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David Cameron’s Recent Immigration Speech: a selection of viewpoints

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David Cameron’s Recent Immigration Speech:

a selection of viewpoints

 

Please find a selection of articles on

David Cameron’s most recent Immigration Speech,

most of the articles were published on

Thursday 14 April 2011.

I will leave it up to you to draw your own conclusions......

 

The Independent, Thursday 14 April 2011

PM claims immigration is wrecking communities

The Prime Minister will dismiss arguments that immigrants are essential for doing jobs that British workers do not want, and blame such situations on the welfare system.

David Cameron will today make the provocative claim that communities across Britain are being damaged by the record levels of immigration of the last decade.

He will accuse some new arrivals of not wanting to integrate with their neighbours, leaving some areas suffering "discomfort and disjointedness" following dramatic population shifts.

He will also risk accusations that he is inflaming tensions over race in a local council elections campaign speech asserting that immigration has been too high for too long.

But an unrepentant Mr Cameron will insist he is right to speak out on an issue that concerns millions of people – and accuse the last Labour government of fuelling support for the British National Party by refusing to address popular concerns on the subject. Mr Cameron will declare: "I want to get the policy right: good immigration, not mass immigration."

Although he will stress that immigration has benefited the country immeasurably, he will sound the alarm over the net migration of 2.2 million people to the UK between 1997 and 2009. "That is the largest influx of people Britain has ever had and it has placed real pressures on communities up and down the country. Not just pressures on schools, housing and healthcare, though those have been serious, but social pressures, too."

He will say that real communities are bound by "common experiences, forged by friendship and conversation, knitted together by all the rituals of the neighbourhood, from the school-run to the chat down the pub".

He will add: "These bonds can take time, so real integration takes time. That's why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods – perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate – that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods."

"This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it."

His comments, the tone of which could dismay some Liberal Democrat ministers, mark Mr Cameron's second recent foray into sensitive waters. In February he delivered a scathing denunciation of 30 years of multiculturalism in Britain, warning it was directly contributing to home-grown Islamic terrorism.

He faced anger from Muslim groups for "patronising" them and was accused of playing into the hands of extremists by delivering that speech on the same day that the English Defence League staged a major show of strength in Luton.

But Mr Cameron will return to the "hugely emotive" subject today, accusing some Labour ministers of trying to close down discussion of immigration, while others "talked tough" but did nothing to bring numbers down.

He will say: "This approach had damaging consequences in terms of controlling immigration, but also in terms of public debate. It created the space for extremist parties to flourish, as they could tell people that mainstream politicians weren't listening to their concerns or doing anything about them."

Speaking in Hampshire, he will argue "controlling immigration and bringing it down" is vitally important to Britain's future. He will maintain that a series of measures, including an annual cap on skilled non-European migrants, new action on "sham marriages" and a crackdown on bogus colleges aimed at foreign students, are already having an impact.

Mr Cameron will dismiss the argument that immigrants are essential for undertaking the jobs that British workers do not want to accept. "Migrants are filling gaps in the labour market left wide open by a welfare system that for years has paid British people not to work. That is where the blame lies – at the door of our woeful welfare system and the last government who comprehensively failed to reform it."

Mr Cameron will say that the UK Border Agency is close to clearing the backlog of almost 500,000 asylum cases. And he will hail two recent nationwide campaigns targeting illegal migrants that have resulted in 1,400 arrests, 330 prosecutions and 260 removals. He will argue that the Government's plans will cut immigration substantially.

"We said we would listen to people's concerns and get immigration under control. Today I can confidently say we are getting there. If we take the steps set out today, and deal with all the different avenues of migration, legal and illegal, then levels of immigration can return to where they were in the 1980s and 90s, a time when immigration was not a front-rank political issue. And I believe that will mean net migration to this country will be in the order of tens of thousands each year, not the hundreds of thousands every year that we have seen over the last decade."

 

Please find the link to the original article:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/pm-claims-immigration-is-wrecking-communities-2267455.html

 

The Guardian, Thursday 14 April 2011

David Cameron says that immigrants should learn English

The prime minister warns in a speech that an unwillingness to integrate has created a disjointed Britain

........The speech may add to coalition tensions after the Liberal Democrats distanced themselves from the prime minister's language.

Nick Clegg saw the speech which he "noted rather than approved". One Lib Dem source said: "We use different language. But we all work in government to strike a balance to ensure Britain has a system people have confidence in."

No 10 insisted that the speech does not mark a return to the era of William Hague as Tory leader when he used the issue as part of a "core votes" strategy. On the eve of the 2001 election, Hague warned that Britain was in danger of turning into a "foreign land" in remarks that technically referred to the EU. Cameron will say that Britain has benefited hugely from immigration. "Go into any hospital and you'll find people from Uganda, India and Pakistan who are caring for our sick and vulnerable. Go into schools and universities and you'll find teachers from all over the world, inspiring our young people."

 

But the prime minister will use his speech to challenge those who say:

  • Immigration cannot be controlled because Britain is a member of the EU. Cameron will say that future EU member states will be subject to tougher transitional controls and the UK can address immigration from outside the EU through the cap on non-EU immigration.
  • Immigration can be controlled – but to do so would inflict serious damage on the economy. Cameron will say the government is thinking "incredibly carefully" about which workers should come.

But the prime minister will make clear that immigration cannot be controlled until Britain's welfare system is reformed. "Put simply, we will never control immigration properly unless we tackle welfare dependency. That's another powerful reason why this government is undertaking the biggest shake-up of the welfare system for generations making sure that work will always pay and ending the option of living a life on the dole when a life in work is possible."

The prime minister will also condemn forced marriages and those who say they should be tolerated. "There are forced marriages taking place in our country, and overseas as a means of gaining entry to the UK. This is the practice where some young British girls are bullied and threatened into marrying someone they don't want to. I've got no time for those who say this is a culturally relative issue – it is wrong, full stop, and we've got to stamp it out. Then there are just the straightforward sham marriages."

In February, the prime minister gave a speech in Munich condemning "state multiculturalism" which had "tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values".

 

Please find the link to the original article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/14/david-cameron-immigrants-learn-english

 

The Guardian, Thursday 14 April 2011

Anger over English lesson funding cuts

Teachers say government rules mean fewer immigrants will be able to afford ESOL classes they have been told to take.

Teachers have reacted with anger to the prime minister's call for immigrants to take English lessons, arguing that the coalition has cut funds for these classes.

At a speech on immigration in Hampshire on Thursday, David Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a "kind of discomfort and disjointedness", which has disrupted communities across Britain.

But teachers of English said new rules, devised by the coalition government, would mean far fewer immigrants could afford to learn basic English.

From autumn this year, the government will only fund classes in basic English to immigrants on jobseeker's allowance and employability skills allowance.

Those claiming income support and other benefits will no longer be able to attend ESOL classes for free.

Newcomers to this country who lack basic English skills will have to pay half the cost of their lessons and employers will have to foot the bill for English lessons that take place in the workplace.

Teachers of basic English classes – known as English for speakers of other languages or ESOL – said the vast majority of their students were housewives whose husbands would not be able to afford for them to study part-time at £400 or £500 a year.

"We think that this change could mean that about half of all ESOL students in some cities will be shut out from attending lessons," said Judith Kirsh from the National Association for Teaching English and Community Languages to Adults, the professional association for ESOL teachers.

Just over 180,000 students take ESOL classes in England. The lessons are the first step to learning English for most immigrants and take place in further education colleges and community centres. Kirsh said hundreds of ESOL teachers faced redundancy as a result of the changes.

Perdy Patterson, an ESOL teacher at Tower Hamlets College in east London, said immigrants wanted to learn and speak English. "There are waiting lists often in the hundreds for these classes. It is disingenuous of Cameron to use this line of argument and then to also be cutting these classes."

She said the most vulnerable women in society were being hit. "These are women who are dependent on their husbands' income. The changes will mean we don't even know whether there will be an ESOL sector next year."

Indi Bains, an ESOL teacher at Hackney Community College in east London, said the changes to the funding of the classes would make it much more difficult for immigrants to integrate into British society.

The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education said that changes over the last four years had meant the number of ESOL students had dropped from 219,000 to 183,000.

"Current proposals put up to half of the remaining places at risk," said Chris Taylor, the National Institute's programme manager for ESOL.

"What the reduction in ESOL places means is fewer chances for a reviving British economy to make use of the skills of migrants. It means that the children of families with poor English have an extra hurdle to overcome in doing well at school and it means that it will take longer for people to share their experiences with others in the ways the prime minister describes. In order to achieve real integration, we ask the government to look again at the evidence and assess what could be done to ensure those individuals most disadvantaged get the English language courses they need."

 

Please find the link to the original article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/14/english-lessons-funding-immigrants

 

www.politics.co.uk Thursday 14 April 2011

CIPD: Employers are losing out on highly skilled workers

Gerwyn Davies, policy adviser for the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), commented on the prime minister's immigration speech:

"Since the permanent cap is only affecting skilled and highly skilled non-EU workers, the potential for government to fill these roles with those coming off welfare appears limited. The number of non-EU workers coming into the country via the points-based system has amounted to tens of thousands in the past couple of years. This is a, some pain, little gain policy. Further reductions will bring little gain for the government's policy objective to bring net migration down to the tens of thousands, but some pain for employers struggling to fill skilled vacancies. As recent official figures show, net migration has increased by more than a third since last year's introduction of the temporary cap. Meanwhile, CIPD figures show that a sixth of employers have been prevented from hiring skilled and highly skilled non-EU workers. The government's efforts should therefore concentrate on matching those coming off welfare with unskilled jobs, many of which are disproportionately taken by EU workers, while giving employers every opportunity to fill skilled and highly skilled roles that cannot be filled with British workers."

 

Please find the link to the original article:

http://www.politics.co.uk/speakers-corner/issue-of-the-day/legal-and-constitutional/cipd-employers-are-losing-out-on-highly-skilled-workers-$21388388$21388377.htm

 

Left Foot Forward, Thursday 14 April 2011

BNP: Cameron "advocating BNP policy”

The BNP’s Simon Darby has claimed David Cameron’s much-hyped, much-trailed speech on immigration is "advocating BNP policy, if we had copyright on our manifesto we’d have our lawyers round his office within hours.”

Darby was speaking on the BBC Today programme this morning. Liberal Democrat Minister, Vince Cable has criticised the prime minister, calling his comments "very unwise”.

The BBC reports:

"…the Lib Dem business secretary said his words "risked inflaming extremism” and were not part of the coalition agreement. He suggested Mr Cameron was electioneering ahead of polls on 5 May…”

He told the BBC Correspondent, Laura Kuenssberg:

"The reference to the tens of thousands of immigrants rather than hundreds of thousands is not part of the coalition agreement, it is Tory party policy only. I do understand there is an election coming but talk of mass immigration risks inflaming the extremism to which he and I are both strongly opposed…Much of the remaining immigration from outside the European Union is crucial to British recovery and growth. That’s why the cabinet collectively agreed to support British business and British universities by exempting overseas students and essential staff from the cap on Non-EU immigration.”

Cable has repeatedly criticised Cameron’s immigration cap, including on a trip to India last July, and again in September; as Will Straw reported:

"Responding to a question from Left Foot Forward at the Konigswinter 60th anniversary conference, he described the immigration cap as "doing great damage”, and said he was "at the limit of collective responsibility”.

He cited the example of a British-based company that needs 500 specialists over a three-year period, explaining that half of these had to come from outside the European Union – yet the company had only been given a quota of 30.”

And this morning’s Financial Times reports:

"The prime minister’s promise to cut yearly net migration to the "tens of thousands” has alarmed many business leaders and university bosses, who say the limit could damage Britain’s standing as a global commercial centre and its thriving further education sector.”


Please find the link to the original article:

http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/04/david-cameron-advocating-bnp-policy/ 

 

The Guardian, Saturday 16 April 2011

So David Cameron wants to talk about immigration?

Bring it on

Migrants boost the economy, provide vital services, raise academic standards and enrich our food. Let's talk about that

The very first question of the first televised leader's debate in British political history was on the subject of immigration. In April 2010, in front of a live audience of 9.4million viewers, toxicologist Gerard Oliver asked Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg to outline the "key elements for a fair, workable immigration policy".

I tire of the lazy argument, advanced by Tory and Labour politicians alike, that "we don't talk about immigration". Announcing his candidacy for the Labour leadership in May 2010, Andy Burnham claimed: "There's still ambivalence among some in Labour about discussing immigration." Rival candidate Ed Balls said he warned Gordon Brown not to "brush it under the carpet". A year on, "Blue Labour" thinkers are pushing a similar line of thought.

David Cameron has been quick to pounce. "There was Labour ministers who closed down discussion, giving the impression that concerns about immigration were somehow racist, it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it."

This is nonsense. There is no conspiracy of silence on immigration. We talk of little else. Only two months ago, in Munich, the prime minister demanded that immigrants "speak the language of their new home". On Thursday, he repeated the same message: "We're making sure that anyone studying a degree-level course has a proper grasp of the English language."

In fact, if it were true that we never talk about immigration, why am I constantly bombarded by BBC producers asking me to discuss the subject on their various outlets? Why, indeed, am I writing this piece for The Guardian?

Don't get me wrong. I want to talk about immigration; I like talking about it. As the son of Indian immigrants and the husband of an American immigrant, there's nothing else I'd rather do.

So here we go. Can we talk about immigration and its economic impact? A government study in 2007 estimated that migrants contributed about £6bn to output growth the previous year. That's equivalent to a 1.5% cut in the basic rate of income tax.  Can we talk about this?

Can we talk about how immigrants, contrary to myth and legend, boost wages in the UK? A report for the Low Pay Commission found that between 1997 and 2005, immigration to the UK made a positive contribution to the average wage-increase experienced by non-immigrant workers. In the words of the report's author, Professor Christian Dustmann of UCL's Department of Economics: "Economic theory shows us that immigration can provide a net boost to wages." Is this worth a discussion?

Can we talk about how the British high street has been transformed by foreign-born entrepreneurs? Tesco, Marks & Spencer, EasyJet and countless other leading companies were founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. As the economist Philippe Legrain points out in his book on the financial crisis, Aftershock, immigrants are twice as likely to start a new business as people born in Britain.

Can we talk about how, for the first time, two of our three major political parties are led by sons of immigrants? Nick Clegg's Dutch mother, Hermance van den Wall Bake, met his half-Russian father, Nicholas, on a visit to England in 1956. Ed Miliband's parents fled the Holocaust and arrived on these shores as refugees. His father Ralph caught the last boat to Britain before Belgium was overrun by the Nazis; his mother Marion arrived from Poland in 1947, aged 12 and unable to speak English. Meanwhile, David Cameron's great-great-grandfather, Emile Levita, a German-Jewish financier, came to this country as a migrant in the 1850s and obtained British citizenship in 1871. I have yet to hear the prime minister mention Levita in a speech.

Cameron is also a distant cousin of the Queen. Can we talk about migrants and the monarchy? The German origins of our royal family are often glossed over: prior to 1917, the House of Windsor was the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. And, lest we forget, the Queen's husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, father and grandfather to the next two Kings of England, was born in Corfu as "Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark".

Can we talk about the impact of immigrants on another much-loved British institution, the NHS? More than one in three of the UK's registered doctors gained their medical qualification abroad. Official figures obtained by Channel 4 News a year ago revealed that one of the NHS's largest private contractors employed not just immigrants, but illegal immigrants. Without foreign-born workers, the NHS would grind to a halt.

Can we talk about immigration and the funding of higher education? One in 10 students in British universities come from outside the EU and these students pay much higher tuition fees than British students – an average of £20,000 a year compared to £3,290. International fees are now a bigger source of income for most universities than research grants. Without foreign-born students, our universities would go bust.

Can we talk about the fact that nearly a quarter of Britain's Nobel prize winners were born abroad? Take the Nobel physics laureate, Konstantin Novoselov, who holds both Russian and British citizenship and lives and teaches in Manchester, or the 2010 Nobel prize winner for economics, the British-Cypriot Christopher Pissarides.

Can we talk about immigration and the national game? Migrants have helped transform the English Premier League into the world's most popular football league. In 1992, there were only 12 footballers in the Premier League born outside the Commonwealth; two decades on, more than half of the Premier League's clubs could field an entire team of foreign-born players. The current coach of the national team is an economic migrant, the Italian Fabio Capello, as is his predecessor, Swede Sven-Göran Eriksson. (Last month, the linguistically-challenged Capello insisted he only needed to know 100 words of English to do his job – will the prime minister denounce his high-profile refusal to integrate?)

Can we talk about the culinary gifts from migrants? The quintessentially British fish and chips, says historian Panikos Panayi, came from French and Jewish immigrants; this is now a land of pizzas, curries and noodles.

Can we talk about all of this? Discussions of immigration tend to revolve around forced marriages and the need for English language lessons.

But there is an alternative, positive and uplifting story to tell about the myriad ways in which this country has benefited from its migrant population.

In the words of the late former Labour Minister, Robin Cook:

"We should celebrate the enormous contribution of the many communities in Britain to strengthening our economy, to supporting our public services, and to enriching our culture and cuisine."

To focus only on the negative side of the ledger is as dangerous as it is disingenuous, irresponsible as it is ill-informed.

 

Please find the link to the original article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/16/david-cameron-immigration-economy 

Left Futures, Thursday 14 April 2011

Polls show Cameron out of step with public on immigration

On the day that David Cameron puts immigration at the heart of political debate, 2 polling organisations show that he’s out of step with the public.

  • Ipsos-MORI polling shows that race and immigrations is mentioned in April as an "important issue facing Britain today” by only 17% of the public, 9% down on last month and at its lowest level for 9 years.

It comes well below the economy (on 62%) as well as unemployment, defence/foreign affairs/terrorism, crime/law and order and the NHS (although ironically the NHS is also low at 20% having been reduced under Gordon Brown to the lowest level of concern since 1985).

  • An ongoing independent poll of 143,000 working people being conducted for Unite, Britain’s biggest union, also shows that immigration is ranked last of 10 issues of concern. Working people’s top worries are money problems, the rising cost of living, and cuts to public services, stress, education and housing.

10s of thousands of responses have been analysed and ranked by independent polling company, Mass1, which reports that: -

The top ten concerns for workers are: -

1. Money worries

2. Cuts to council services and NHS services

3. Rising cost of living

4. Stress

5. Education

6. Housing

7. Job security

8. Coalition government

9. Defence

10. Immigration

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said:

"David Cameron is stoking up fears over immigration to divert attention away from people’s real fears about the economy and public services to give his government some cover ahead of the council elections.

10s of thousands of working people surveyed for Unite show that their main worries can be traced back to the impact the government’s economic policies are having on this country. Working people are worried because they are struggling to make ends meet; they are seeing the cost of food and fuel going up, while their public services are being cut.

Immigration is in fact ranked last as a concern with the coalition government ranked as a greater threat to people’s living standards.”

The poll is based on responses from some 143,000 people — not all Unite members — polled by Mass1, an independent research organisation in an ongoing polling exercise that began in December 2010. The respondents are spread across the population centres of the UK.

Please click on link to find original article: -

http://www.leftfutures.org/2011/04/polls-show-cameron-out-of-step-with-public-on-immigration/

 

www.adamsmith.org, Thursday 14 April 2011

Response to Cameron's immigration speech

On 14 April 2011, Sam Bowman, Head of Research at the Adam Smith Institute, said:

"Any argument that immigrants create unemployment uses the same flawed logic that says that open trade makes us poorer. In the long run, immigrants increase native wages. Technological advancement and the entry of women into the labour force displaced workers and created frictional unemployment, but ultimately created large gains in per capita income. The same is true of immigrants.

Fears that immigration creates a drain on the welfare state are misguided. Immigrants contribute more in taxes than they use in services. Home Office research suggests that is equivalent to 1p off the basic rate of income tax. Immigrants don't drain the welfare state, they subsidise it.”

Please click on link to see original article:

http://www.adamsmith.org/media/press-releases/response-to-cameron's-immigration-speech/

 

Next Left, Thursday 14 April 2011
Ed Miliband on why immigration matters
The immediate focus of political and media reaction to the Prime Minister's heavily trailed speech on immigration - on which I blogged overnight after the early release of the text - has been on criticisms from senior Liberal Democrats, notably Business Secretary Vince Cable of the tone and approach of the speech. Cable fears the speech risks doing more to stoke extremism than to address public anxiety.

But there has been some discussion among the political twitterati are discussing of whether the Prime Minister has somehow 'set a trap' for the Labour leadership, with his claim that the last Labour government has sought to close down public debate on immigration......

......It is very clear that Ed Miliband thinks immigration is an important public issue to debate and respond to. He should therefore seek to open up a constructive, rational and less polarised debate about the issue, perhaps seeking to add more light and less heat than much of the debate this morning.......

......Immigration is an important issue, and that it is both possible and important to welcome the positive contribution that it makes to this country, while doing more to address the social and distributional pressures that it causes....

Ed Miliband has been quoted as saying:

".....Britain’s diversity is an enormous strength: economically, culturally, socially and we should never cease saying it and we should say it more often.......”

......The Labour leader was praised across Parliament, including by the Prime Minister, for his speech in the Libya debate which ended on why he and his family had important reasons to celebrate and be grateful for Britain's historic tradition of openness and generosity to refugees.

"Today's debate is conducted in the shadow of history of past conflicts. For me, it is conducted in the shadow of my family's history as well: two Jewish parents whose lives were changed forever by the darkness of the holocaust, yet who found security in Britain. This is a story of the hope offered by Britain to my family, but many of my parents' relatives were out of the reach of the international community and perished as a result. In my maiden speech in the House, I said that I would reflect....the humanity and solidarity shown to my family more than 60 years ago. These are the kind of things we say in maiden speeches, but if they are to be meaningful, we need to follow them through in deeds, not just words".

If we are going to have an open, rational and evidence-based debate, it is to be hoped that he and his colleagues can try to capture these nuances in how we talk about immigration.

Please find link to original article:

 http://www.nextleft.org/2011/04/ed-miliband-on-why-immigration-matters.html

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