Millennium3

This subject has been discussed on another thread, however the leader in the Telegraph also focuses on the fact that immigration has been treated in the same way as the LT - without the agreement of the people.

Lesson from Lords in how democracy works
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 06/04/2008

Policy on immigration has more impact on the future of Britain than almost any other area of Government legislation.

Large-scale immigration of the kind which Labour has endorsed over the past decade, where up to a quarter of a million people arrive here every year, has the potential to transform the country.

If immigration continues at the present rate, for instance, there may be 10 million people added to Britain's population in the next two decades, most of whom will settle in the south east. The impact on the infrastructure - on congestion, on the shortage of housing, on school places and on the expenditure of the NHS, never mind on the amount of land which has not yet been built over - will be colossal.

And yet Labour embarked on the policy of mass immigration without consulting the British people. It was not mentioned at all in the party's manifesto in the general elections of 1997 or 2001, and barely rated a line in the manifesto in 2005.

Gordon Brown continually insists that high levels of immigration have brought enormous benefits to the British economy. The Lords report on the economic benefits of immigration, published last week, comprehensively rejected that proposition.

The report pointed out that the Government's claim that immigration "increases the size of the economy" is true, but it has no impact whatever on prosperity, because immigration also increases the size of the population. The critical indicator for prosperity is Gross Domestic Product [GDP] per head - and immigration has yet to have a measurable effect on increasing that.

Immigration benefits those who are rich enough to employ nannies, builders, cooks, cleaners and the like because the influx of workers brings wages down, or at least stops them increasing. It does not, however, benefit those who compete with immigrants for low or unskilled jobs. As new research published today in The Sunday Telegraph suggests, native Britons who are young and unskilled are likely to suffer particularly from the arrival of large numbers of migrants.

The Government has also claimed that immigration diminishes skill shortages. The Lords report demonstrates that it does not: the number of vacancies has remained unchanged over the last decade, despite record levels of immigration. Immigration will not, contrary to the Government's claims, solve the "pensions time bomb": it will at most delay it, for of course immigrants themselves grow old - and when they do, they will need pensions and medical services in exactly the same way that the native population does.

These points are obvious, and they have been expressed in these pages many times. The Prime Minister still appears unwilling to acknowledge them. At the Downing Street press conference last week, he was asked about how the Lords report would affect Government policy on immigration. His answer was, essentially: not at all. Yet he could not fault the report's facts, or the logic of its arguments.

He simply insisted that, in order to control immigration, the Government was "introducing a new points system" for immigrants "which had not been done in this country before", which is not true. In fact, Tony Blair instituted a points system for immigrants, but abandoned it because it was felt to be too severe on people who wished to work here.

Furthermore, the points system will do nothing to diminish one of the biggest categories of migrants: spouses following their husbands or wives into Britain. In 2006, the number of spouses entering Britain in that way was 40,960, more than twice the number a decade earlier. Many of those spouses are from rural villages in remote parts of South Asia and speak no English. Many have little or no education, and some are illiterate. They find it very hard to adapt to "British values", never mind to become economically productive residents of our country.

There may be good reasons for encouraging immigration, perhaps including a moral argument to the effect that we ought to share our prosperity with people from impoverished countries, or a claim that a society made up of people from different races and cultures is somehow better than one in which all the members share the same outlook.

But those are not the arguments for the policy of mass immigration the Government has made or is making. Instead, the Prime Minister continues to repeat economic fallacies which many people in Britain end up believing. Those fallacies should not be used as the basis of any policy, still less used to justify it to voters.

That procedure - the repetition of claims that, at best, are not supported by evidence, and their use to puzzle and confuse voters, together with the pretense that empty rhetoric is the same as serious policy - is unfortunately all too common from this Government. Education policy, for instance, is based on the highly contentious claim that every child has the same ability to benefit from an academic education as every other.

The Government's policy on crime consists in denying the obvious facts that violent crime is on the increase and that community punishments allow criminals a freedom to commit fresh offences against the public which incarceration does not. Health policy has involved spending most of the additional funds poured into the NHS on vast pay rises for doctors. No wonder the electorate is sceptical about the ability of the Government to deliver results.

That scepticism is infecting the voters' attitude to all politicians. The information that The Sunday Telegraph and others have managed to extract - despite the opposition of the Speaker of the House of Commons - from the information commissioner on the way MPs exploit the expenses allowances to claim, and receive, money which on any reasonable view they should not be entitled to, has only served to increase that scepticism.

Our politicians badly need to treat us, the electorate, with a degree of respect: they need to be honest with us when they have got their facts wrong, explain truthfully what the real consequences of their chosen policies are, and exercise caution and integrity when they award themselves money from public funds. If they do not do so, scepticism about politicians will turn into general disillusion with the whole democratic political system - and that will be a disaster for our country.

Lesson from Lords in how democracy works - Telegraph

Millennium3

The DM also responded to the Lords judgement with this survey on Saturday with the headline:

Four in five say Britain is facing a crisis over immigration

Four in five say Britain is facing a crisis over immigration | the Daily Mail

Key findings:

83% of Britons say there is a population crisis

69% believe special treatment of immigration should be cut or stopped

66% believe migrants undercut British jobs

39% think immigration has led to 'no-go' areas near their home

25% think immigration has led to a rich and varied culture in Britain

69% believe that multiculturalism isn't working

60% say immigration makes Britain more dangerous

58% think British culture is diluted by immigration

30% claim they never or rarely interact with ethnic minorities

Any anti EU party that wishes to do well at the next GE will have to take this issue seriously and offer remedies acceptable to the voters

HighlandFP

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Millennium3

I see from Twizzel's latest post that he watched tonight's Dispatches on C4. It was interesting to see Richard North making the point that was made in the Telegraph leader [above] that the government has allowed in a flood of people without asking the people.

Unfortunately, we cannot compare what a Tory government would have done during the last decade, but we do know as a result of Blair not restricting the numbers entering Britain from the new E European countries has had a tremendous impact on the numbers living here - this has not been the case, to such an extent, in any other EU country. As RN and the Telegraph point out - this was not included in any manifesto that Labour issued, it was simply decided by a government with a large majority.

When we couple this to Brown's refusal to hold a referendum on the LT it is difficult not to question his motives. It is clear that he is advantaging Scotland, but with each new initiative he seems to be enacting revenge on the English, in particular, for all of the perceived wrongs done to Scotland throughout history.

Today it is reported that he is considering repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement [which prevents Catholics inheriting the throne] which would have the consequence of making the 74 yo Duke of Bavaria the rightful heir to the British Crown.

So apart from given away our sovereignty and right to self determination, he is planning to make someone else heir to the throne and in the meantime has an immigration policy that is and will continue to swamp England and Wales [presumably] with millions of foreign immigrants.

Is there a breed of Scots that have held on to these deep resentments, passing them on from father to son and of whom Brown is the true champion?

Given the dire predictions made in the Dispatches programme - any party who wishes to obtain the popular vote had better just concentrate on retrieving the nation from the precarious position this Scottish dominated government has placed us in.

The Dispatches programme was suggesting a massive rise in support for the BNP either that or the people would be taking the matter into their own, violent, hands as is becoming more frequently the case.

dornierdo17

I'm not a racist if there is such a word....just kick them all out

TannyD

I agree with you, especially for some of these people nicking from the charity shops.

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