open Democracy News Analysis - MigrantVoice on Refuge - Comments

Stephen West on "Open Britain"

Stephen West — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 00:32:04 +0000

Agentmancuso, what a depressingly simple minded and predictable response.

Words flash before you, like 'immigration', and then, without engaging with
any of the points in my response, you throw accusations of racism around.

No one mentioned discrimination by colour, for unlike you I recognise the
concept of 'nationality' as distinct from skin colour- no doubt you are
aware there exists such a thing as a person who is British but also
black (or any other colour, as you so eloquently put it). Well, so am
I. If you had read my response before your infantile racism alarm went
off you would realise we are discussing broader issues here- the social
impact of immigration, limits on immigration, national sovereignty,
the economic issues.

I provide an argument against unlimited
and open immigration, and you have chosen to lower the tone of the
debate with frankly painful childishness and simplicity.

This sort of knee-jerk, ivory tower slurring is exactly the reason that
debating immigration is seen by many as a taboo subject.

Please feel free to reply with an apology, or some analysis/evidence to back up your views. Perhaps you could even respond to my actual arguments, and contribute something other than bile to the discussion.

agentmancuso on "Open Britain"

agentmancuso — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:19:06 +0100

Stephen West says:- The British states primary responsibility is to it's own people. [sic]

True enough. There are two possible but conflicting ways for the British state - or any other state - to define "its own people".

Option 1) the responsibility of any given state is to all the people who live in that state.

Option 2) the responsibility of any given state is to only the people of a certain colour who live in that state.

I choose Option 1, because I don't happen to like or dislike people according to the colour of their skin. Make your own choise. The rest is noise.

Donald Harris on "Open Britain"

Donald Harris — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 17:39:50 +0100

And How! Endorsed 100%

Ian Bland on "Foreigners: victims or villains?- a political debate"

Ian Bland — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:37:55 +0100

Interesting comments but, as always, the liberal-humanist viewpoint is that man can be educated/conditioned out of aggression because we have now achieved a level of stability. This point of view is so facile I refuse to believe that it can be taken seriously. Science seeks forever to prolong useless lives, ergo the population grows, ever more reason for conflict for resources.

How is it right for everyone to have the right to live for ever and no-one to die? It will be a damn crowded world. Liberals do not seem to recognize that each ethnic group wants its space.

The policies which you advocate from you comfortable ivory towers will cause war and suffering on a scale never before seen. But you are serene in your beliefs as theorists: like Marx, your refutation will come many years after your deaths.

Stephen West on "Open Britain"

Stephen West — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 22:31:59 +0100

An interesting article, but one which clearly overplays the benefits of immigration
without addressing the negatives, whilst presenting a straw man for the opposing view. I question the assumption that if Britain does not take refugee's or economic migrants, they will be condemned to live in poverty, and the implicit idea in this text that Britain exists to provide opportunity to the worlds unfortunates.

Yes, we in Britain are blessed to have been born here, but the fact that we are a developed economy should not lead to a moral guilt that says we should allow as many people as want to to enter the UK and make it their home. Britain is a more prosperous country with a higher standard of living than the majority of nations on the planet - by rights everyone from the developing world would want to come here. But it is at the whim of the British government alone how many are allowed into the country, and that decision is a pragmatic one based on national interest, not just your moral imperitive. It takes quite an effort to get to the UK having passed through most of democratic and economically viable Europe, incidentally...

Firstly, as with a large number of commentators on this subject, the order in which your positives are listed off is plain wrong. Social cohesion, culture and integration are more important than economics. The ongoing failure of public figures to acknowledge this fact is a key cause of friction within Britain. So immigration brings '£x million' into the economy each year. Putting that to one side for the moment, there are two pertinent questions to ask.

One, is that £x million worth the social upheaval we see in Britain today? A key area your article entirely fails to address is demographics. At current trends, several of Britain cities will have ethnic majorities within 10 to 15 years (Birmingham included). At what point does a city stop being British, and in your view does such a line exist? Do you even think this is an important question?

If Birmingham has 60% of its population from what were the cities ethnic minorities, is it still British? 70%? 80%? In my view there is a line, a view that most British citizens would share.

But that's the point, your argument doesn't ask what British citizens want to happen to their country, and neglects questions of integration and culture altogether. It says 'don't worry, it will benefit the economy' and makes nebulous claims about immigrants being more inventive in business than Britain's native population. Your point about 'what if Richard Branson had been born abroad' is particularly barren. You also conflate the benefits of some immigration with the benefits of more and more and more immigration. Yes, lets have tikka masala, but how is that an argument for more immigration? And you say 'Hip hop and R+B', well lets be honest and also list black gang culture and violence as well.

Related to these points is the question of integration. Immigration is a good thing if the respective communities integrate. Afterall, we want immigrants to assimilate into British society, not bring Islamabad with them to plant in a district of Burnley. But that is exactly what is happening in Britain today. There are deep social questions unanswered about immigration in the UK, and to call for more and more without attempting to address or even acknowledge them is reckless.

The Centre for Social Cohesion recently published a report on a survey of Muslim university students in Britain: http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/pdf/IslamonCampusExecutiveSummary.pdf.

40% of students polled supported the introduction of Sharia Law into the UK. The question emerges: what if immigrants don't want to integrate, what then? If all we have is 'it's good for the economy', and all the immigrants want is our standard of living, the phrase 'taken for a ride' springs to mind.

Secondly, how many people are now welfare dependent in Britain? These people should be applying for the jobs that our current wave of immigrants are filling, if only the state would not permit them to become welfare addicts. And if welfare dependency was addressed, how much would we really need economic migration? There are over 2 million people on incapacity benefit in the UK, and several million long term unemployed. This is the silver bullet for the economic argument for more open immigration. When the welfare issue is addressed, the immigration question will rightly become more about what Britain wants.

You also make blatant unsupported claims about standards and 'better public services for all', which you somehow fix to the lapel of our immigrant population. It is in part for failing to improve public services despite billions of pounds of investment that the Labour Party will lose the next general election and has the lowest poll rating since time began.

You end with with the line, "Ultimately, the debate about immigration is about whether we want to
live in a fairer and freer world- and a more open, dynamic and
progressive society."

The level of immigration into the UK has nothing to do with a fairer
and freer world, it has everything to do with the domestic priorities
and concerns of the British state. The UK takes refugees and
hundreds of thousands of economic migrants as it stands, and 'more immigration' does not equal 'fairer and freer'! Second, it is offensive to suggest that UK society is NOT
progressive and dynamic if we take less immigrants. You imply that
without more and more foreign nationals to spice up our lives we in Britain are a
regressive, sluggish and closed off bunch. Well, I say we have done OK for
ourselves thus far, as a cursory glance at British history will show. In fact, a bit of nationalism is just what this
debate needs if the argument is being put that without immigration we as a country are essentially 'rubbish'.

I would like to end on some home truths regarding immigration, food for thought:

- The British states primary responsibility is to it's own people. If the British people want to stop immigration, they will stop it. If they want it to expand, then it will expand. This is the bottom line in this debate, one which commentators would do well to remember. The UK is a nation state, not a refugee agency.

-Demographically speaking, the UK is taking massive amounts of immigration from around the world, including unlimited immigration from Eastern Europe. Any claim that Britain is 'hard-line' on immigration is a fallacy.

- To use your example, if a young John Prescott had been born abroad and denied entry to the UK it would have been excellent for the country.

- This debate MUST engage with the negatives of immigration. These include: ghettoism along racial lines in British cities; gang violence; terrorism (let us not forget that the 7/7 bombers were 3rd generation immigrants who put their belief in Islam above loyalty to the British state); vast strain on public services; 14% of the UK prison population being made up of foreign nationals; foreign nationals exploiting the welfare system (they are by no means alone in doing this mind, but it doesn't help); health tourism on the NHS.

And finally, a few news articles in the news this week to show the kinds of issues at play here.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article4448024.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article4439596.ece
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7537216.stm

Immigration is not to be opposed for its own sake, but the 'pro' camp must do more than quote curry blends, exploit guilt that Britain is a great country whilst there is poverty in the world, and proclaim nebulous business acumen lines to convince. Engage with the flip side of the mulicultural paradise, drop the moral blackmail, and make the debate meaningful.

Not logged in on "Fear and strange arithmetics: when powerful states confront powerless immigrants"

Not logged in — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 13:47:22 +0100

They say seeing is believing! With the paper "Fear and strange arithmetics: when powerful states confront powerless immigrants", Saskia Sassen is making an immense contribution to understanding what has become a major problem of our time. UN agencies and Green Peace are not unaware of it. The problem might be reasoned comparable and relative, beyond the textures of "powerful" states. The question is: how threatening is it even for the most "informed" and the "responsible" believer in the spirit of a global world? My other question is: can we say that a problem of this kind has something to do with the way we should define the global world through the needle-eye of international relations praxis and culture of comparison? This digression is not at all absurd, especially because, even though we have 'bilateral' and 'multilateral 'ways of finding most solutions to world problems, international relations praxis dimension as the apex and failures thereupon have caused observers to begin asking "whither it is drifting? Migrants are pawns in the process. It is partly a question of the moral integrity of what nations and our global world are doing across the spectrum of politics, economy, technology, peoples and the environment. We might premise these on the quality of governance or a conceptual dichotomy, such as "democracy" and or "non-democracy", still when all is said and done, we find "poverty" in the midst of "affluence" a moral problem. A case like Nigeria is shameful in this respect considering the belief that there should be more room to perform better! That having been said, immigrants are not safe. In and out they are being harassed, blackmailed, manipulated and, for example, denied academic vacancies in host countries and institutions. Many are even afraid in the age that using radiation to kill has become a pop! What you write and say is monitored putting the sense of freedom of speech and writing in certain environments out of line with the worldwide agitation for it. Simply said "security agents" and the "police", though useful in the society, are being wrongly used to target innocent law abiding citizens.

Lawrence Efana [Finland]

Axel Ztangi on "Fear and strange arithmetics: when powerful states confront powerless immigrants"

Axel Ztangi — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 18:54:36 +0100

Re: "... where one-third of workplaces [in the US] are below standards." Is there a reference?

In general I agree with the sentiments and conclusions of this essay.

-az

spamgreg on "Open borders, global future"

spamgreg — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 21:54:13 +0100

This proposal is interesting, fair and generous, but would be impossible or nearly so. All countries should apply it in the same time and at the same, slow rate, or the courageous (and stupid) precursors would be sank. A massive influx of immigrants very poor and uneducated because of poverty would pose enormous economic and social problems.

Already, in France where I live, the poor suburbs have big problems because of an immigration that is far under the one you suggest, yet already beyond what french economy can afford to give them a good environment.

As for the "all countries in the global north (...) absolutely depend upon migrant workers and permanent immigrants" and "... the threshold of negative population growth, a trend that cannot be reversed, and is not sustainable" : :

- this reduction of global human number seems desirable to me, or we shall all perish. What is clear to me is that a survival instinct has been toggled on, and I hope we shall stabilize gracefully around 9 billions before we hit the wall. So, no doubt the poor countries shall decrease on turn in a not-far future, and we should not count on them for compensating.

SpamGreg