Immigration to fall in 2012 — but still not on track to hit the Tory target

and the band played on

I can't even be bothered to read this. It's all deckchairs on the Titanic stuff. It's all too late and is the fault of all the political classes and their parasites in the media.

we can only hope that at least some of those responsible, and that now includes Cameron's conservatives, reap what they sow when it all comes crashing down. Unfortunately, I suspect they will run abroad.

Edward McLaughlin

"Economic downturns tend to heighten concerns about migrants competing for jobs and depressing wages, and spending cuts tend to sharpen resentment over migrants claiming benefits or adding to pressure on public services."

Gerraway! Do they really?

And do they also focus awareness on the predetermined and easily reversible at a stroke (had we the politicians with a mind to do it) policy of flushing the national identity, history and culture of our people down the pan to be replaced wholesale by alien ways of living?

Do they tend to get a bit more than pissed off when they see this happening and it is attended by a media contingent who sit by and fail to turn up and do their job, offering only smoothed-out urbanities which refer to the 'perception' and not the easily discernible concrete facts of what is developing?

Mudplugger

Immigration numbers are impossible to control due to our membership of that disasterous, corrupt EU club.
Once the 'huddled masses' from the distressed southern states start flocking here to feed from the bottomless teet of social kindness, any pretences from Cast-Iron Dave will evaporate like a Euro in the heat of scrutiny.
First step to controlling immigration - leave the EU.
Second step - anything, it can't be any worse.

Nicholas

Come on, reducing immigration is like trying to stop some of the fire threatening to engulf a whole town but letting the arsonists who started it off the hook.

As well as the issue of numbers there is the issue of the way immigrants are integrated into our society - or not. Plenty of symptoms on display, plenty of tip-toeing round the edges and making cooing noises but none of the cowardly politicians have grasped the nettle. Will they admit that multi-culturalism and the stupid hate laws introduced by New Labour have exacerbated sectarian and ethnic tensions and divisions?

Edward McLaughlin has it. This is about malevolence, folly and recklessness on a huge scale. Trying to keep the lid on it won't wash. I want to see New Labour's conspirators investigated and prosecuted for their crime against this country.

justathought

Happy New Year Matt,

As you say your review is limited by the fact that the official immigration figures won't be available until later in 2012, leaving IPPR plenty of wiggle room.

The Polyanna stance taken in your report is that as our economy struggles fewer people will want to immigrate here. This ignores the fact that our health and welfare is sufficient reason for people to immigrate here. Why stay in Spain or Greece where the situation is much worse and the benefits are less generous than here?

In a commons answer it was confirmed that in Poland alone 28000 receive child benefit from the UK. Here temporary employment agencies cannot get applicants will to work over 15 hours. That is because working under 15 hours guarantees full rent and council tax will be paid without deductions netting the worker £300 for 15 hours work. Most applicants are EU migrants.

It is a red herring mentioning your research that the public is not in favour of restricting immigration to students when you know that twice that number questioned are against bogus students who are the source of the problem. Perhaps you need to talk to Gillian Duffy ?

Peter From Maidstone

A Judge has just said that it is against human rights to make students go home. So that is about 300,000 people a year added to the population.

Stopping most student visas except for university validated courses would reduce immigration drastically at no cost to universities and at a great saving to society.

TGF UKIP

Higher immigration on top of higher spending, higher borrowing, higher taxes and at least equally high enthusiasm for the EU, so come on all you Camerluvvies - just what difference!

perdix

So Labour-supporting IPPR doesn't think that the government target will be met. Are they pleased? After all, Labour immigration policy = more new Labour voters.This is Labour looking for ways to discredit the Tories.It will take a while to undo their mess in this area.

Verity

and the band played on ... Agreed.

There's nothing to discuss. The owners of these islands do not want any more primitives flooding in, and they want the repatriation of those with their foot in the door.

Who would have dreamed when I was a little girl, that policians could simply take our country away from us.

Verity

P from M - There should be no student visas. We don't need those students and we don't want them cluttering up the streets.

Framer

The best, and quickest changes would be to disallow those on non-EU student visas from working, and if exceptions have to be made make non-EU students (and their employers) pay national insurance.
Tens of thousands of jobs would instantly become available to UK young people - both UK students and the unemployed.
Secondly, end the hugely costly concession, not based on credible reasoning, that non-EU intra-company transfer (ICT) migrants are also exempt from national insurance contributions. That will at least create a level playing field for local labour.

justathought

You say that reducing student immigration would be a drag on economic recovery however you fail to acknowledge that there are 70 UK born graduates applying for every sough after graduate job.

A more likely scenario is that as immigration control is tightened (purportedly) applications will increase. Meanwhile the immigration lobbyists for "skilled workers " will argue for computer programmers from India as they can pay them less than employing local talent.

Verity

What about the repatriation target? is there one?

Jez

I watched the Railway Children this Christmas with the kids.

The end scene where they all wave on the train embankment, i was nearly in tears.

Absolutely excellent film.

It's filmed in Howarth. Generally untouched my the society meltdown caused by multiculuralism..... it's about 5 minutes drive from Keighley- which has very much so been 'enriched' by this multicultural juggernaught.

I also switched on the 12 o'clock celebrations last night and was met on the BBC by what i thought was a cross-audio with Radio 1xtra, the Black radio channel promoted and paid for by the BBC. Heavily mixed Urban rap (nothing wrong with the tunes, quite good to be honest- but to see a New Year in?!) and quick snippets of the crowd that all seemed to be Brown people to be honest (again, nothing wrong with that whatsoever- but it's not just brown skinned people that live in the UK now is it?).

The BBC (as an opinion) staged the whole thing to be as 'diverse' (in thier eyes only) as possible- to falsly portray this country as a non white multicutural haven.

This is only my opinion; I suggest that there now seems to be an active strategy to not show or promote any areas or functions that is seen to be 'too white'.

This is coming 'full force' now on aspects of establishment media and these ideological zealots are in total control- to the point they can influence people to be thrown in jail, have their lives and livelihoods shattered and their families torn apart for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.

These people are also hypocrites.

They were all silent when Taragwa was ethically cleansed and Blacks where racially targeted in Libya and silent when the media launched into Cain...... because this does not matter to their ideology and does not effect the dismemberment of the white working class in the UK.

Every turn there is a stick wielded. Each blow weakens the, as percieved by them, white British and white cultural hegemony.

Redneck

Jez
Excellent post. What I don't understand is why they want this. I see no advantage at all.

Peter From Maidstone

I also watched the Railway Children. The point that brings me to tears is when the father appears through the smoke on the platform and Roberta cries out 'Daddy, my Daddy' and runs to him. I'm choked up now just thinking of it.

daniel maris

Any commentator who thinks net migration is the correct tool for analysing migration flows shows they don't understand the problem.

Is the author saying that he would be sanguine about a situation where 10 million of our fellow citizens fled the country as long as they were replaced by 9 million foreigners? - since that would be a reduction in net migration of 1 million!

It seems he is.

What the study shows - if one looks at it honestly - is that immigration is rising inexorably towards one million per annum, which I believe to be a completely unsustainable figure, placing unbearable demands on our welfare, employment, transport and health infrastructure in parts of the country.

This country is certainly heading for disaster if this problem is not addressed.

I noted on another thread that Japan accepted less than ONE HUNDRED asylum seekers, despite being signed up to the same treaties as ourselves. We need to take that as an object lesson.

1. We need to remove the asylum system entirely out of the hands of the judiciary.
That will include removing it from the purview of the Supreme Court if necessary.

2. We need to make marriage immigration virtually impossible for anyone without a deep understanding of our culture. It should include such things as potential marriage partners having to attend month long residential courses (away from the oversight of family and minders), to assess their knowledge of the UK and the English language. (That will have the added advantage that few Muslim women would be allowed to attend such courses.)

3. We should remove the right to dual citizenship for all new citizenship applicants.

We should publish quotas for reduced immigration - reducing year by year down to a more manageable say 100,000 per annum maximum, with no one who is unable to adapt to our values being admitted. Anyone approved as an immigrant would have to wait their turn as these quotas were applied, whatever their status.

Redneck

DM
Agree totally.

Heartless Curmudgeon

The common blackbird (turdus merula) is a frequent visitor to gardens, hedgerows, and allotments. It has a sweet melodious song, and, given the opportunity, will spend prolonged periods on its song post. The male is strongly territorial.

I think that a far more interesting subject than any threadbare policy, immigration or other, - posited by the H2B and his pathetic crew.

TomTom

Surely their should be a "Green Solution" to Immigration like giving Exit Vouchers to British Citizens worth say £150,000 so they could sell their space to an Incomer. Places like Singapore auction car licence plates, why not sell residential space and let British Citizens leave ?

strapworld

Jez, well written. I agree with every word. IF a martian was to land and switch on BBC television or radio he/she would believe that black and asian people are the majority within the British Isles.

I watch, with my grandchildren CBBC and you will be amazed. For every young white face there are three to four black or asian.

I am no racist but the BBC certainly pushes its own agenda on this. But there again being left wing it is just following the utter tripe dished out by Blair, Brown and Co.

TGF UKIP

Edward McLaughlin at 1.07 pm "a media contingent who sit by and fail to turn up and do their job, offering only smoothed-out urbanities which refer to the 'perception'" Not by any chance a metropolitan media contingent based at 22 Old Queen Street in your mind, surely?

Dennis Churchill

The disconnect between the political class and the majority of Britons can be seen in the use of net immigration as a performance indicator. Because they do not agree with the concept of nationality they see no difference between a Briton leaving and an Afghan, for instance, coming in.
I see there is a report today that a Bangladeshis “Right” to a social life, playing cricket etc, has joined the Bolivian’s “Right” to keep a cat as a reason to allow him to stay.

Dennis Churchill

We are so fortunate in having a judiciary that does not use their role to impose their political views on us. Imagine what it would be like to live in a country where judges were allowed to simply interpret laws in ways that suited them rather than those passed by the legislature.

Austin Barry

The coming civil war will probably sort this out. Pity.

Jonathan Lytle

Colonial times followed by serious lack of vision by a whole series of governments and neglect to the future - which was then combined with ridiculous european ill-thought out immigration rules, wars and far too liberal management of an ever growing world population - has got us into this overloaded state we are now in. Surely a halt in immigration for 6 months would be an effective start to the problem - halting the ever increasing amounts of illegal and what might be deemed as legal immigrants too.

Sadly the coalition has its liberal constraints which holds back any true conservative policies on immigration - but who is to say this isn't to change in the next year or so?

Cynic

Well said, Edward McLaughlin!

Boudicca

We can't control immigration all the time we remain in the EU. Successive Government's commitment to the warped Human Rights agenda prevents us dealing with illegal immigration from the 3rd world.

We need a mainstream politician who has the guts to say that Enoch Powell was right. Along with the mass immigration of the past 50+ years, we have imported most of the social problems that now blight our cities.

We must stop all immigration from the 3rd world; there are enough Asians already here for them to find marrige partners. We must also leave the EU so that we can regulate the numbers arriving from Eastern Europe.

I hate our political class with a vengeneance for what they have done to this country. They have destroyed a cohesive society, a civilised, peaceful country and cursed us with a multicultural hellhole.

disenfranchised

peter hitchens imagines how chinese colonist rulers of britain will view today's government papers when they're released in thirty years time.
what can you say? are the present government, or more their predecessors, guilty of a premeditated act of doing everything in their power to do away with english national identity?

daniel maris

This reference is instructive .

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/may/26/foreign-born-uk-population

(Incidentally you may be puzzled that the ONS have tracked down so many large "German" communities in this country. Don't be - they are mostly South Asians or Africans with German passports.)

It shows that the total "foreign born" population is at over 11% already. However, foreign born is not identical with immigrant communities. The facts are that there are Pakistani communities in the NOrth of England where we are on to third or fourth generation people being born who don;t have English as their first language and adhere to the values of Pakistan's regressive culture.

Really, there are two problematic aspects to immigration: one is a matter of culture and the other is a matter of numbers - though both interact. I think it is likely that something like 20% of the UK population are already foreign born or from foreign "islands" within the UK (people who see their primary identity lying with another country, another culture or a religion that doesn't fit our values).

If Scotland leaves the UK, the picture will become even clearer. The percentage rises even higher to something like 23%.

Noa.

If immigrants should add value, how should we calculate this chap's worth?

But fortunately, he is an exception.

*ttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080775/Strolling-bank-taxpayer-funded-home-disabled-father-claimed-nearly-300-000-benefits-Britain-AND-Denmark.html

daniel maris

Boudicca - While I would personally agree that EU withdrawal is a necessary condition of immigration control, it is by no means sufficient.

Norway is not part of the EU but its immigrant population is not so different from the UK's.

"The number of immigrants in Norway and children of two immigrant parents was in 2010 approximately 552,000 combined, which corresponded to 11.4% of the total population (2010)."

Norway is a member of the EEA and I believe the EEA also allows for free flow of citizens. It's possible that in the end not even EEA membership would be compatible with our national security. But that remains to be seen.

I think we need to approach this from the right end of the telescope. For me, that is that all immigrants should "value our values" and also that we should have sustainable level of immigration - probably no more than 100,000 per annum.

daniel maris

Well, really, if the judges cannot protect us, then Parliament must ensure that the judges are removed from the process and if the judges challenge parliament's laws they must be arrested and confined at Parliament's pleasure.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2080977/Foreign-student-allowed-remain-UK--telling-judge-love-cricket-demonstrates-loyalty-Britain.html

Colin Cumner

Too late, too late. Visited Britain last summer and was amazed to discover places I once knew well were now nigh on unrecognisable after the vast influx of immigrants you have taken in (and been taken in by). A walk down Edgware Road for example was like being in a back street in the Middle East with people sitting outside cafes and bars smoking hookahs and not a word of English heard. Even worse in cities like Leicester. Sorry folks but the policies of the Left-leaning administrations have done their worst. It is no longer inconceivable that in another decade or less, Britain will become a fully-fledged Islamic nation.

Radford NG

daniel maris@9.04pm~~~I've come to about the same figures as you for immigrants re. UK & England.~~~We(I'd underline that if I knew how)know what is meant by immigrants.The Home Office etc. only counts those legally allowed in at the ports to settle-& only those from outside the EU.

fergus pickering

I, my wife and Boris Johnson are all foreign-born. What do hyou lot think we should have to do to prove we are 'proper' Brits. Actually it's the British-born unemployable layabouts that worry me. I there anything to be done about them? Shooting?

Nicholas

Boudicca: "I hate our political class with a vengeneance for what they have done to this country. They have destroyed a cohesive society, a civilised, peaceful country and cursed us with a multicultural hellhole."

Agreed. I hate them too. And the fact that they pass laws to prevent complaining about it adds insult to injury. But they will read this thread and remark derisively that we are just out of date old duffers, racists, fascists, "scum", etc., as they busy themselves destroying England and its countryside from their trendy London homes.

TomTom

"We can't control immigration all the time we remain in the EU. "

I think that has been an excuse for too long and is probably untrue. It is Britain that chooses to print Benefit and Welfare forms in NON-EU languages; to provide interpreters; and to allow automatic residency after 5 years; it is Britain which is so very far ahead of other EU states together with The Netherlands in disadvantaging its domestic population that it has a beacon role inside the EU

Matthew Tysoe

'Numbers of EU migrants are also expected to fall because of the dwindling economy. But it also warns that restrictions on immigration could be a drag on the UK economy when the demand for workers picks up.'

WHAT? Newsflash - nearly THREE MILLION British citizens unemployed. PLENTY of people to take up the slack.

Dennis Churchill

The EU is used as a smokescreen. Most immigrants each year come from outside the EU.
The problem is our judiciary. It has been infiltrated by highly politicised judges who obviously do not believe in the concept of nationality therefore promote open borders by interpreting the Human Rights Act in ways that were never intended.
A Bolivian allowed to stay because he owned a cat, a Bangladeshi because he played cricket at the weekend, a Jamaican criminal who claimed rights to a family he never saw...any excuse not to deport will suffice.

Halcyondaze

This article would be laughable if it were not so utterly depressing. The entire political class seem to view the immigration problem with nothing more than a detached academic interest. Or guiltily brush it under the carpet. Nice to be protected from reality by money, isn't it!

Meanwhile our streets become more unrecognisable by the day, our major cities are turning into no-go areas and our culture is disappearing down the toilet. London is now a joke - almost every voice you hear is foreign. And we're not all holding hands in a multi-culti utopia!

The real tragedy is that the demographics are now already in place for total displacement of the indigenous population. Those with money will take flight (as they already are doing) and those left behind will be left to face the legacy of a country no longer their own.

Peter From Maidstone

The EU rules for movement of people allows for any country to deport those EU who are unable to suppot themselves after 3 months, and not accept those who have no means of support. There is a free movement of WORKERS not a free movement for benefits.

It would seem that the UK allows the widest possible interpretation of the rules, to the detriment of British people and society.

AliC

The biggest travesty to me is that the Eastern European and other european migrants have taken (and taken them because they turn up, are polite and work hard) most of the entry level service jobs our teenagers and 'job seekers' should be taking (and holding). Take a walk down your high street. All the girls and boys in Pret, in House of Fraser, in 100s of shops and cafes... all from Eastern Europe. There's another issue here, that welfare is a lifestyle people get too comfortable on, and if you do want to work it's genuinely hard to take a job as it's 'scary' and initially you take a wage cut... but the immigration of nearly a million of our Eastern brethren (which France and Germany didn't sign up to) has further scuppered young Brits already hamstrung by poor eduction and lack of aspiration and imagination.
Sucks. And we can't 'send them back...'

Verity

AliC - There should be no "welfare lifestyle". Zero. Those on welfare should have their welfare cut by 50%. They should be housed in big hostels, one mother and her children to a room, bathrooms at the end of the corridor. No male visitors outside the waiting area on the ground floor.

Food, paid for by government issue tokens, from the canteen on the ground floor.

Doors locked at 11 pm.

Verity

Part Two of comment rewritten for "the software" ... NOPE. Didn't get through. I'll try again.

Any person(word changed from the more traditional word) coming from another continent to seek work or government emolument denied entry unless they can show enough money for their stay, and health insurance.

No more individuals from hotter parts of the world used as weapons to destabilise our ancient, hard fought-for society, because no more admitted. Who cares if they have family here? That they have family ties is not the fault of the British. They can get on an aeroplane and fly over to see their family.

And Immigration at airports and ports to be staffed by our own lineage only. The same applies to the Home Office.

Trapped

Of course, if it wasn't for the fact of the mass immigration causing hyper competition, and a government policy of subsidising below living-wage jobs, we'd not be in this mess. Close the borders, get shot of those who are not economically contributing towards our country, watch our vacancies soar, and employers finally figure out that people are willing to work if you pay them more than a peanut a week, and watch as the system self corrects through Capitalism in action.

Dennis Churchill

Trapped
January 2nd, 2012 5:37pm
Yes it suits both the one world left and the libertarian right, which is why Andrew Neather was wrong: it is not the left that will benefit in the long run but the right. You can have equality or diversity, not both.

Noa.

Verity. Yes!!!

Rue de la Loi

Dennis Churchill at 11.38 - Quite so; it is apparent from a regular reading of judgments in this field that the laws on immigration and asylum have become a playground, where the judiciary emote to expiate their white/Public School/Oxbridge guilt and construct ever more elaborate rules to defeat the will of Parliament (feeble though it is in this area).

Over half the workload of the Court of Appeal's civil division is spent on immigration and asylum cases, where the judges are gradually becoming completely bogged down in the insane complexity of rules of their own making. The alacrity with which the judiciary are happy to defer to politically charged arbitrariness where it suits (as in the failed challenge to the Hunting Act) stands in stark contrast to their wilful refusal to accept executive or even legislative action that reflects widely held views about the shape of our society (as in any number of immigration cases.

daniel maris

Fergus -

Learn English to a reasonable standard, don't commit crimes and don't advocate the replacement of democracy by a totalitarian system of government. Those are the essential elements I would say,though I think applicants for citizenship should be subject to thorough interview to ensure that they will bring something positive to this country and then be subject to a lengthy probation period of 5 years.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

The greatest enemy we have are the three main parties, who all couldn't care less that thiscountry has turned into a fourth world dustbin. They deliberately encourage corruption, as we can see by the choice of who gets honours - ex-convicts, ex-drug peddlars, ex-exs! The judiciary, like the so-called baronesses and lords is a body of amoral, corrupt people, many who have no real roots in this country, and whose culture is that of the bazaar.

William Blake's Ghost

The idea that the Conservatives immigration / coalition policy ever made any sense is a delusion given the (Brussels) black hole within it. Unless they control immigration consistently for all immigrants all they are doing is showing prejudice against certain nations.

Furthermore, giving privileged status to the bunch of losers in the EU only makes their policy even more absurd. If one didn't know that this ridiculous policy had existed before the Coalition one would have thought it had been made up by those idiots the Libdems.

daniel maris

Is there anything to stop Parliament passing a law which says in effect:

"No court, be it the Supreme Court or any lower court may pass judgement on any matter relating to status of non-citizens of the UK or their leave to remain in this country, or immigration or applications for asylum. Any court shall attempting to pass such judgement shall be guilty of a criminal offence punishable according to the will of Parliament. All such matters are reserved to the judgement of Parliament."

Then such cases could be dealth with by Parliament sitting as a judicial body.

We can - I am very sad to say - no longer trust the judges.

Verity

AWK - Quite.

I wonder how UKIP will fare at the next by-election. I hope it is not wishful thinking to think there will be a steady drip,drip, drip of new memberships and that UKIP will overtake the repulsive Lib-Dems for third place.

In a general election, I believe they will leach votes from the Conservatives, who richly deserve to be turned into the third party, although I don't see that happening that quickly.

I cannot guess who will win between The Rt Hon David Shameron of Hensarse Hall and Eddie Milliband. But UKIP will be the third party and will make a meal of the ensuing Parliament.

Verity

I look forward with sad anticipation for the denouement of the plot of the Blair involvement in the dismantling of our heritage and our folkways and our feeling of kinship with our fellow citizens. Fat Cherie, with her intense gargoyle smile, and what I perceive as the masquerade of the character of Anthony Blair.

It's almost gothic.

TomTom

Well Daniel Maris that would breach the European Convention Britain drafted in 1951. The Supreme Court is NOT a "Supreme Court" but a subsidiary of the ECJ which is The Supreme Court and you would need Judges to agree with your law or they could simply ignore it and refer to Case Law.

Verity, UKIP is a joke. It is for Disaffected Conservatives and attracts few others because of that simple fact

daniel maris

TomTom -

You've made the schoolboy error of confusing the European Court of Human Rights with the (EU) European Court of Justice, so I don't think we have to accord your view too much credence.

There is nothing to stop the House of Commons being the final arbiter (just as the House of Lords used to be until very recently).

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Verity: If wishes were fishes! Alas, I forecast UKIP doing poorly. In fact, I expect all three parties to do badly, an almost hung parliament scenario. Basically, regretfully the British voters are lazy and not very bright, and if any party gains votes it will be the vile LibDems. Sorry, I just hope I am wrong.

Archie

My own pet theory is that much of our fighting blood was spilled in two World Wars and consequently our ability to resist tyranny was diluted beyond measure. Add to this thoroughly unjustified, media-manufactured, post-colonial "guilt" and you have the perfect recipe for our current predicament. That's my theory and I'm sticking to it!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Archie: You make a logical assessment. The brightest and the best were killed in that travesty called The Great War, and those who survived quickly became disheartened by the greed and selfishness they found when they got back

Ben

I recently advertised for an office assistant for our small business. I tried extremely hard to find a young British born applicant who was capable, but the majority took no care at all with their application, to the point where they seemed illiterate.
I invited three of the better ones to interview and all three failed to show up without even calling. The result was that I hired an immigrant, who turned out to be excellent. More immigration needed!

Ben

Wow! Reading these comments I feel I can actually hear the eyes swivelling as you all write! It's as if the EDL have finally learned to write.