EU immigration row / time to get out

[biffvernon]

Whereas

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_International
and
http://www.socialistinternational.org/

[vtsnowedin]

What is the primary responsibility of the UK government?

(a) The well-being of the people of the UK.
(b) The well-being of everybody in the world.

.

It is a double edged sword. It is in the interest of the people of the UK to have peace and prosperity in the rest of the world so that the resources of the world can be traded for fairly and other populations are not driven by desperation to migrate to or attack the UK. total self serving isolationism sounds nice but cannot deliver the promised prosperity or safety.

I wasn't advocating self-defeating, self-serving isolationism. We are talking about the UK, not the tea-party movement in the US.

It's not a double-edged sword. The point you are making is that it's not as simple as some of the nationalists think it is or present it to be. Sometimes what is in the best interests of the people of the UK requires a more intelligent analysis of the situation than some people on the far-ish right have to offer (obvious examples being Jonny2Mad, Nigel Farage and George W Bush).

The question I am asking is not about how best to achieve the goal (of serving the people of the UK or the people of the whole world), but what the goal should be. In other words, it's a question about moral responsibility, not about the practicalities.

If you are not practical how do you hope to achieve moral?

[biffvernon]

If you are not practical how do you hope to achieve moral?

A doctor may think it is not practical to cure all disease and have her patients live forever, but she may think it her moral duty to work towards that end.

[vtsnowedin]

If you are not practical how do you hope to achieve moral?

A doctor may think it is not practical to cure all disease and have her patients live forever, but she may think it her moral duty to work towards that end.

Are you confusing practical with possible?

[AndySir]

No, you're still misrepresenting what I'm saying. I'm not against "internationalist" any more than I am for "protectionism". What I want is for the UK to be run in the best interests of the people of the UK, whatever policies that requires. What I am against is the UK being run in the best interests of people outside the UK, out of some misguided moral crusade which the people of the UK have not given their permission for. And the reason I am making this point is to make clear, yet again, that the rise of the political right across Europe is largely a response to the sort of views and policies being supported by people like Biff Vernon and yourself.

I am opposed to immigration, not "internationalism".

But permission has been given. We voted in the parties that implemented the Maastrict treaty and we'll very likely by asked our permission more directly in the next parliament (as we have been before). How can you possibly blame the rise of the 'No' vote on those than campaign for 'Yes'? Is there a middle ground that I'm missing, because it seems to me the only option to restrict immigration is to leave the EU. It can hardly be claimed that by supporting free movement we are excluding some middle ground and thereby forcing people to the right. That's where they wanted to be!

I think the rise of the right is down to economic uncertainty and fear, which, perhaps naturally but no less destructively, lead people to close ranks around 'their people' and exclude the 'other'. It's probably not Biff's doing. Whatever your moral stance on this and it's justifications, it will only hasten the demise of our economy. Now whether on not you think that is a good thing...

[kenneal - lagger]

This little island, upon which we live, has enough people and any more coming to live here will compromise the environment even more than it is already. The population density of this island is among the highest of any areas of the world and there are large areas of the world with much lower population densities to which migrants could be directed.

I, and the majority of the population, do not want this island to become like Hong Kong where everybody lives crammed into high rise flats. We wish to be able to enjoy a little solitude on occasions and to be able to get about sometimes without having to sit in a traffic jam - still possible if you avoid certain times of the week and year.

I do not want the population to increase to promote economic growth so that a few of our citizens, who can afford to jet off to more salubrious climes as and when they want, can enrich themselves even further. I do not want more people to come here so that the cost of housing and price of land increases even further.

I want this island to be able to produce enough food to feed its citizens in a world where it will be increasingly difficult to source food from the "mainland." I want us to have enough space so that we can produce enough energy to keep us warm in winter and to have enough electricity for light, tv/computer and refrigeration.

To this end I do not want anyone else to come here from what ever other area of this world they might wish to come. I do not want poor people coming to take the jobs and houses from our own poor and depressing their wages. I do not want rich people coming and buying up houses and land, pushing the cost of housing and land up for my children.

I was happy that the population of this island was dropping a few decades ago as people restricted the size of their families. I felt that our population was so high at the time that we were damaging the fauna and flora to too great an extent. Unfortunately the rich of this island have brainwashed many people into thinking that we need more and more people to come here so that they can get even richer. They invented the derogatory term racist to cover those people who wished to maintain or decrease the population and many people have fallen for the trick.

[Little John]

I couldn’t have put it better Ken

[AndySir]

Fact check!

The population density of this island is among the highest of any areas of the world and there are large areas of the world with much lower population densities to which migrants could be directed.

Population density of the UK is 660 people/mi^2 which puts us 53rd of 241, behind Vietnam and Guam. Population of Hong Kong is a couple of orders of magnitude higher at 16,444 people/mi^2. In order to reach this level the population of the UK would have to be three times the population of the planet.

Plenty of scope for solitude here. Come to Scotland! We're having a bit of an argy-bargy at the moment but we've largely been manipulated into it... it'll calm down again soon.

I do not want the population to increase to promote economic growth so that a few of our citizens, who can afford to jet off to more salubrious climes as and when they want, can enrich themselves even further. I do not want more people to come here so that the cost of housing and price of land increases even further.

The relevant points, I think. Whether economic growth is desirable and who is benefiting from it.

I want this island to be able to produce enough food to feed its citizens in a world where it will be increasingly difficult to source food from the "mainland." I want us to have enough space so that we can produce enough energy to keep us warm in winter and to have enough electricity for light, tv/computer and refrigeration.

Britain has been trading with the 'mainland' for 2000 years. Call me overly optimistic, but I don't think our island's going to be under siege any time soon. Both food security and energy production seem to require a European strategy - particularly the latter in the form of the European super-grid.

To this end I do not want anyone else to come here from what ever other area of this world they might wish to come. I do not want poor people coming to take the jobs and houses from our own poor and depressing their wages.

Immigration does not increase competition for jobs, it tends to increase the number of jobs available. An increase in the number of migrants corresponding to one percent of the UK-born working-age population in the years 1997-2005 resulted in an increase in average wages of 0.2 to 0.3 percent. - http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.u ... mmigration.

I do not want rich people coming and buying up houses and land, pushing the cost of housing and land up for my children.

Not an immigration issue. You can buy houses and land in the UK without having set foot here. 70% of new build property in London is bought by non UK residents ( http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/12/0 ... FY20131205 ).

They invented the derogatory term racist to cover those people who wished to maintain or decrease the population and many people have fallen for the trick.

Ha ha ha! The concept of racism invented by the rich, was it? I thought it was left, liberal hand wringers. In reality anti-racism in the 20th century was very much an introduction of antropologists such as Margaret Mead and the international socialist movement at the turn of the century - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial ... _the_World.[/quote]

[biffvernon]

Well said, Andy. I would agree with Ken in not wanting the UK's population to increase, but that's largely because of my personal enjoyment of wide open spaces and not a very serious argument. After all, if I felt that strongly I could go and live in Mongolia (or at least I could in a borderless world). Actually, I'm not keen on spaces quite that wide or open.

The significant question is why people from abroad feel so strongly that they are willing to leave their grandmothers and ancestor's graves to move to the UK. Why are we so popular? Of course we are not universally popular. A couple of million Brits moved to Spain and the global use of the English language is testament to outward migration.

Perhaps we should concentrate on helping to remove the push factors that force people to leave their homes. Reducing the pull factors that make the UK so desirable may pe possible but might be less desirable.

[jonny2mad]

We cant remove the push factors, stop with the imperialism biff we don't rule the world .

Earlier you said we had arbitary lines on a map and thats all borders were, well those lines were written in blood .

My father joined up at 14 to fight in world war two at the end of his life he said that not one of the men he knew during the war would have fought the germans, if they had known that traitors a few decades later would have betrayed their country with mass third world immigration.

In fact he said to me most of the allied troops would have fought for the other side .

We are so popular because on some level the people coming here smell our weakness, you have a people handing over their land and welcoming their invaders .

They can see you biff they understand you thats why they are coming here .

you can see by the 800,000 white londoners that left london in a decade that people dont actually want the country your making, your just giving up territory .

Whats funny is how multiculturalists are surprised when people like brievik starts to target them not the muslims them .

Traitor what right do you have to call me a traitor says andy sir you totalitarian

rat tat tat tat, words you wont listen to disapproval you wont hear

[biffvernon]

At least some of us, knowing the significance of cultural heritage, take the trouble to write in grammatically correct English.

[UndercoverElephant]

It is a double edged sword. It is in the interest of the people of the UK to have peace and prosperity in the rest of the world so that the resources of the world can be traded for fairly and other populations are not driven by desperation to migrate to or attack the UK. total self serving isolationism sounds nice but cannot deliver the promised prosperity or safety.

I wasn't advocating self-defeating, self-serving isolationism. We are talking about the UK, not the tea-party movement in the US.

It's not a double-edged sword. The point you are making is that it's not as simple as some of the nationalists think it is or present it to be. Sometimes what is in the best interests of the people of the UK requires a more intelligent analysis of the situation than some people on the far-ish right have to offer (obvious examples being Jonny2Mad, Nigel Farage and George W Bush).

The question I am asking is not about how best to achieve the goal (of serving the people of the UK or the people of the whole world), but what the goal should be. In other words, it's a question about moral responsibility, not about the practicalities.

If you are not practical how do you hope to achieve moral?

I think you've misunderstood me. All I am saying here is that this is a discussion about what the moral responsibilities of our government are, or rather who they are responsible for (this is the moral aspect). Having decided that, we could then have a debate about what they/we should actually do in order to enact those responsibilities (and this is the practical aspect). Before you try to put anything into practice, first you have to decide what it is you are supposed to be achieving.

[UndercoverElephant]

No, you're still misrepresenting what I'm saying. I'm not against "internationalist" any more than I am for "protectionism". What I want is for the UK to be run in the best interests of the people of the UK, whatever policies that requires. What I am against is the UK being run in the best interests of people outside the UK, out of some misguided moral crusade which the people of the UK have not given their permission for. And the reason I am making this point is to make clear, yet again, that the rise of the political right across Europe is largely a response to the sort of views and policies being supported by people like Biff Vernon and yourself.

I am opposed to immigration, not "internationalism".

But permission has been given.

No it hasn't. Poll after poll, as well as anecdotal accounts of what politicians hear on doorsteps, tells us that immigration is the number one concern of the people of the UK (on average). It's more important than the economy, more important than health and education, more important than policing and more important than defence. But the mainstream political parties, who people have no choice but to vote for unless they want to reduce themselves to a protest vote, do not know how to react to this. Well...the liberal democrats have tried to be "open and welcoming", and the response from the electorate at the polls was "F--k OFF", the conservative are very worried about it but scared of talking too much about it, or doing anything substantial about it, because they fear that it will either cause splits in the parliamentary tory party or will give their political opponents an excuse to claim they have "played the race card" (the AndySir tactic, but at the national level), and the labour party simply doesn't want to mention it, because this issue lost Gordon Brown the last election after a certain incident where he got caught calling one of his own supporters "a bigot" because she was worried about immigration. So the truth is that none of the three big parties are on top of this issue, and that is forcing people to choose between casting a vote which may actually determine who gets to win the election, but without their views on immigration being represented, or to vote for UKIP or one of the smaller "protest parties" in order to make clear their views on immigration, at the price of wasting their vote as far as who wins the election is concerned.

We voted in the parties that implemented the Maastrict treaty and we'll very likely by asked our permission more directly in the next parliament (as we have been before). How can you possibly blame the rise of the 'No' vote on those than campaign for 'Yes'? Is there a middle ground that I'm missing, because it seems to me the only option to restrict immigration is to leave the EU.

Repeal the Schengen agreement. This is now being touted as a realistic option. Nicolas Sarkozy has backed it.

It can hardly be claimed that by supporting free movement we are excluding some middle ground and thereby forcing people to the right. That's where they wanted to be!

NO. UKIP have a raft of policies and beliefs which I, and many others like me, find totally ludicrous - from climate change denial to abolishing maternity leave. I do not want to vote for those policies, but I DO want my fears about immigration to be taken VERY SERIOUSLY. This puts me in a position where I'm forced to choose between voting for a party whose policy on immigration I am totally at odds with, or voting for a party whose policies on a whole bunch of other stuff I am totally at odds with.

I think the rise of the right is down to economic uncertainty and fear,

Then you're wrong. The number one issue in polls and on the doorstep is immigration, not the economy.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... -poll.html

Immigration is now the most important issue of concern to the British people, a poll has revealed.

It came joint top with the economy in an Ipsos MORI poll of the public’s priorities for the Government.

Strikingly, in a single year, the proportion identifying immigration in their top priorities to Ipsos MORI has nearly doubled.

In the same period, the number citing the economy as their main concern fell by 11 percentage points, as unemployment and growth have picked up.

[UndercoverElephant]

This little island, upon which we live, has enough people and any more coming to live here will compromise the environment even more than it is already. The population density of this island is among the highest of any areas of the world and there are large areas of the world with much lower population densities to which migrants could be directed.

I, and the majority of the population, do not want this island to become like Hong Kong where everybody lives crammed into high rise flats. We wish to be able to enjoy a little solitude on occasions and to be able to get about sometimes without having to sit in a traffic jam - still possible if you avoid certain times of the week and year.

I do not want the population to increase to promote economic growth so that a few of our citizens, who can afford to jet off to more salubrious climes as and when they want, can enrich themselves even further. I do not want more people to come here so that the cost of housing and price of land increases even further.

I want this island to be able to produce enough food to feed its citizens in a world where it will be increasingly difficult to source food from the "mainland." I want us to have enough space so that we can produce enough energy to keep us warm in winter and to have enough electricity for light, tv/computer and refrigeration.

To this end I do not want anyone else to come here from what ever other area of this world they might wish to come. I do not want poor people coming to take the jobs and houses from our own poor and depressing their wages. I do not want rich people coming and buying up houses and land, pushing the cost of housing and land up for my children.

I was happy that the population of this island was dropping a few decades ago as people restricted the size of their families. I felt that our population was so high at the time that we were damaging the fauna and flora to too great an extent. Unfortunately the rich of this island have brainwashed many people into thinking that we need more and more people to come here so that they can get even richer. They invented the derogatory term racist to cover those people who wished to maintain or decrease the population and many people have fallen for the trick.

I absolutely agree with all of that apart from the last sentence. Unfortunately, the word "racist" has been in existence for a lot longer than that, and you don't have to look any further than Jonny2Mad to know that some people really are racists (and what they believe about immigration may well be connected to this, but that doesn't mean that everybody who cares about immigration is also a racist.)

[biffvernon]

I DO want my fears about immigration to be taken VERY SERIOUSLY.

Confront your fears; embrace with love. Who is your brother? A political, economic or climate refugee or the locals who think like j2m?

By the way, and way off topic, but maybe there is a connection - has anyone been watching the TV programmes about the favelas in Rio on Tuesday evenings? There's been two out of a series of three so far. It raises some interesting questions about population density, why, in a very large country with a low average density, so many people squeeze themselves onto a tiny area of ridiculously inhospitable hillside and live a life of laughter, song and dance in conditions that make the the worst corners of deprivation in Britain appear as the height of luxury. The narration of this documentary brings a wonderfully dry sense of humour and cynicism. Quite unusual for television.