for months in detention facilities.

@Volver like selling drugs or human trafficking Albanian children, as those are the kids going missing from care? So many of the people crossing are from Albania it actually makes a mockery of the genuine people seeking asylum. Also - France is a safe country.

Sometimes people might want to limit or stop immigration for different reasons, such as worries about the economy, culture, society, or national security. It's important to understand that being worried about immigration doesn't necessarily mean that someone is racist

@Mycatsgoldtooth you’re referring to a tiny % of foreign born people seeking Asylum.
That’s not the big picture on Immigration in GB. The big picture is that Immigration makes a net contribution to the HMRC coffers measured in billions more than they use in public services.

Stop confusing Refugees and Asylum seekers with Immigration. They’re totally different groups of foreign born people and since you can’t link to any stats to prove your points I conclude you’re speaking with prejudice and xenophobic sentiments rather than facts.

Regarding the small cohort of Asylum seekers/Refugees there ought to be safe routes to claim asylum and since there aren’t you get the people in small boats and the criminal gangs instead. It’s a problem created by the Government by not offering more processing facilities and safe routes in other locations that need it.

@flawless29 You say it's "important to understand", so specifically what worries do you have about the "culture" and "society" that immigrants bring, for example? Just so I can understand this a bit better.

@flawless29 most of the arguments I’ve read in this thread against Immigration were economic concerns, quoting stretched public services and social housing.

As the stats clearly show Immigrants are NET contributors to the British economy, so that concern is not based on facts.

Culturally I would understand more as it’s true certain immigrant groups find it harder to integrate.
Unfortunately for those posters who think integration is the key Immigration worry, now post Brexit most immigration will come from Asia and Africa as GB has turned away from the nations that were culturally/ethnically closer to them, and so it’s something that will continue for the foreseeable future.
Brexiteers shot themselves in the foot spectacularly on that front.

Well you could take a look at the feminism board at a woman working with psychiatric patients whose new colleague thinks FGM is brilliant and believes in witch medicine.

Zero illegal immigration you presumably mean.

I suppose it depends - if you believe we are a country where people are relying on food banks, public service are collapsing or have collapsed, and wages have been dropping for years to the extent that inflation is quite soon going to kill a lot of people unless they can get food, heat or medical attention from the public purse, then no, it is not racist to shy away from the idea of adding an estimated million people per year in the coming years to eat from our food, take from our benefits system, drive wages down further and add strain to the NHS, policing, prison, social housing and social services without EVER having contributed a penny to them in their lives

If you believe we are a rich country where nobodt ever starves and the NHS is infinitely funded and responsive, food banks don't exist and everyone skips around tralalaland grabbing bunches of money from the money tree to burn in their fireplace because there's just too much money around, then yes it is probably racist to not want to add tens or hundreds of thousands, probably really millions of people to the country OUR CHILDREN live in and the services they rely on