That's a good point Irishguy. Thank you. However, although UK science may have benefitted, when considering the effect of recent mass immigration I'm still not sure it is justified.
Don't underestimate the huge economic and technological benefits that are gained through being a country with leading scientific researchers. Compared to other countries, the UK is relatively small with limited natural resources... its things like being a leader in science that makes companies like Pfizer pharaceuticals invest here... Being unable to compete in research due to immigration restrictions could result in a brain drain and massive economic losses
Irishguy, great point, thanks for coming back on it. You have convinced me and I think we can include that.
Cloudymountain, thanks too for your contribution. I'm just going to look as those in isolation.
Immigration brings down lower costs for businesses, costs are then passed down on to the consumer. Many things would be more expensive if not for immigration.
Is because of reduced Labour costs? I think we may have covered this point.
Immigration leads to exchange of ideas and innovation leading to entrepreneurship. The founder of Google(which we all use), Sergey Brin is an immigrant to the USA. Founder of Yahoo, some Taiwanese Chap is also an immigrant,etc,etc. Half of all Sillicon Valley start-ups are founded by immigrants. Enrico Fermi, father of the atom bomb, is an immigrant. Amar Gopal Bose is an indian immigrant who founded Bose Sound Systems. Steve Jobs biological father, Abdulfattah John Jandal is an immigrant from Syria. Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar who formulated the famed Chandrasekhar limit which proved the discovery of black holes is an immigrant from India who studied at Cambridge.
I'm not convinced. Would not such uniquely talented individuals have immigrated anyway as their qualities would have unravelled at an early age as the very upper echelons of institutions and acedemia quickly would have become accessible to them? (Such talent usually gets headhunted).
Immigrants bring money with them to spend boosting the economy. The rich list in Britain are populated mainly by immigrants. Lakshmi Mittal, an Indian immigrant, is the richest person in Britain. Others include the Hinduja Brothers, Roman Abrahmovic, the steel tycoon and Kazakh immigrant Alisher Usmanov, the Swiss immigrants Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli and industry tycoon Leonard Blavatnik, the Chinese immigrant property magnet Joseph Lau,etc. http://www.richest-people.co.uk/the-top-100/
Again a unique minority. I would suspect such individuals would gravitate here anyway given our conducive tax laws and exceptionally strong financial industry sector.
Immigration renews the population. Developed countries are facing an aging population and low birth rates. Most notably this can be seen in Japan, where borrowing for the elderly is through the roof with drastic consequences for their economy. Immigrants are paying for the pensioner's winter allowance and state pension. In order to rejuvenate the economy and provide for the elderly, immigration is desirable.
This one's DEFINITELY true and I thank you. We have however already listed this one in a previous post.
Ok, the thread seems to have gone quiet now. To sum up. From the last seven pages the constuctive points in favour of mass immigration in response to my original post here:
The NHS is loosing tens of millions due to health tourism.
The NHS has to budget millions of pounds each year on interpreters.
Social Housing is chronically over subscribed.
Schools are over subscribed right down to primary level with so many language barriers that the academic level is falling severley behind the equivalent age level.
The Border agency is at breaking point with a backlog decades long.
Large cities such as Leicester are becoming gheto-ised with no go areas due to lack of integration.
The UK population is increasing at the rate of a city the size of Birmingham each year.
The construction industry has been forced into a state of redundancy due to an outsourcing to Eastern European labour.
The Welfare budget has become such a concern it has been necessary to implement extreme policies such as the bedroom tax.
Employment markets are saturated by overwhelming sources of labour.
These are the facts that can be easily substantiated in the public domain. My views on immigration are neither here nor there. Politics aside though, if anyone can realistically and objectively point out the plus points of immigration, I would seriously like to know.
We have an ageing workforce, more people will be retiring than people leaving school. We are going to start experiencing some major skills shortages soon.
The biggest pressure the NHS can predictably have will be an increase in demand for older people, mostly baby boomers - this will all need to be resourced by both people and cash.
We then had our second plus point a few pages later.
2. Protecting the brain drain:
The quality and quantity of science research in the UK has benefited greatly through immigration. 1/4 of the UKs science nobel prizes were for immigrants.
There was a big successful campaign by scientists in 2010 when the government announced they were going to further cap non-EU immigrant numbers, to exempt those taking jobs in research as it would greatly damage science in the UK if they didn't
There were a few idealogical points raised which I considered 'debatable' but were not totally convincing.
Eg. The multiculturalism factor.
The benefit to small UK business of the increased labour pool.
The ability to move freely FROM the UK.
It would seem then from the evidence of the last seven pages that the arguement in favour of mass immigration against the vast array of problems it has forced upon us would appear to be very weak indeed. No wonder it is such a big issue.
Gilbertoo, I'm not sure that wouldn't happened anyway without the vast numbers of immigrants we are receiving.
Because of the double-negative in your response, I'm unsure what you mean.
To clarify, the original question asked was "Immigration: what's good about it?". My answer is that, for one, immigration allows British people to live and work abroad. Surely that has to be a positive of immigration, right?
My question is wouldn't people be allowed to live and work abroad anyway with or without mass immigration? I don't see what immgration has to do with it.
My question is wouldn't people be allowed to live and work abroad anyway with or without mass immigration? I don't see what immgration has to do with it.
No, because what you describe is a world with open-borders everywhere. If I move to Australia, to an Aussie, I'm an immigrant, right? Y'know, I can't just waltz in to Wagga Wagga and set up a home.
The fact that we allow immigration into this country allows us to migrate to other countries, which is positive for us. Without immigration into the UK, this would not be as easy, as many other countries would close their borders to us.
Personally I struggle to think of positives.
The one thing I think is that knowledge is based on information which is gained from experience; from observing the world. With more immigrants, we as a country gain different perspectives on things, different experiences with sharing a different group of people's knowledge - which would not be possible without immigration. For example, with immigration, we can gain a much more in depth view of China should we have chinese immigrants, which would not be as possible without immigration. I guess this is the all encompassing "multiculturalism".
There are too many immigrants here though; we are losing our identity as a nation, and we are beginning to lose skilled labour as more people look to move overseas as a direct result of the impact immigration has had on them.
Comments
Irishguy, great point, thanks for coming back on it. You have convinced me and I think we can include that.
Cloudymountain, thanks too for your contribution. I'm just going to look as those in isolation.
Is because of reduced Labour costs? I think we may have covered this point.
I'm not convinced. Would not such uniquely talented individuals have immigrated anyway as their qualities would have unravelled at an early age as the very upper echelons of institutions and acedemia quickly would have become accessible to them? (Such talent usually gets headhunted).
Again a unique minority. I would suspect such individuals would gravitate here anyway given our conducive tax laws and exceptionally strong financial industry sector.
This one's DEFINITELY true and I thank you. We have however already listed this one in a previous post.
Gilbertoo, I'm not sure that wouldn't happened anyway without the vast numbers of immigrants we are receiving.
Are:
1. Replacing an aging workforce:
We then had our second plus point a few pages later.
2. Protecting the brain drain:
There were a few idealogical points raised which I considered 'debatable' but were not totally convincing.
Eg. The multiculturalism factor.
The benefit to small UK business of the increased labour pool.
The ability to move freely FROM the UK.
It would seem then from the evidence of the last seven pages that the arguement in favour of mass immigration against the vast array of problems it has forced upon us would appear to be very weak indeed. No wonder it is such a big issue.
Because of the double-negative in your response, I'm unsure what you mean.
To clarify, the original question asked was "Immigration: what's good about it?". My answer is that, for one, immigration allows British people to live and work abroad. Surely that has to be a positive of immigration, right?
No, because what you describe is a world with open-borders everywhere. If I move to Australia, to an Aussie, I'm an immigrant, right? Y'know, I can't just waltz in to Wagga Wagga and set up a home.
WTF your joking right thats a bad thing low wage. I care about workers having good pay more than profits of companyies.
It's good for the employers but of course the working man feels betrayed by Labour and other politicians - most notably the LibDems.
Pork curry anyone?
OTOH the working woman knows she can compete with the best the world has to offer and still succeed.:D
The fact that we allow immigration into this country allows us to migrate to other countries, which is positive for us. Without immigration into the UK, this would not be as easy, as many other countries would close their borders to us.
Personally I struggle to think of positives.
The one thing I think is that knowledge is based on information which is gained from experience; from observing the world. With more immigrants, we as a country gain different perspectives on things, different experiences with sharing a different group of people's knowledge - which would not be possible without immigration. For example, with immigration, we can gain a much more in depth view of China should we have chinese immigrants, which would not be as possible without immigration. I guess this is the all encompassing "multiculturalism".
There are too many immigrants here though; we are losing our identity as a nation, and we are beginning to lose skilled labour as more people look to move overseas as a direct result of the impact immigration has had on them.