Forum Topic

Net migration in UK.

Should we be worried about net migration? Or is the increase in migration into Britain a good thing?

Gerry Tan ● 4137d11 Comments

From personal experience I think most people in Greenford weren't worried about levels of immigration until they began to see changes that they aren't comfortable with. For example, some new residents behave in ways the regard as rather anti-social. I can't remember seeing quite as many men urinate in public as I do now. That might seem trivial but it has (quite literally!) a "drip drip" effect on attitudes. The same applies to drinking sessions in green spaces and consequent littering with cans and bottles. I'm not saying that no one ever did those things before levels of immigration increased but there has been a noticeable rise in it. I think you start to care about these things when they affect you personally. My elderly neighbour now has to visit her grandchildren in Suffolk because they couldn't get school places in Greenford where she has lived since the 1950s. Her children were born and brought up here but her grandchildren won't be. In my case I can sign  into the local surgery in six different languages but they are so over worked that they regularly make mistakes when providing prescriptions. I feel that most of us don't want to complain about levels of immigration, especially those like me who are of immigrant stock (Portuguese/Irish), but it has had an impact and not always a positive one.

Albertina McNeill ● 4137d

Not to mention the criminal element.......

Andy Wright ● 4137d

The very mention of  'Immigration' seems to have connotations of racism.  I don't think this is so.  There has always been immigration to Britain and it has made us what we are and contributed greatly to our country and economy.  That said, there is a deep seated British culture that has evolved over the centuries that has to be respected by those who seek to partake in our way of life without wanting to change it to what they may have chosen to leave behind.The greater and current problem with immigration (or net migration), has little to do with racism but more to do with population.  If the word 'population' was routinely substituted for 'immigration', then the complaints of the many would be better understood. viz, taking up school places, doctors surgeries, hospitals, jobs, traffic and housing.  These are population problems and should be addressed as such.  Without racism.

Brian Davis ● 4137d

ALL posts on this topic excellent & respectfully put.The fear of being labelled racist is indeed a bigger taboo than paediphilia.From my experience many foreign nationals have no interest in our culture, heritage, traditions.This is a Christian country, English should be spoken & heard on the streets,We need to sort out the currant inhabitants of this island before we allow more to be imported & indeed more born clearly sapping the limited resources we have.How many of you can think of an instance yet dare not say, regarding Foreign nationals.This is a subject always overlooked by politicians scared of being labelled

Peter Yale ● 4137d

This question of migration is a thorny and difficult one - it raises more questions than answers. For instance, I don't know what Englishness or Britishness mean. What are your opinions on these two definitions please? Are they valid and appropriate? I'm puzzled.

Gerry Tan ● 4137d

I would put to you, respectfully, that one of the best things about the UK is that we have not been forced to practice one faith or another publicly for several centuries. Look at the trouble it causes when people do that. While I would prefer it that people moving to the UK learn to communicate in English I don't expect them to abstain entirely from using their own languages publicly, although I am concerned that there are places where so many people speak languages other then English that they have no need to speak it and don't bother to learn it. I have now spent a year trying to get anyone, especially people born and raised in the area, to support me over the preservation of the Starlite Ballroom. It turns out they are the least likely to do so. Most of them sit back and whine when these gems disappear but don't want to get involved in local politics to prevent it happening. There are as many "foreign nationals" keen to preserve UK heritage as those born here.

Albertina McNeill ● 4137d

GerryI think one of the core values we had before the terms 'Britishness' and 'Englishness' were hijacked was that of tolerance.I would like to think that the vast majority still display this, but it does become more difficult when those who choose this country as their home do not embrace this core value. themselves.

Nigel Brooks ● 4137d

net (European) migration is measured via the latest census figures,so it could be very accurate or the the opposite.Remenbering not everyone will fill in a census form.With all the work available in the uk maybe the powers we pay our tax to turns a blind eye and accepts non working Europeans will also want to live in the uk.English is a universal language so its easy for most mainland Europeans to settle here,personally I wish them all the best.Core values in London and many other cities have sadly vanished.Although core values still exist in many parts of the uk.j.j

Jim James ● 4134d

They certainly exist in Newcastle/Durham/Darlington as I witnessed this weekend. However Wembley High Street for example, it certainly isntLast time I was there (Wembley 6 months ago) I heard an assortment of languages, English NOT being one,saw no holding of doors, no please & thankyous, women standing on buses while others support their shopping on an empty seat.Multi culturalism is fine,but where do loyalties lie?The census, would you really admit if you were here dubiously, receiving money by some form or other, would you come clean? Hmm

Peter Yale ● 4134d

The terms "please" and "thank you" exist in other languages. I've come across rather too many people born and bred in the UK who don't use them or hold doors open.

Albertina McNeill ● 4134d

Let me give you an example of how the mass immigration of non-EU migrants has hit the British home grown population.The very existance of the migrants (legal and illegal) living many to a house/home is what has completely destroyed life for the home grown manual workers in this country. Before 2004 you could always get by on what you earned. Once Labour flooded the working class areas with very poor Asians and Africans, in responce to many ceasing/failing to vote Labour, you now have an unlimited amount of very poor migrants who will keep wages down to the minimum allowed, they don't end up on the streets through evictions via the bedroom tax either (30,000 evicted by October last year), because they over occupy the housing, but 1000s of our own British people, including families are homeless because of them. Councils can no fill their obligation to house our own, and schools now report pupils turning up hungry, improperly dressed and unwashed all due to being homeless.

Leslie Bailey ● 4132d