To think Europen governments need to respond to immigration?

[Finlesswonder]

So the Netherlands is going to have a far right government.
Sweden has moved to the right.
Finland has shut its borders.
Countries that have traditionally been liberal are hardening and irrespective of the many issues listed its to do with immigration.

Ireland has seen violent protests last night following a series of stabbings.
In the UK we obviously had Brexit.

I think governments need to start responding to voters feelings on immigration as if they don't we will continue to see a general slide to the right in Europe, when actually these countries aren't right wing: it feels like a single issue is distorting the entire political landscape?

What makes you think the Netherlands is going to have a far right government? I can’t see how Wilders will form a government, he doesn’t have the numbers.

@AdamRyan
Provide proper pay and attractive working conditions and people already here will do all that

and there are many parts of british culture that are far from enriching. I'm not sure I get your point.

You can appreciate multiculturalism even if you disagree with certain practices.

Ah yes, it is fine to describe a chunk of voters as the 'guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati'. We don't have to respect their concerns. We only have to respect the concerns of the anti-immigranf portion of the electorate.

He can't you are so right.

But people are so whipped up predictably by news outlets such as the Fail about this far right movement that all of the EU and the UK need.

@Myfabby there are no child brides arranged marriages, no education for women or FGM in British culture. It was still legal to rape your wife in the UK till the 1990’s because a man could not be prosecuted this is not the case in other countries.

Well, the sectors using the largest immigrant workforce are health and social care, and the government can't or won't increase public sector pay so that's not going to happen is it?

Similarly with farming, the supermarkets won't pay increased prices for food if they can buy cheaper from abroad so farmers don't really have too much of a choice to "pay more"

Similarly with universities, as said upthread when the Government cut working visas for graduates it caused a drop in overseas student numbers and put universities at risk of bankruptcy. The government don't want to invest in higher education, they want it to be a capitalist market where the universities get funded by students, so they need immigration to keep the universities going.

It's all a lot more complex than "people don't want immigration".

*He can't you are so right.

But people are so whipped up predictably by news outlets such as the Fail about this far right movement that all of the EU and the UK need.*

The Netherlands never have a single party government. Wilders will have to form a coalition like always. The candidates to help him do this are all slightly right of the center. People will also vote strategically knowing this.

If he can't form a government, then the left parties can give it a go but they need 6-7 parties to get a majority. Good luck with that.

I predict the Netherlands will have another election within a year because no government can be formed or a minority government is formed that continiously fails

No, but it showed the contempt that was felt for anyone who differed from the ‘right-thinking’ line that Plenty Of Immigration Is A Very Good Thing.

And we still don’t have anything like enough decent, affordable housing for those people who are already here.

People might think that the economics don't matter. I suspect they might feel rather differently about the reality.

Or maybe it was contempt that was felt for racists, which is fine imo.

I don't know why it is suddenly that we have to treat all views as legitimate and worthy of respect. I think its fine to be contemptuous of certain views, racism being one of them.

Agree entirely molly.

I’m absolutely shocked a teacher could think like that. Don’t teachers get taught any basic psychology or child development?

I don't see what immigration had to do with yesterday's riots in Dublin. Those were instigated by home grown thugs with their own agendas. If they put as much effort into improving their own lives as they did into robbing shops it might help

I found this article in an American paper interesting about how the immigration stats are being perceived outside the UK

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/23/world/europe/uk-migration-record-brexit.html

Governments are very focussed on size of the economy but distribution of the wealth generated matters as much and more, otherwise you can have a huge economy and only a tiny proportion of people within it benefitting. Capitalism concentrates wealth because it allocates too great a share of the overall growth/return of the economy to owners of capital, rather than to labour. The whole point of socialism is to to intervene to even it out.

Because Europe has never had mass immigration from non-white and non-Christian countries in the past.

Europe has been anti-semetic and so there is no reason why it can't be racist as well faced with mass non-white and non Christian immigration.

Unfortunately, most people who vote have never studied economics. A lot of people don't even have a basic graps of maths.

Unless you have to pass an economics exam before you can vote (and I think that you should), then people are going to vote with their hearts.

You just need to read the rubbish on here when people go on about us being the 5th richest country and totally ingnore the trillions of debt that we have ( just like most Western countries).

Yes exactly this.

GB sowed the seeds of discontent. Why do you think people voted for a buffoon like Boris? Because GB looked down on them and called them racist. Boris didn't.

You can study economics all you like, it doesn’t mean controlled immigration isn’t a reasonable idea

Where that level of control is set will differ between people, even those with knowledge of economics will have a view of where that is

Yes, if you studied economics then you would see that uncontrolled immigration is a bad idea.

Luckily we voted for Brexit despite people not having studied economics but it was pure luck and close.

I was really referring to other issues where people think that we have unlimited resouces because they don't understand about the level of debt that all Western countries have.

I think it's inevitable this will happen.

That being said, you really have to talk about the refugee system, and then other kinds of immigration.

Both are important but the refugee system is where there is a huge problem on the horizon that is not just up to individual countries to deal with, and the systems and many regulations are essentially international.But it's a system that was crafted at a very different time, and it's simply inadequate to manage what's coming. Part of the reason (not the only reason) it's those small countries that are responding first is that in such a small place it's clear that it would be possible to be overwhelmed very easily. No one can fool themselves that they can absorb so many people, either in terms of the infrastructure of social democracy, or in terms of maintaining a distinct social fabric.

The majority of people IMO see this and want to try and find solutions, but it's extremely difficult. My sense is that they are going to end up being an investment in creating stability in people's own places.But then I can't really see that as being adequately effective either.

But certain sections of the progressive left seem to want to make it impossible to even get to a place where such discussions can happen, because they are so convinced that the answer is just, let people go where they want, the west should support them anyway as a kind of penance. And that will end up with people moving more right, politically, in terms of voting choices. This is one of those areas where you get a funny historical blindness, as it was at one time widely understood that the kinds of infrastructure you find in social democracies requires a relatively small, stable population with controls on immigration.

The other issue of course is managing declining population. One thing that will have to happen is a better approach to getting our own workers into the jobs we need, when they maybe aren't considered the most glamorous (farm work for example), and also training people properly rather than relying on poaching trained people from other countries to work cheap (or not so cheap.). Mechanization may come into this somewhat, though my intuition is that will be a mixed blessing.

I wouldn't say that. Brexiters said there would be no downsides, only upsides, the idea that people knew there would be an economic hit from Brexit wasn't mentioned until AFTER it started to become obvious. Most people voted for Brexit because austerity had made them poorer and Brexiters promised them higher wages and cheaper food and goods.

The economics DO still matter which is why all the European right wing political parties dialled back on their promises to leave the EU after Brexit.

I think governments need to start responding to voters feelings on immigration as if they don't we will continue to see a general slide to the right in Europe

Indeed, and they can start by focusing on something they have more control over....emigration.

Time for Europeans to put their money where their mouths are and ban all outward migration from their countries. If you don't want them coming here then you shouldn't want us going there.

However, I imagine any attempt at something like that would be met with outrage, seen as an attack on the human rights, and be political suicide.

I think there is some of this. THere is a regular poster here on MN who, when this is discussed, says straight out that the UK needs to accept whoever wants to come because they were historical oppressors and now need to pay their dues. I've certainly heard the same from other individuals as well.

But I think you are right overall. It's not just a matter of particular attitudes though, IMO. ANy time you have large numbers of newcomers, it strains the social fabric. IN fact this even happens due to citizens within the country moving around a lot for jobs, you just don't get the kinds of resilient, integrated communities that support individuals and families.

That being said, the UK has always been pretty good, comparatively, about accepting newcomers. (Though it's worth watching the film Trevor Phillips made about multiculturalsm a few years ago, he basically argues that contrary to his hopes when he was in government, even in places like London there isn't real integration.) But at a certain point you simply overwhelm the existing social fabric. Where I live now over 20% of the population now were not born here. That is a lot, it begins to look like they are not going to be integrated so much as transform the community into something quite new. And you kind of think, surely the people who live here already should have some kind of say in that?

I think the other uncomfortable truth is that since Brexit, wages have generally increased as there has been a significant staff shortage, compounded by the effects of the pandemic. So all of those tradesmen who were undercut by better quality Eastern Europeans saw their circumstances materially improve, which doesn't exactly hurt anti-immigration feeling.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-sees-fastest-wage-rises-sectors-most-reliant-eu-workers-indeed-2022-02-25/