4307

I felt it was fitting.

4308

It’s amazing that so many people apparently actually want a non-Brexit Brexit, yet ‘no Brexit’ remains off the menu.

4309

A car full of clowns would do a far better job than the 600 MPs in Parliament.

4310

BUt they can and do speak Spanish and have spansih citizenship?

I don’t think that is what @draxen is talking about.

I think he means examples such as the heavy concentration of Poles in the Ealing Broadway and west Ealing areas of London (there are apparently 911,000 poles living in Britain) or parts of East London where English is a minority language.

Look, I am an immigrant, twice over (now living in Spain) and I did and do my best to integrate and add to the community, paying my taxes etc etc and doing everything legally.

Some people don’t.

God I do not like Brits abroad!

Whether or not this is an inherently good or bad thing, the point is it creates friction, and I can easily see the argument for a more controlled type of immigration.

Having a very large and sudden influx of people into an area (like, say 2 million or so showing up in one year!) is going to cause issues, regardless of intent. That’s not racist, that’s just obvious!

Hell, Spain (or the Canaries anyway) obliged me to get health insurance before being able to register myself as living here, and froze my bank account until I had jumped through all their hoops, and satisfied the authorities I wasn’t a drug dealer etc.

Spain is (or was) therefore, “controlling” immigration.

So the argument is quite simply why can’t Britain be more specific about it’s immigrants?

Now, there are some problems here:

1 - the subtleties of this argument get lost very easily because there are numerous, attention grabbing and very real racists, so it gets lumped into “you’re a racist.” This then leads to a hardening of the discourse, because if you insist on calling me a racist, why would I bother talking to you? Ditto Brexiteers who insist on calling me a snowflake remoaner…It’s downright embarrassing.
2 -the weakness in how this links to the EU: most immigrants that the Brexiteers don’t like are not in fact from the EU. Most Poles actually make an effort to learn English, and work very hard. AND, even if we leave the EU, those immigrants already here aren’t going to disappear overnight, and if they did, the hospitals would close down etc (my sister, also an immigrant, is a nurse, as indeed are most nurses, and she works harder than the native English nurses…)
3 - no one has proposed a working skill based system for the UK. All I hear is “take back control of the borders.”
4 - levers exist within the EU framework to incentivize and disincentive immigration. The Canary Islands authorities made me jump through so many hoops, all legally, then the UK can do it to, without leaving the EU. Plus, if I order something from Amazon, getting it delivered here incurs a custom charge. Yes, I am an EU citizen living in an EU city and I pay customs…:S
5- there is an underlying assumption that immigration is automatically bad, and politicians have been quick to scapegoat non English speakers because it was convenient. Few people are actually using numbers and economics to make the case for immigration, and those that do get shouted down as remoaners. Plus, if you already think immigration is bad, then numbers showing that the city of London grew richer because of the Polish influx is of no use to you when you live in Sunderland and have just lost your job, and you are tired of being talked down to by a bunch of politicians.

4311

The point is that the arguments against these communities are the same (lack of cultural integration causing harm to the host/majority culture). If the arguments against the Spanish Roma can only be construed as xenophobic (since you can’t tie that to immigration, it’s only about rejection/superiority of a culture/race), it follows that the same arguments against an immigrant community should be suspect and looked at very carefully.

Also note that this refers to the generic argument. As I said before specific arguments about specific cultural aspects of specific communities can be made.

4312

I’d go further and say that anyone mentioning immigration be very very clear about what they are saying.

It’s sad now that by mentioning immigration you are likely to be derided automatically as a racist. Guilty until proven innocent…if you ever get the chance.

4313

The lies and misinformation will never stop:

4314

The Canary Islands have special status because they are small and remote from the rest of Spain. Similar rules have been carved out for Gibraltar.

It is not reasonable for the UK itself to expect any additional special treatment.

4315

Requiring paying for healthcare and residency checks are actually allowed by the EU rules on freedom of movement, that’s what he’s referring to. The UK could implement all checks on immigration he went through.

The Canary Islands does have an special customs regime, but it affects everything, even goods coming directly from Spain.

4316

Frustrating, but I would still expect ending FoM to be less of a priority than SM access, so would likely be dropped. (Based on: SM access being one of their “5 tests”, whereas ending FoM or any other immigration control isn’t, and SM requires FoM; plus they already voted on an option containing FoM, so obviously not a red line for Labour.) Still, I wish it wasn’t their policy, obviously.

4317

Yes, I agree. From articles I’ve read this type of world view is reflected in politics in general. e.g.
“Conservatives see the world as a challenging place in which there is always someone else who is ready to steal your lunch.”
“Liberals take a more view of the world as being somewhat more benign.”
This is a broad generalization but I can see some truth in it.

Yes exactly :)
I feel sorry for the Spanish who have to put up with pockets of unruly Brits. I’ve lived in many countries (as an immigrant). Brits abroad are generally pretty terrible.

Both reduced numbers and increased education levels of immigrants.

I’m skeptical of this statement. I’m sure the USA has issues with integration because it’s a pretty universal problem.

I’m not arguing against all instances of pockets of immigrants. Indeed many greatly enrich their host countries. I’m in favor of avoiding the creation of too many pockets.

I don’t identify as European and so Europeans are “them” not “us” where as I do identify as a member of the United Kingdom who are all “us”. It’s about cultural identity.
This is interesting because most Brits don’t identify as Europeans and I’m sure this is one of the reasons why Brexit occurred. Geography may have a lot to do with it - being an island and essentially cut off from mainland Europe.

Ugh, this is a huge problem that Leave has. Unfortunately extreme right wing crazies also support Brexit and this taints the entire political movement. I have no solution - it’s a terrible problem.

You more eloquently described my view than I am able to - thanks :)
I also read your points with interest. Perhaps tools are available to the UK already (as a member of the EU) that could achieve adequate controls on immigration.

4318

Actually, I wonder if maybe integration issues are alleviated by the size of the country. You guys have a shit load more room to move about in :)

4319

No one wants to move around in North Dakota.

4320

But no, it does not.

Despite the fact that it has, universally, been leveled at immigrant groups as an imagined problems. Throughout the past two centuries, every immigrant group has been attacked by nativists for this imagined “failure to integrate”. The Irish, the Italians, the Polish, the Chinese. Every group. Always.

And yet all of those groups have integrated just fine into American society. Despite actually continuing to have regions of major cities, like Chinatown, where immigrants cluster.

It turns out, those worries are largely imagined, because nativists don’t really have any good rationale for being afraid of immigrants. Immigrants tend to be the most industrious among us. They are people who were willing to risk everything to come to a new land, purely for the promise of a chance at a better life.

That’s exactly the kind of people we want in your society. They’re the ones who make it better.

4321

I don’t disagree with you at all. I’m just concerned about the amount. I’m not even concerned about the amount in total. I’m concerned about a large amount within a short period of time.

4322

What bad things actually happen with a ‘large amount within a short period of time’?

4323

The Greeks, stealing all the jobs of honest Romans. It’s a complaint that dates back throughout history.

And most of these complaints - isolated groups, engage only in their own culture, hardly interacting with outsiders - applies equally to students, and no matter how many integrate there is always another batch of those coming to town!

Genuinely: what is the concern? There are a lot of positives - that you’ve agreed with - but I’m at a loss for what the concerns actually are. People arrive, they hang out in their own groups, doing their own thing, and then…bad things happen how?

4324

Yeah I was going to ask this, but in reality that’s just a subjective feeling backed with no actual data.

However, I think there are some examples that are worth considering. Isn’t the Muslim community in France having problems integrating?

But in general I think a lot of the concerns people have about mass migration are just xenophobia and racism in disguise. There’s very little data to back up these subjective opinions, just a lot of feelings of resentment based on fears of the other.

4326

I’m guessing that’s largely a problem driven by unemployment. I don’t think we should expect them to become French Catholics, but I do think we should expect that when they are endemically impoverished and left with no hope they’ll act just like French Catholics in that situation.

It’s a universal truth that people with no jobs and no future don’t feel much affinity for society or the government, whether they are immigrants or not.

4327

More and more I think in the UK it’s also hugely about social demographic prejudice, too. More so than the racism (of which it is often a cover for, it’s true). Immigrants - even hard working ones with good jobs - are quite often not as rich as the locals. When they are unemployed and desperate, that leads to the same problems any group of poor desperate people leads to.

Even when they are not unemployed and desperate, people still associate low wealth with those problems.

Very few places in the UK are welcoming to a large group of poor people showing up. I think that’s a far deeper prejudice than skin colour in this country.

Yeah, that.