Friday 30 April 2010

Serious about immigration

Bit disheartening to see in both the Leaders debate and the following Question Time that very little positive is said about immigration. Not until a member of the QT audience said something, did the politicians all agree.
Perhaps predictably since I'm an immigrant, I don't believe all immigration is bad. It enriches a society to have people come from elsewhere. I do appreciate the issues with having too many people in the UK or having people who don't want to integrate and that's where a lot of the fear comes from.
However, my warped mind wants to also see the funny side.
  1. In Scotland, many Polish people are employed on farms - I heard a radio interview on this where a farmer said he preferred to employ the Poles as they would do the job, work hard and not grumble. He had HAD to get Polish workers as local British people didn't want to do the job. So we cannot have a system that just chucks out all immigrants ...it's got to be a bit more selective. We could perhaps have a system where a British person identifies a job taken by a immigrant then said immigrant will be dropped off the Dover coast so the British person can have the job.
  2. If immigration is capped, will the same be applied to emigration. Only 10 people allowed to go abroad at a time so that Britain has time to cope with the loss. Stop the Brain Drain out of Britain as the best of the best go abroad to find better jobs and a way of living (but beware of the banker clause here, keeping these elite will cost us). Stop those moving to Australia for sea and a more relaxed way of living?
  3. Have a bouncer at border control - if 3 people leave the UK, 3 people can come in. Those 3 better not have kids else the status quo will be ruined though.
  4. If there are too many people, perhaps Logan's Run is the answer. Everyone over 30 is encouraged to do the right thing for society and top themselves (thereby legalised euthanasia is no longer an issue). No more grumpy old bods around clogging up the roads and so on.
  5. Too many people - birth control. Chinese style system of 1 child per household. Or better still stop plastic surgery so everyone is really ugly and no-one will want to bonk.
  6. Have a lift type alarm for land...too many people on the same spot and bells start ringing. When the whole of the UK is covered, then extra bods better learn to swim pretty well.
  7. Nick Griffin was on Radio 2 today and the policy of giving immigrants money to go home came up. 50k. Blimey. Only if like me, you've been here for over 35 years then where is home? Certainly not the country where my parents were born nor where I was born both of which would regard me as some strange western woman with weird ideas. And if you took the 50k but came back, would you owe the BNP a refund. If you left, would you be entitled to take all the tax and NI contributions you made with you or is that part of the 50k? I won't even start to contemplate what happens with mixed race couples since the British person leaving may contravene the Brain Drain clause and that would be the end of the marriage (I know the BNP would love that!)
  8. Once the immigrants are all gone will all trace of their existence be wiped out? All the restaurants shut down, all the clothing and food outlets shut up, all the art, music and foreign culture deleted? Perhaps I should point out that Idi Amin tried to do this and now 40 years on, they are trying to get all the asians back to run the businesses left exactly as they were when they forced to leave.
Just a few thoughts to lighten the mood. However, I will take the immigration issue very seriously once the politicians come up with sensible answers to people's concerns.

6 comments:

Raven said...

Funny and it shows precisely the absurdity of the BNP position.

Yet also scary - people are voting for these people...

Emma said...

There'd be next to no-one left in our street.

We got a 'English Democrat' leaflet the other day. Unbelievable racist insanity that actually makes the BNP look mild.

No idea which way the voting will go in the new ward of Erith and Thamesmead. Scary.

Plummy Mummy said...

Raven - if a banana stood for Parliament, I'm sure some people would vote for it.
Emma - not had that one through our door.
I wonder how the English Democratic /BNP get it so wrong...I don't think either the welsh or scottish national parties are viewed in the same way. Same with St George's day..I don't see it as a celebration of all things British as much as a reason for bigots to wave the flag in our faces which is just so sad. There must be a way to be proud of being English without stirring up so many feelings of resentment and hate.

Anonymous said...

I think the issue with immigration for me is not so much the numbers of people coming to the UK but the few who ruin it for so many. It is said that the catering industry and London tourism would simply not work if it wasn't for immigrants as many of them are happy to work for ridiculously low wages when the people moaning about "all those foreigners taking our jobs" are simply too bloody bone idol to do the work themselves. Why should they after all when they can claim 40k a year in benefits.
Where I do have an issue with immigration is when foreign nationals (except for those seeking true political asylum) claim benefits without having paid into NI or any tax contributions. The system should allow for people to travel freely amongst countries as long as they are willing to work the other end and not take advantage of our very lax benefit system which seems to benefit those who have made no contribution to society.
I particulary like the system in Peterborough at the moment where people are having their benefits stopped or not entitled to them but being sent back home.
By home I am talking about people who have just arrived for the purposes of taking money not those who simply weren't born here. Given that many of British descent simply were born overseas as well does that mean in accordance to the BNP that we should be shipped back home as well.
And yes I am British and was not born in the UK or commonwealth.

Plummy Mummy said...

Anon - good points. And yes, I sympathise with your frustration at people receiving benefit who have not contributed to the coffers.
As for the BNP, if you are white I think they would class you as ethnically indiginous irregardless of your birthplace. But that would be the rational assumption and I don't think rational is a term one applies to the BNP.
Certainly something needs to be done about immigration so that people are not upset but I don't think it's a simple case of applying caps.

Raven said...

Well, not a banana, but a monkey...from the May 2002 Local Mayoral Elections:

"H'Angus the Monkey has been elected mayor of Hartlepool in a victory for the mascot of the town's football team.

H'Angus, also known as Stuart Drummond, beat off opposition from the main political parties to land the £53,000-a-year job as local talisman. "

from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/1965569.stm