Why are people so against immigration?

I’m pretty convinced that the reason is it’s easier for governments and the media they control / that control them to tell people that problems with services are caused by immigration and over population than lack of funding and lack of planning.

There’s examples in this thread of people making exactly the same sort of comments: there’s plenty of land that isn’t actually actively used for farming in this country that could be developed for housing – of course it’s not necessarily in a useful location, but that’s a lack of government planning.   Similar issues apply to schools, doctors, etc – it was obvious 20 years ago that these problems would continue but rather than invest in areas that would benefit from it, we tried to block the immigration.  It was obvious that asylum applications would take longer to process, but rather than change the rules to allow applicants to earn whilst their application was pending – and thus support themselves and pay tax we leave them in limbo are have to support them.

Most immigrants do not want more immigration.

id be interested to know the evidence for this claim. I’ve worked with a group of immigrants from, let’s say, western countries: Portugal, Spain, Italy, Canada, Germany, Ireland, France for over a decade.    None of them have ever suggested immigration should be blocked.    Equally I’ve never once heard a suggestion that they weren’t very welcome here or that they were creating a burden on the U.K. – they will all have been paid above the U.K. median wage, and some quite a bit above for their specialist skills.  Now notably these are all countries where Brits might want to emigrate to themselves or at least go on holiday to.

Those who say they have no racist overtones to their objection ask yourself to rank the order you would let these people into the country:

– a 25 yr old Ukrainian woman

– a 28 yr old from France who wants to study to become a French teacher in the UK

– a 25 yr old Somalian man

– a 45 yr old from Dublin who wants to marry someone here

– a 75 yr old Spanish woman who wants to live with her son who has been here for two decades

– a 40 yr old American scientist with an offer of a professorship at a U.K. university

– a 30 yr old French premiership footballer

– a 23 yr old Bulgarian looking to work in the hospitality industry for a few years

– a 30 yr old Turkish nurse

– a 75 yr old British woman who emigrated to Spain 20 years ago

– a 23 year old Australian looking to work in the hospitality industry for a few years

– a 40 year old palestinian structural engineer

– a 28 yr old Iranian software engineer who has been living in France for 10 yrs

– a 45 year old from the Phillipines who wants to marry someone here

Belief that the country is the native people’s and should be run for their benefit.

Belief that the fruits of family and community efforts and sacrifices over the centuries to make the country what it is today, should not be shared with someone who just turns up here.

Belief that the fruits of family efforts and sacrifices over the centuries to make the country what it is today, should not be shared with anyone who just turns up here.

Empire and commonwealth forces have fought with British soldiers in every conflict worth mentioning. Remarkable, as much of the time we invaded their countries as an enemy.

Stretching the topic a bit to start talking about English “migrants” to Scotland and vice versa.

In your arrogant, patronising world maybe. But when you got the message, I got this morning from some complete random, that was just anti-English abusive racism, maybe not. Its all part of the same problem. People resenting migration because of other issues.

It would be interesting to compare the emigration from the UK with immigration?  I know we have a net immigration but its surely significant numbers of folk who leave?  It would be interesting to see that graph alongside the one PCA put up earlier

I have family who left the UK in the late 19th century, in the 1960s, and in the 1980s.   I have friends who left in the 80s and 90s.

Australia, Canada and perhaps less so the USA were largely?  Partly?  populated by british emigrants

Empire and commonwealth forces have fought with British soldiers in every conflict worth mentioning. Remarkable, as much of the time we invaded their countries as an enemy.

and the UK became and is still rich on the back of those invasions that created the empire

Empire and commonwealth forces have fought with British soldiers in every conflict worth mentioning. Remarkable, as much of the time we invaded their countries as an enemy.

I’m aware of this, but it doesn’t counter the point I made.

A huge amount of effort went into building our advanced country. Some people feel that it can be shared with anyone who wants to benefit from that effort, others feel it’s for descendants of those who contributed.

and the UK became and is still rich on the back of those invasions that created the empire

I doubt many people feel bad about that – it’s history, that’s how the world was in those days, anyone else would have done it to us if they had half a chance, etc.. Less still would care about it if they worked out the effect that putting it right would have on their own standard of living.

Have a look around Europe and see what parties people are voting for.

A huge amount of effort went into building our advanced country.

A lot of it involved asset stripping other countries.

Thank **** for the Royal Navy, eh?

Lot of immigration in KBT from England. (Me included – although my Mum is scottish and I was born in scotland – does that count? ).  Locals bitch massively about “Incomers” on social media. Think there are a lot of people are struggling for money and housing and its not nice if you fall on the wrong side of the divide so easy to see where the frustration comes from.

I wasn’t considering immigration such as yourself moving here tbf, I don’t know about the bitching on social media (not on it) but I’m sure it goes on as there’s a number of pretty ignorant folk in this town, I was born here moved away/came back 3 times with my folks and been back here since 1987.

Housing is a real bad issue that’s for sure, my mums street (union st) has 14 holiday let houses out of 25, it’s not sustainable so it’s no wonder that folk are annoyed and priced out of the market, I was one of the lucky ones and got a council 1bed bungalow back in 93 when only 21, it’s now housing association. I think the current waiting list is 12 years + so you as may well say “never”, and the lack of long term rents in the area for the low wages paid around here is practically non-existent.

I’m always rolling my eyes when my mum (always…) starts moaning about immigrants when I call her. Partly because her arguments are deeply flawed, and partly because her son is himself an immigrant (in another country) 😀

India was one of the richest countries in the world, for about two and a half millennia starting around the end of 1st millennium BC and ending around the beginning of British rule in India.

Its share of global industrial output declining from 25% in 1750 to 2% in 1900.

Britain de-industrialised India and left it impoverished.

Some people feel that it can be shared with anyone who wants to benefit from that effort, others feel it’s for descendants of those who contributed.

Well, what counts as contributing I suppose? Is just having a family that has been here generations enough, how make generations? My father fought in WW2 but I don’t think I can hang on his coat tails, that was all him.

How about a Gurkha that has had zero generations here but had his life on the line for the UK?

Or is it measured by wealth generated? The Caribbean sugar trade generated great wealth for the UK so should their descendants be counted as having contributed to the UK over generations?

Based upon how you measure contribution I think a lot of British residents might not fair too well (including me) or at the very least no better than the guy from an ex colony that lost a parent or grandparent fighting for Britain in a world war or regional conflict.

So again, it’s complex and I’m not so sure on what basis a contribution is counted as greater than another?

@bikesandboots

Time for kip I think. Sorry if I’ve come across as a beligerant sod. Your comment on contributions made either by a person or by their ancestors just really got me thinking. I’m a little saddened to say that unlike those in the forces, NHS, social care etc etc I’ve probably received more than I’ve given to the UK.

It’s given me for for thought anyway which probably means yet another night of insomnia.

I think the issue is that it’s impossible to have meaningful conversations about immigration without it just becoming a binary “open borders!”/”racism!” fight to the death – or until one side gets called in for their tea.

Most of the issue is that people don’t act like they know that “Immigration” is different to “illegal immigration” which is different to “asylum seekers” which is different to “people smuggling” – they just lump it all in together.

I think 90% of the country would agree on having sensible policies on illegal immigration, asylum seekers, people smuggling.  Most of the issue with those seems to be procedural, once central premises are accepted.  But I swear, when most people are talking about “immigration” they are actually talking about one of those 3.  It’s virtually the Tories policy to conflate those things, but the left also do it.

When we can  just start talking about “legal immigration” only, hopefully we can start having a more sensible conversation without all the rhetoric.  I don’t think anyone (beyond a few loonies) thinks we should have either completely open, or completely closed borders – so lets stop referencing those things with the sole purpose of stoking a pointless argument.  I would also expect that everyone believes legal immigration numbers should be managed in some way?  So how? And according to what measures?  That’s the question.  Once we can start discussing that without all the pointless yelling, we might actually get somewhere.

A general question to anyone of any persuasion on immigration, what is your average interaction with immigrants?

Outside of work I would guess almost zero.  New Forest so not sure if immigrants are allowed, certainly don’t get that impression and numbers must be minimal yet a lot of people in the New Forest seem to think immigration is a problem for them, why could that be?

In work, I guess a bit higher as work in IT with a lot of younger people who are I guess are 2nd generation immigrants but that is the point I am totally guessing as their families could have been in UK for 200 years.

As for country being full or not enough services and housing just a cursory look at the increase over last 100 years being a pretty straight line with exception of 1st/2nd world wars means it is pretty easy for a government to predict what was going to happen with growth and plan/implement the required increases to match it.  Also guessing that this fairly consistent increase is not all to do with immigration.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/281296/uk-population/

Funny how, people don’t get quite so angry about divorced people, when it comes to the housing crisis? maybe we should force them to live with other single adults to help solve the problem?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/281616/people-living-alone-uk-by-gender/#:~:text=As%20of%202022%2C%20approximately%208.34,to%20be%20living%20by%20themselves.

“The UK is a nation of immigrants.”

It is now, 1 in six of the population was born abroad at the last census, only Germany has a higher level in Europe – but historically we weren’t, mass immigration only started after the second world war and the amount that took place in the 50 and 60 was tiny compared to what has taken place in recent years, without anyone really making the case for it in an election – it has just kind of happened. The economic case isn’t clear cut – what most of the studies that say it is positive ignore is that the immigrant population skews young so they don’t take into account the future costs when they get older. The House of Lords did a good report a few years ago that there was no clear economic positive effect.

Percentages Calculation (thanks chatgpt)

Latin-based: (20 / 170) * 100 ≈ 11.76%

Norman-based: (9 / 170) * 100 ≈ 5.29%

Germanic: (135 / 170) * 100 ≈ 79.41%

Other: (1 / 170) * 100 ≈ 0.59%

These calculations show that the text predominantly consists of Germanic words, with significant contributions from Latin-based and Norman-based vocabularies, reflecting the complex linguistic history of the English language.

Whats more The house of lords… Those lords were A certain norman kings buddies…

So yeah “it is now”… And always has been?

Most of the issue is that people don’t act like they know that “Immigration” is different to “illegal immigration” which is different to “asylum seekers” which is different to “people smuggling” – they just lump it all in together.

You’ve put your finger on it (IMO). Terminology and it’s misuse has become a problem. The national conversion is couches in the language used by politicians and the aligned press and it’s helped them make it into a wedge issue, this is Primarily so they can maintain power and influence.

For whatever reason, whether displaced by conflict or looking for opportunities people apparently still want to come to the UK. And the UK has benefited from migration in the past.

I am inherently suspicious of anyone offering simple solutions to problems that TBH aren’t that clearly defined, especially when they can’t join the dots between a decade of anti-immigrant rhetoric and a nation with declining public services…

I was involved in the building of a dentist/GP surgery in a Northamptonshire town that was desperate for these sorts of services. It coincided with a wave of immigration to the area (mostly agricultural work) from eastern Europe, Poland, Romanian, Slovakia, mostly but with Spanish an Turkish as well. All our Dentists (the bit I looked after) were from the same sorts of areas; it was the recruitment policy at the time. Lots of admin staff and reception staff recruited from the local immigrant population, and to make it easier for patients, would wear a name tag that showed which languages they spoke. [can you tell were this is going?] The existing patients felt suddenly like 2-class citizens, they weren’t treated that way of course, but as one old woman said to me, “They only built this when the immigrants came here, they didn’t bother before” and that view was pretty widely accepted. Perhaps not helped by the Romanian receptionist having a fluent and easy convo with her neighbour and then speaking in halting English to the next patient in line.

the local Brits were mostly glad of the services, but complained that nearly all the admin staff spoke pretty good Polish (for instance) but sometimes not great English, that there were signs outside the door inviting patients to sign up in every language (but not English) that again coincided with one of the big four banks leafleting nearly everyone in town with invitations to open a bank account…in Polish, Lithuanian, etc etc, but not English, there were A-frame adverts blocking the High Street outside Lloyds bank in Polish.

This all happened over maybe a couple of years, the town went from a backwater to enforced multiculturalism, and not everyone was ready, or understood why, or wanted their high street transformed. I’d imagine that the impact on local schools etc was pretty similar to ours at the health centre.

When some immigration is that dramatic it can have negative impacts, these folks weren’t racist or anything, they were just watching their town being transformed, and they didn’t get a say in it, they didn’t ask for it, or vote for it. It just happened to them.

There have been plenty of studies that show an overall positive effect from immigration. If you’re part of a relevant profession (veterinary in my case) then you’ll have seen Brexit cause massive issues due to a lack of skilled workers coming over since.
The thing that annoys me the most as others have said, is that many people are against it because they have been told to be, without actually having any personal negative experience that justifies their stance.
I can appreciate that in some communities there may be more resistance due to direct effects of immigration, but this is not the case for most people.

Xenophobia and racism obviously play a part. But I think the reason a lot of easily led people are against immigration is anxiety and fear.

Politicians know they can play to people with below average academic attainment if the kind of jobs they will probably end up doing are ‘taken’ by foreigners flown in by employers to drive down costs – or at least that is the impression they can create.

It must be scary believing that you will likely be turned down for a job in your ‘own country’, when you can speak the language, versus someone who quite possibly cannot. These fears are an easy thing for cynical politicians to exploit – particularly in the era of targeted social media and the decline of more structured media coverage. It is how Brexit happened and it is how the election is being framed to a large extent.

It is why dumbing down political discourse to three word slogans and lots of flags has started to work again in elections.

When some immigration is that dramatic it can have negative impacts, these folks weren’t racist or anything, they were just watching their town being transformed, and they didn’t get a say in it, they didn’t ask for it, or vote for it. It just happened to them.

I’d question that.  Change came (and change is pretty much inevitable – presumably those people wanted antibiotics, electricity, cars, telephone etc) and they sought to blame immigration or immigrants when they believe that without them there would have been no new facilities – in the absence of the immigrants they may well have had no dentist at all, the bank would have closed, etc.

A huge amount of effort went into building our advanced country. Some people feel that it can be shared with anyone who wants to benefit from that effort, others feel it’s for descendants of those who contributed.

I suppose the implication of that is that the UK should have more immigration from ex-colonies and less from the EU…?

it was obvious 20 years ago that these problems would continue but rather than invest in areas that would benefit from it, we tried to block the immigration

This is just totally backwards and factually untrue. 20 years ago Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia joined the EU. Unlike other member states and unlike later accession waves, the UK did not block immigration from these countries in 2004. In 2004, there were 1.2 million citizens of other EU countries in the UK; by 2012, there were 2.3 million! There was no attempt to block immigration 20 years ago – there was a massive increase in immigration.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_enlargement_of_the_European_Union

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldeucom/121/12104.htm

is that many people are against it because they have been told to be, without actually having any personal negative experience that justifies their stance.

IIRC areas with the least immigration are the most against it in general

I’d question that.

Oh fo’shure. I didn’t say these worries were legitimate, just that they exist. The OP asked why are folks against immigration, I think ‘in the round’ folks aren’t really, and especially in cities of hundreds of thousands or mega cities like London of millions of folks. Its the norm

But in towns of tens of thousands the impact is more obvious, especially as happened in the early noughties, that change happened relatively quickly, and some towns saw an immigrant population increase rapidly (Northampton and Boston for example) And yes, the High Street bank may have closed otherwise, but its also easy to feel “it’s not for us”, which many of the locals in my example felt, especially if the bank is hanging out signs in Polish, or are randomly posting out letters in Lithuanian.

I think it depends whether you think there is anything more to being British than where you happen to live. If you do then you are going to see a large influx of people from different cultures as a threat to what you see as your way of life.

anything more to being British than where you happen to live.

There’s some folks for whom that is true though. That living where your parents and grandparents live, having been to the same school as them, working in the same town they worked in, and all your friends work in, and drinking in the same pub with them – Is what makes you ‘from’ somewhere.

Back in my under-grad days doing surveys of ancestry, the amount of folks that can trace their family 4 or more generations back in more or less a 20 miles radius was the majority experience rather than the opposite. In some places, the further away from suburbia and cities you got, the more that was the lived experience of people.

Is this discussion about legal or illegal immigration?

Still waiting for clarity on this…

Very good question; CBA to read the entire thread, but it’s quite worrying to see how in Ireland and Canada (formerly pretty welcoming of newcomers), even fairly sensible people now talk about “too many people coming in”. “Ireland for the Irish” is another good one – kinda overlooking the issue that more people have an Irish passport but live elsewhere than actually live in Ireland.

In both cases it seems to come down to “I don’t have good stuff, and it’s because someone else has taken it”. I can’t have a house, can’t get a well-paid job, can’t get benefits etc; and in each case “…because they’ve come here and taken it all”. People coming from the Middle East with literally nothing, Ukrainians fleeing the wreckage of their homes, and locals here pointing at them and saying they should be turned away. All at the same time that the population in the host countries is aging, and younger workers are needed.

At its heart it’s real dog in the manger stuff: (failed government policy means) I can’t afford the home of my dreams, so that family over there shouldn’t have nice things. Totally and utterly f’d up

Patel, Sunak and braverman..concrete evidence that immigration is bad and can have a lasting negative effect on the country for generations…

seriously though, I think there needs to be some form of border controls, however if that was down to me, that would pretty much extend to ‘are you bringing any skills or exp that would benefit this country’. Ie When you get here are you going to be a positive or negative asset. You don’t just need to be a doctor, nurse etc to qualify…

People are against the record numbers and the societal/demographic change that brings- it was 10s of 1000s a year net before Blair, 250,000-300,000 per year thanks to Blair, and now approx 750,000 a year under Sunak.

Adding a city a year to the UK population without building the infrastructure obviously strains public resources. Over half the public housing in London is occupied by people born overseas.

Apart from numbers there’s the issue of the quality of immigrants, the skills they bring and whether they’ll be a net cost to tax payers. The recent record benefit fraud case highlights this. See the Danish study of immigrants from MENAPT countries and their cost the Danish state.

These are all valid concerns of British citizens and taxpayers.

As an immigrant from Scotland to Ireland it always amazes me how many people don’t see me as an immigrant because I am white and speak English. Often when I remind people that I dont have citizenship and am an immigrant the reply is ‘ah your not really’. Makes me think racism plays a huge part in people’s dislike of immigrants.

250,000-300,000 per year thanks to Blair, and now approx 750,000 a year under Sunak.

So will you be voting Labour on July 4th to address the problem grimep?

I didn’t have you down as a Labour supporter but you make a powerful case.

Five of my great grandparents were born abroad and emigrated here just over a century ago. They were what would now be called economic migrants. Every generation since has contributed to society, including fighting and in a couple of cases dying for Britain in two world wars. I doubt if my family were that unusual. Perhaps because of that and because two of my nephews were born and raised abroad but had their university education here and now both live and work here ( they are lucky to   have dual nationality so they can work freely here and in the EU) I have a more relaxed attitude than many to the concept of migration.

it always amazes me how many people don’t see me as an immigrant because I am white and speak English.

This, although being Irish and Italian immigrants my family were not immune to prejudice in Edwardian London

250,000-300,000 per year thanks to Blair, and now approx 750,000 a year under Sunak.

good job we took back control of our borders eh.

It’s not all about economics, what about social cohesion?

I usually perceive these sorts of comments as jealousy.  As if someone’s seen the hundreds of people from all over the world piling into the Mosque or Gurdwara with armfuls of food* and lamenting that their local church and pub have both closed down due to lack of interest.

*On a related note, why is Harvest Festival so much worse than Iftar, Eid, or seemingly everything Sikh?  When I’m old and decrepit I want people bringing me mountains of curries, not out of date tinned peaches 😂

Even as our resident Geoff Norcott, grimep, points out – the reason people don’t like immigrants is because a government which has underinvested in public services is blaming immigrants for a decline in the quality of public services. Immigrants are a useful scapegoat when they’re actually the solution to the problem.

The idea that people come over here to claim benefits in enormous numbers is a total fallacy. Also the idea that immigrants come here and send money home resulting in a net loss to the economy is, while true in some cases, not true.

The UK benefits from a net fiscal gain from migration of 0.46% of GDP. There are only a handful of countries in the EU that lose out from migration, notably Germany and France. Poland also loses out. So we can use the extra income from immigrants to improve public services.

The difference between benefits and services claimed by immigrants and contributions from tax is, from reasonable sources, generally between +/-1% of GDP, and the majority of studies from unbiased sources show that there is a net gain from taxation from immigrants.

The Office of Budget Responsibility even predicts that more immigrants will, in the long term, reduce the national public debt. If there were to be zero net migration they say the public debt would be around £145bn by 2062, as opposed to £75bn with high net migration. This is based on the assumption of most immigrants being of working age, which they will be.

All of this information is taken from various places on the Migration Observatory website.

http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/fiscal-impact-immigration-uk

If you want to narrow this down specifically to the EEA then these immigrants pay 34% more in taxes than they receive in benefits and services.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/05/migration-target-useless-experts

Oh, and as a further blow to the argument against, the net annual fiscal conrtibution from taxes from immigrants (106% of GDP in 1999-2000 and 99% of GDP in 2003-2004) is higher than that of UK born people (101% of GDP in 1999-2000 and 88% of GDP in 2003-2004, so even when the contribution is negative the immigrants are “less negative”) . Maybe we should have loads of immigrants and send those lazy natives to other countries to sponge somewhere else.

In terms of the social and demographic changes, the only places I’ve heard people complain about this have been areas where the immigrant population is almost non-existent, particularly when I lived in Derbyshire. Now I live in a city and on the edge of a particularly diverse area but the culture is overwhelmingly Scottish. I grew up in West Yorkshire which is a real melting pot of cultures and the culture is overwhelmingly Yorkshire, just with some more interesting food and events.

I know why people are concerned about it, but they’re being sold a lie and the root issue is really underinvestment by the government. Even the asylum seekers being housed in hotels thing is because of underinvestment in Border Force – spend money there to process asylum claims more quickly and you’ll save more than you’ve invested in hotel bills.

A general question to anyone of any persuasion on immigration, what is your average interaction with immigrants?

One shares my bed. Not sure I want an “open bed policy” though. Or maybe I do. let me think about it.

Even the asylum seekers being housed in hotels thing is because of underinvestment in Border Force – spend money there to process asylum claims more quickly and you’ll save more than you’ve invested in hotel bills.

but I’d bet that there is a tory donor hoovering up the cash with a contract to supply sub standard hotel rooms