UK: immigration in the news

Romanian & Bulgarian immigration to the UK: yay or nay?

  • Sorry, Britain can't deal with more immigration. Please come back later.

    Votes: 4 33.3%
  • We're in Europe so everybody's welcome. Come on in.

    Votes: 8 66.7%

  • Total voters
    12

seun

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-20287061

Bulgarians and Romanians will gain the unrestricted right to live and work in the UK from December 2013, Home Secretary Theresa May has confirmed.

As you can imagine, a few of the more right-wing papers and sites have gone nuts over this. There's a poll on the Telegraph on whether or not it should be allowed. It's currently at about 90% for no so I thought it'd be interesting to do a poll here. What say you? The more the merrier, or sod off?
 

Maxinquaye

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If people migrated only for benefits within the EU there's a whole slew of better places to go than the UK. So it's a load of tosh. If the UK wants to be in the Union, it has to play by union rules. Free movement of people is a cornerstone of the union.
 

mirandashell

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If it was me, I would go to Spain. They treat immigrants with more dignity than we do. At least, they did until the economy went down the toilet. Whether that's changed in the last two years, I don't know.

I remember 3-4 years ago when we had a lot of Polish migration in my area. The Daily Wail jumped up and down about that as well. But now a lot of the Poles have gone back home as they didn't much like it here. Which is fair enough. But funny how the Tory press never mention that bit.
 

Maxinquaye

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A friend of mine over in the UK is trying to run a plumbing business. He just isn't able to get young British workers to work with sewage, so he has a lot of Poles. They work, they show up. British workers want to do X Factor instead. Well, "a lot" means that half of his six or seven plumbers are East Europeans.
 

Chris P

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I think the UK should hire more Americans. Well, okay, just me. I tried for about 9 months a couple years ago, right about the time they did away with unsponsored Tier 1 visas, and I couldn't get an endorsement for an exceptional talent visa because I hadn't done enough butt-kissing to the Royal Society for the previous ten years.

We had a similar situation in the midwestern US with agriculture jobs. Americans wouldn't detassle corn or slaughter hogs, so Mexicans were brought in. In general, I think it was good for the midwest. It allowed the slaughter houses to stay open and buy pigs from local farmers, the Mexicans bought stuff in local shops and paid rent on their housing, and the cultural exchange was a good deal. People want "Made in America" but don't want to actually make the "Made in America" things themselves.
 

JimmyB27

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If people migrated only for benefits within the EU there's a whole slew of better places to go than the UK. So it's a load of tosh. If the UK wants to be in the Union, it has to play by union rules. Free movement of people is a cornerstone of the union.
Well the right wing 'news' papers in question are also against the UK being in the EU, so they're not inconsistent at least...
 

seun

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Well the right wing 'news' papers in question are also against the UK being in the EU, so they're not inconsistent at least...

This is true just as a lot of the 'no to immigration' comments from people on those sites are also anti-EU.
 

Maxinquaye

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Well the right wing 'news' papers in question are also against the UK being in the EU, so they're not inconsistent at least...

Sometimes I wish they would get their way, but then I think of what an unmitigated disaster that would be for my elected home away from home. I wouldn't want to ruin British manufacturing, finance, service industry, and exports because a lot of my lovely friends work in those fields.

I had a conversation with a couple of friends here that work for ABB and AGA. Big multinationals. The only real interest they have in the UK is the finance markets. They have some factories and plants, I believe, but if the UK were to leave the union they would close those things down fast. They're only there because the UK is the banking centre of the EU. New York and Berlin would cheer if the UK did a silly thing like leave.

And then there's the influence. I don't think the British public is aware of the Norwegian situation, where Norway has to follow all the rules of the EU, but have zero influence in formulating those rules.
 

Priene

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What say you? The more the merrier, or sod off?

As long as the EU exists, EU citizens will have the right to work and travel across the Union. And that's a good thing. Also, the world would be a better place off if all Daily Mail readers spontaneously decided to boil their own heads in vats of excrement, but that's a given.
 

veinglory

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The dire predictions that initial membership in the EU would cause a flood of undesirables proved to be dead wrong. There was a net emigration out of the UK. Keep the doors open.
 

writeontime

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Not surprising that the right-wing are in a twitch about this, given that their responses are mainly based on ideological leanings rather than evidence. At least, they are consistent in their responses and are more or less predictable.
 

seun

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Taking my town as an example, one of the common complaints I hear re immigration is a lack of funding for it and a lack of thought on where the council are housing people. There's a particular area which is (I'm pretty sure) the oldest, most established part of town. It's built up and not designed for the amount of traffic it gets now - about three years ago, there was a house fire in the middle of the night and the fire engine couldn't get to the house simply because the number of parked cars blocked the road.

As there are a lot of families who've been there for decades and as the council have housed a lot of the immigrant population there, we've sadly had a fair bit of conflict between the two. You've got people complaining of noise, overcrowding, dirty streets (for some reason, the council have given the OK to a load of takeaways and off-licences all close together), and then you've got people being attacked or verbally abused because of where they're from.

All in all, it's an issue that the locals are complaining about more frequently.
 

writeontime

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On the upside there are now a lot more plumbers in the UK, they used to be almost extinct.


So true.

Another positive is that, in our area, we now have more dentists and bus-drivers, which is always a plus.
 

fireluxlou

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On the upside there are now a lot more plumbers in the UK, they used to be almost extinct.

I think they are still extinct. We had no working toilet for 4 months, my mother would phone up the plumbers leave a voicemail, because it always goes to voicemail. We phoned about 5 or 6, none of them ever got back to us. Ended up getting next door neighbour to fix the toilet in the end because my mum asked him when he was over if he knew how to fix toilets.