Immigration Watch International (2)

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Britain powerless to stop tens of thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians moving to UK next year

Britain is powerless to stop tens of thousands of Eastern European immigrants from coming to live in Britain from next year, Theresa May has admitted.

Five year old quotas limiting the number of people from Bulgaria and Romania who can move to live in Britain are due to expire in just over 12 months' time.

This will give 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians the right to live and work unrestricted in Britain in 2014 under European "freedom of movement" rules.

In an interview on BBC1, the Home Secretary said Britain would not be able to extend the so-called "transitional arrangements" to limit the expected influx.

Mrs May hinted that Britain might try to deny them benefits and access to the National Health Service to put them off from coming.

She told the Andrew Marr programme: "There are no further transitional controls that we can put on - the transitional controls end in December 2013.

"But that's where the importance of looking at some of the issues about what it is that is attracting people to come here, in terms of things like our benefits system and access to the health service, is so important."

The sudden influx could mean that the Coalition struggles to hit its target of cutting net migration - the difference between the numbers arriving and leaving - to tens of thousands by the next general election, expected in 2015.

Mrs May added that as part of a general review of free movement across the UK she will be looking at the attractions of why Romanians and Bulgarians wanted to settle in the UK.

This could lead to Bulgarians and Romanians being denied benefits or use of the health service if they came to live in the UK. However any attempt to deny benefits to European Union citizens in Britain will almost certainly be open to legal challenge in the courts.

She said: "I will be looking at what we call the pull factors, what is it that attracts people sometimes to come over here to the United Kingdom, so looking at issues about benefits, and access to the health service, and things like that.

"And then we're doing a wider piece of work across matters relating to Europe more generally but including free movement about that balance of powers between us and the EU."

The citizens of Romania and Bulgaria currently have restricted rights to come to Britain since they joined the European Union in 2007, but those limits end on 31 December 2013, opening the way for them to move freely.

Forecasters have said the removal of the restrictions could lead to a significant number of new arrivals, in the same way as when Poland and other Eastern European countries gained the same rights in 2004, with the scale likely to be increased by the economic crisis gripping the rest of Europe.

The Home Office has made no official predictions of how many more Bulgarians and Romanians will seek to enter Britain when the current limitations end, and argues that most who want to come have probably arrived already, finding work on the black market if they cannot work legally.

However, critics believe that the Government's reluctance to issue predictions is because it grossly underestimated the numbers that came in the previous wave of migration in 2004, when citizens from eight new eastern European EU members, including Poland, were given full access to the UK job market.

SOURCE

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Background

Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.

Why is "La Raza" the one Spanish term that is NEVER translated in the American mass media? Because translating it would make it a lot less respectable. It means "THE RACE" -- The mixed Hispanic "race" of Mexico. Racism is fine South of the Rio Grande only, apparently.

The "line" of this blog is that immigration should be SELECTIVE. That means that:

1). A national government should be in control of it. The U.S. and U.K. governments are not but the Australian government has shown that the government of a prosperous Western country can be. Up until its loss of office in 2007, the conservative Howard government had all but eliminated illegal immigration. The present Leftist government has however restarted the flow of illegals by repealing many of the Howard government regulations.

2). Selectivity should be based on "the content of a man's character, not on the color of his skin", as MLK said. To expand that a little: Immigrants should only be accepted if they as individuals seem likely to make a positive net contribution to the country. Many "refugees" would fail that test: Muslims and Africans particularly. Educational level should usually be a pretty fair proxy for the individual's likely value to the receiving country. There will, of course, be exceptions but it is nonetheless unlikely that a person who has not successfully completed High School will make a net positive contribution to a modern Western society.

3). Immigrants should be neither barred NOR ACCEPTED solely because they are of some particular ethnic origin. Blacks are vastly more likely to be criminal than are whites or Chinese, for instance, but some whites and some Chinese are criminal. It is the criminality that should matter, not the race.

4). The above ideas are not particularly blue-sky. They roughly describe the policies of the country where I live -- Australia. I am critical of Australian policy only insofar as the "refugee" category for admission is concerned. All governments have tended to admit as refugees many undesirables. It seems to me that more should be required of them before refugees are admitted -- for instance a higher level of education or a business background.

5). Perhaps the most amusing assertion in the immigration debate is that high-income countries like the USA and Britain NEED illegal immigrants to do low-paid menial work. "Who will pick our crops?" (etc.) is the cry. How odd it is then that Australians get all the normal services of a modern economy WITHOUT illegal immigrants! Yes: Before the pandemic, you usually COULD buy a lettuce in Australia for a dollar or thereabouts. And Australia IS a major exporter of primary products.

6). I am a libertarian conservative so I reject the "open door" policy favoured by many libertarians and many Leftists. Both those groups tend to have a love of simplistic generalizations that fail to deal with the complexity of the real world. It seems to me that if a person has the right to say whom he/she will have living with him/her in his/her own house, so a nation has the right to admit to living among them only those individuals whom they choose.

I can be reached on jonjayray@hotmail.com -- or leave a comment on any post. Abusive comments will be deleted.

Immigration Watch International (2)

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

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