Boles’ immigration revolution

Nicholas

They certainly need to do something in the wake of Labour's deliberately planted Neathergate (Delayed Action Continues To Give) Bomb - you know, the one that the Speccie decided not to comment on. ;-)

Simone

It's refreshing to find an MP actually listening and asking for opinions about immigration for a change.

However, Sweden isn't the homogenous society that it once was. It is beginning to suffer the same problems from too much immigration and recently elected far right politicians.

Kennybhoy

"...he observes that it is a homogenous society that has controlled mass immigration."

The other one has bells on! LOL!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/24/sweden-immigration-far-right-asylum

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/21/sweden-democrats-election-immigration

Sad day when one has to link to the @!*?@*!
Guardian.....

John Staples

He may be right but if so he is 50 years too late

Private Schultz

Hmm - no immigration problems in Sweden. Not the impression one gets from Wallander!

David

Having lived in Sweden for 10 years I realised this point some time ago...i.e. that Swedes donīt mind paying high taxes mainly because they feel that their money is going either to help their own families or extended families or fellow (indigenous)Swedes. I would add also however, that, unlike the UK, it is generally accepted that (indigenous) Swedes are always put first in the queue for jobs when they are available (which I think is perfectly reasonable, even though it has meant that I have had trouble finding jobs on occasion - it is their country after all). However, as immigration also begins to rise the system is also beginning to show signs of tension and I suspect that this currently idylic society will not last in its present form for more than another 15 years. The polls are only just beginning to relect this.

Yam Yam

Good grief, common sense proposals!

Nah... no British government is ever going to adopt this.

Noa

It's some way short of a 'Britain and Britons first' policy which the majority of voters identify as their main concern, but, were to happen, it would be a start.

It doesn't address illegal immigration though and as we have no shortage of skills or unemployed Brits, why do we need any immigrants at all?

Dimoto

Most liberal democracies are slowly becoming multi ethnic, it's just a consequence of globalisation.

To believe that immigration is the cause of the 8m underclass (Boles' estimate), is not just a shameless cop-out, it is incredibly stupid.
Isn't it very evidently because of the slow degrading of ethical standards, education and self-discipline in our society, and the declining requirement for the unskilled and functionally illiterate in a modern state ?

Without talented immigrants, working hard, striving, starting businesses etc, we would be in a far worse state.

The mass of educated people in Britain, can feel the decline, in their bones, but feel powerless and clueless to prevent it. Thatcherist optimism seems a long, long time ago.
(Red promises us the grinning optimism of the inebriated).

Immigration is a side issue, but a very convenient excuse, for national decline.

Cameron offers a (probably relatively brief) stabilisation period , before another irresponsible Labour government, offering easy non-solutions.

Enjoy it whilst it lasts !

james

Boles also mentions Japan, a homogeneous high IQ country.
The Great Unwashed have said that immigration is disastrous for decades, it's now too late.

Dimoto

BTW, I see good old Baroness Warsi has raised the issue of "Asians" bringing their corrupt voting practices to the UK.

Another subject most Tories seem to want to tip-toe around.

We need to see some convictions and some prison time. This is a much more serious crime than MPs claiming a few £K against non-existant mortgages.

Holly ......

'I am wary of arbitrary and unworkable caps'
Why?
Other countries do it without all the silly
'wariness'.
Arbitrary? Unworkable?
Who says so?
You?
Must be right then.
Great Britain is an island,we can't feed,
house,school,employ and give medical care free to all who decide to land here,as well as to our own,and I am wary about people who think we can.
Something has to give and up to now it has been British citizens who have 'given'with sod all to show for it.
Enough with your wariness,we are weary of it,it is a crock and we DESERVE to come FIRST for once.
I would start at the root of the problem.
1.No job,no money..No entry
2.No house,no money..No entry.
3.No input to the system,no output from the system.
4.Hit companies with a HIGH tax levy for employing overseas workers,offset by company
tax reductions for employing British born
workers,extra incentives for any training.
5.STOP making out the British are thick!
We are NOT.
The Labour generation have been betrayed & the Coalition should now put it right.
I would involve volunteers,to help the young
people who have left school without the proper skills in reading,writing and maths,
sit them in the job centres,local schools,
supermarkets,etc arrange in private,a course
of action.Paid for by taxes,on results.That is a real investment in this county's future,not giving a loan to a Sheffield steel firm or washing our hands of the real problem,because we are 'wary' of it.

smell the glove

Wallander is Belgian isn't he? Or am i thinking of Tin Tin?

denis cooper

I would go much further than Nick Boles.

I would return to the official government policy of "would-be zero immigration" which was put in place in 1962, after it had become undeniable that allowing and inviting the entire population of the Commonwealth to come and live here had been a very stupid thing to do.

Which means that the equally stupid decision to allow and invite the entire population of Europe to come and live here must be reversed, and the world must be told that contrary to the impression given by governments over the past decade and a half this country is not a "country of immigration" - that is to say, it is not a country with a policy of actively encouraging immigration in order to increase the number of its citizens.

And I would ask the British people directly how close to "zero" they wanted that "would-be zero" to be, by holding a referendum in which voters could choose between different options for the maximum number of foreigners each year who could be accepted for permanent settlement in their homeland.

Stuart Seacole Smith

A rare bit of common sense on immigration.

And while it is undoubtedly quite accurate that such proposals will be considered "revolutionary" or "radical" by many in the context of the shadowy PC construct that any debate on this issue has aquired, it is also profoundly worrying that common sense should ever need to be so branded.

And as for the other side of the coin of the immigration debate, that is integration: just wait for the howls of disapproval from the left in relation to any positive mention of "societal homogeneity". Even calls for societal "cohesion" go too far for many of them.

The left will say: ok, define social cohesion.

This goes right to the heart of the cult of multiculturalism.

One point on Sweden: anybody been to Malmo recently? The Swedes have been shipping in immigrants for some time now... and let's just say it's not the city the swedes are most proud of these days.

Vulture

Simone says:
'Sweden is no lo nger the ho mogonous society that it was.It is beginning to suffer the same problems of immigration and recently elected far-right politicians' without noticing that these 'problems' are simply cause and effect.

The Far Right is gaining traction across Europe because of Islamic immigration which poses a deadly threat to our way of life.

mongoose

"subsidence wages" - for the underclass of immigrant workers?

Paul Owen

Perhaps this was why Number 10 was so relaxed about Cable's speech? employers wanting to take the cheap option and import workers rather than train them or pay decent wages is another example of capitalism's less attractive features. It is time for government to say no. This constant bleating of industry that they need wave after wave of immigration is a nonsense and Cameron should all their bluff or tell them to pay for the housing, schooling, transport, health and other costs. High immigration has been great for employers (although they still export our jobs to China, India and other even cheaper places) but disastrous for society and for the nation's finances. Today the minimum wage has gone up by 13p. That is the price the very poorest are paying for Labour's disastrous immigration policy and it needs to be pointed out every time they lecture us about fairness and cuts and poverty. It's infuriating.

Osred

Sweden's Utopia?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/175041/flaming-youth/mark-steyn

http://www.thelocal.se/27768/20100713/

AngloWelshDragon

Agree with Noa. 50,000 is still way too many. We should accept genuine refugees fleeing despotic regimes in fear of their lives and only then if they share our values. Yes to Iranian dissidents, no to Isamists too fundamental even for the Saudis. No more economic migrants; let us reskill our unemployed.

strapworld

Nick Boles is, of course, correct as is John Redwood in agreeing with Boles. As are all the comments on here agreeing.

However. If anyone thinks Cameron and the Coalition will do anything they are living in a fools paradise. They will do nothing to upset the *EU*! So we will continue to be the dustbin of Europe where all the flotsum and jetsom of humanity will come. The EU having told the Coalition that they must continue to pay welfare to one and all.

What a sorry country we have become. We shall surely follow Ireland!

Stuart Seacole Smith

Strapworld: there are numerous aspects of the EU of which I am no fan. However, I fail to see how wider problems with immigration and (lack of) integration can be pinned on the EU.

You could (arguably) say that E. European immigration is an EU related "problem". Though even on this point, successive UK governments paying people to sit on their backsides smoking fags might've played a role, no? The EU didn't tell us to do that. It also doesn't say immigrants have to be given priority housing or medical care either.

And what about non-EU immigration? And especially islamic immigration and all the problems that has brought? Where's the EU link there? We've done all that to ourselves mate. And the consequences (those already realised, and those which are surely still to come) are far more dangerous and damaging to our society than any largely temporary E. European immigration ever was.

I do agree with you though, that while Boles is talking sense, Cameron and the coalition lack the will, are probably too fragile anyway to implement anything even close to what Boles is suggesting.

Encouraging. Not.

Kennybhoy

Paul Owen wrote:

"..export our jobs to China.."

Are you a socialist ?

Jupiter

How about we only allow clever people to come here? WE have enough stupid people in Britain already without allowing any more in.

kennybhoy

Stuart Seacole Smith wrote:

Kennybhoy

Stuart Seacole Smith wrote:

"...largely temporary E. European immigration.."

God forbid that it is temporary. I look upon these folk as latterday Sobieskis come to save us from the consequences of our own stupidity.

David Lindsay

The United Kingdom, being a multinational state, has never been as homogenous as Sweden. But controlling immigration, and the wider task of resisting capitalism and globalisation, is in fact the only way to maintain the distinctiveness and diversity of four countries in one, in all four of which the old landed class has a different ethnic background from everyone else, one of which contains all three types of the Irish (one of those types hardly exists anywhere else), at least one of which still has two thriving indigenous languages with distinct cultures accordingly, and so on, and on, and on. The Swedes are happy both because of their social democracy and because of their immigration controls. You can't have the first without the second, a very good argument for either by reference to the other.

David Bouvier

As Jupiter says, it matters who comes here. Don't underestimate the importance for corporate HQs of it being easy to transfer executives in and out of multinational companies - but we are talking educated people on career paths at high salaries.

Some of you may disagree, but on all these discussions, I want us to preserve easy movement for high-value corporate workers and the independently wealthy, because of economic (and cultural) spin offs are very positive.

Noa

Khennybhoy writes:

"God forbid that it is temporary. I look upon these folk as latterday Sobieskis come to save us from the consequences of our own stupidity".

Why would the innumerable EU fatties claiming off the UK benefits system want to fight with the very people who, in our multi-culti inclusiveness, we have contracted to manage it for us?

Rhoda Klapp

We should not be importing poor people. Unless you think we don't have enough already?

A while ago I asked in these august pages whether there was anything at all in the way I am treated by the government and state of this United Kingdom which is better because I am a citizen. I didn't get any answer except cynicism. I ask again.

Edward McLaughlin

David Bouvier

"...but we are talking educated people on career paths at high salaries."

But the argument in favour of admitting such people is very easily turned into one which demands that because nobody in Britain is capable of being trained to prepare and cook a Chicken Bhuna, we need to bring in x thousands of 'curry chefs' each year.

Moreover, surely we should be aiming to educate our own people and putting them on highly paid career paths. Or has it been found that we are genetically incapable of such tasks?

JohnPage

Far too commonsense and popular to be implemented.

What next, a promised referendum on the EU?

Paul Owen

No Kenny Bhoy I am not a socialist. I am a conservative with a social conscience. I also, unlike many conservatives, know what it is like to live on very low wages and be unemployed and struggling to find work. The policies of the last Labour government made matters worse. I believe in low taxes and am relaxed about people getting rich. I don't think the answer to poverty is to tax the rich. But neither do I think we as a nation should allow country like China which does not play by the rules to steal our jobs. Why do western businesses prefer to invest in China rather than India, a democracy? Because an authoritarian government is easier to deal with? I wrote a long piece on my blog today about this issue by coincidence. Globalisation only works if we have a level playing field. China is tipping that field in its direction and our politicians are doing nothing. A communist dictatorship is using capitalism to slowly beggar us all.

Kennybhoy

Paul Owen,

There is no such thing as ‘our jobs’. The idea of some sort of collective ownership of jobs is a socialist one. The worst efforts of generations of socialists notwithstanding, this is still a vestigially free country. Outside of the bloated and parasitic public sector jobs are the property of the employers/business owners/entrepeneurs who create them, not the state or any other collective.

maddy1

@One point on Sweden: anybody been to Malmo recently?

Just shows how we can re arrange the deckchairs on the upright bow of the MS.Titanic. Even relatively liberal Swedes and has anybody met an illiberal one were writing off Malmo in 1985!!!!! We need an independent investigation and prosecutions of members of the whole industry in this country! We still have this moment with unelected loony tunes critising the French efforts to repatriate their criminal elements.

Paul Owen

Kennybhoy,

If someone has a job it is 'his job'. If he then loses that job because someone has taken it to save money and exported it to a foreign country, which I agree he is perfectly entitled to do, then he will see that 'his job' has gone abroad.

Economic theory is all well and good but jobs destroyed in this country because employers can make short term gains by switching production abroad does real and lasting damage to society. Similarly employers demanding that immigration not be checked so that they can bring in cheaper labour from abroad does damage to society as you can see on sink estates right around the country.

I am not arguing that businesses should be banned from offshoring, I am arguing that government which have to see things in the round, should take measures through the tax system and so on to discourage them from doing so. Employers which bring in cheap labour from abroad ignore the wider costs in housing, healthcare etc. Government cannot and should not ignore them because ultimately they add to taxation and make us less competitive. That is not socialism it is hard the economic reality of capitalism.