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Using Poland as an example, they say:
Immigration to Britain benefits Poland because the Poles send money back to the Polish economy.
However, Poland suffers from the drain of its young people and its skilled people. There is no net plus for Poland! So why do those who claim to be against capitalism support a system which damages the economies of other countries?
A similar argument can be applied to Africa.
Africans here send money back to their families and this is a better form of aid than government aid, because it goes directly to the people who need it, instead of getting lost in a maze of government corruption.
To the extent this may be accurate, it is not, from the general perspective of wanting to see African countries prosper, a long-term sustainable solution. The long-term solution is for African countries to develop themselves to such an extent that people don't want to leave.
Also, there is an issue here about how much, if any, money earned in the UK economy should be allowed to leave here.
Nurses are leaving the UK to find a better wage in the USA and Australia and so you can't blame nurses from Africa coming here to seek a better wage several times greater than what they get in Africa.
We have not, and we are not, "blaming" anybody. The desire for a better economic life is perfectly natural. We understand that. What we are saying is that importing cheaper foreign labour keeps wages low throughout society.
We are aiming for an economy where people are not forced to migrate for economic purposes. This means policies for national self-determination on the part of both Britain and African countries, and international co-operation for self-determination worldwide. The bottom line is that mass migration is not a sustainable economic solution for either the developed or developing world.
The free flow of labour is as essential as the free flow of goods
This argument is often heard from the free-marketeers but was addressed well in a letter from Randhir Singh Bains in The Daily Telegraph of 1 May 2006:
Charles Moore rightly states (Comment, 29 April): "There is a strong economic argument for the free flow of labour, just as there is for the free flow of goods."
However, the former has deep social consequences that cannot be ignored. The free flow of labour exerts intense pressure on the health service, housing and race relations; the free flow of goods does not. The "laws" that govern the market dynamics of the two phenomena are also somewhat different.
The flow of labour is driven not simply by supply and demand, but also by immigrants, who enable their friends and relatives back home to migrate by providing them with information about how to migrate, resources to facilitate movement and assisting in finding jobs and housing. Thus, the free flow of labour, once begun, induces its own flow, and eventually becomes a self-reinforcing process. One can hardly say the same about the free flow of goods.
The Scottish population is falling. We need immigrants to boost our population
Scotland's alleged declining population speaks to us about the poverty of the economy and the poverty of job opportunities in Scotland. It speaks to us about the failure of successive governments to invest in long-term jobs and training.
We can reverse this very slow decline, if indeed it is a problem -- which is highly debatable anyway -- by long-term investment in jobs and training, and by family-friendly tax policies which encourage more Scottish people to have children!
The large numbers are nothing to worry about because they go back after they've made their money
That's like saying "tourists go back"…some of them may, but new ones come every day, and so their presence is constant. Therefore they represent a permanent increase to the population. Just as every day brings a group of people here saying, "I think I'll go back to Eastern Europe", so every day brings a new group of people in Eastern Europe saying, "I think I'll go to the UK for a few years." It's a constant stream of people coming, and perhaps going, but creating a constant presence, which numbers hundreds of thousands permanently.
The Poles fought bravely for us in WW2, so we should welcome their grandchildren
Indians fought bravely for us in WW2. Does this mean we have to welcome the entire Indian subcontinent to show our gratitude? Ghurkhas fight bravely for us today. Does this mean we should welcome the entire population of Nepal?
Anyway, as far as the Poles go, many of them fought as much for themselves as for Britain, and there is no proper comparison between a time of European war and the time of peace today.
Furthermore, the numbers do not compare. According to Colin Holmes, in the 1931 census there were 44,462 people claiming Poland as their birthplace. In 1951 there were 162,339 Polish-born people in Britain. By 1971 the figure had dropped to 110,925. (Colin Holmes, John Bull's Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871-1971, [London: MacMillan, 1994], p. 212)
Robert Winder claims that 160,000 Poles -- "soldiers, civilians, government officials, men, women, children, orphans and exotic wives" -- came to Britain during the war years and by March 1946, 120,000 had "resolved to stay". (Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain, [London: Abacus, 2005] pp.322-323) For more on Britain's immigration history, see the comprehensive article by Alistair McConnachie here.
According to the Accession Monitoring Report, May 2004-March 2006 published on the 23 May 2006, there had been 392,295 applicants for Worker Registration certificates to work in the UK, from the 8 Accession countries -- excluding Malta and Cyprus -- from their date of accession on 1 May 2004 to 31 March 2006. Of this number, 374,555 were approved -- the rest being refused, exempt, withdrawn or outstanding -- and issued with Worker Registration certificates and cards (Table 1, p.6). In this latter number, the top three applicant countries are Poland 228,235 (81%), Lithuania 46,255 (12%) and Slovakia 39,010 (10%) (Table 2, p.9).
Thus, as that Accession Report demonstrated, almost twice as many Poles came to Britain -- that we know about -- in the 23 months between 1st May 2004 and 31 March 2006 than all the Poles present in Britain after the end of WW2!
We say, "that we know about" because it must be remembered that "Worker Registeration Scheme" figures do not count children or partners of those who have registered, and also do not include self-employed workers -- such as plumbers. The actual total could be 30-50% higher!
A downloadable pdf of the Accession Monitoring Report, May 2004-March 2006: A joint online report by the Home Office, Department for Work and Pensions, HM Revenue & Customs and Department for Communities and Local Government, 23 May 2006, and more recent reports, can be found at: www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/aboutus/reports/accession_monitoring_report
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