ImmigrationAs U.K. elections approach, immigration debate simmers
As the 2015 British Parliamentary elections approach, increasing attention is focused on current immigration issues and attitudes in the kingdom, especially by right-leaning politicians.Prime Minister David Cameron vowed to reduce overall migration to the country to less than 100,000 people a year by 2015, including migrants from within the European Union, but critics, including business and academic leaders, say such a goal is unrealistic and undesirable.
Immigration shaping up as the major electoral issue // Source: alankabout.com
As the 2015 British Parliamentary elections approach, increasing attention is focused on current immigration issues and attitudes in the kingdom, especially by right-leaning politicians.
As theNew York Times reports, the economy and immigration are seen as the top issues, and the country’s efforts to restrict immigration in the past are now presenting a new set of issues that Conservative Party candidates must face as they consider appealing to a mostly anti-immigration electorate.
“[Restricting immigration has become] a very, very large obstacle to hiring the best scientists. We should be thinking hard about making Britain a more welcoming place,” said John O’Keefe, a neuroscientist at the University College in London, and the winner of the Nobel Prize last week for a neurological discovery in rats. O’Keefe worries that the stricter immigration practices in the country may cost it a “brain drain” of skilled and qualified workers and scientists in the years to come, and his publicized comments added to the growing dialogue.
O’Keefe’s criticism is leveled at Prime Minister David Cameron’s vow to reduce overall migration to the country to less than 100,000 people a year by 2015, including migrants from within the European Union, which is set up to encourage cross-travel and migration within its countries.
Despite O’Keefe’s concern, many citizens would like to see that metric met, given the fact that total net migration in 2014 through March was already at 243,000.
“If allowed to continue,” said Andre Green, the chairman of Migration Watch UK, “the population will increase by twelve million — two more Scotland – in twenty years. That’s huge.” Green argues that likely three-quarters of British voters would like to see that number of immigrants reduced, and the push and pull between each side of the debate is creating a tricky situation for candidates.
At a recent conference of the Conservative Party, officials weighed the benefits of both approaches.
Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, said that “Britain should be proud of being so attractive. But we are answerable to an electorate which is uncomfortable with destabilizing mass immigration.”
Jonathan Portes, the director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, fears that the previously stated immigration targets of the Conservative Party may not work.
“Setting a target is a bad idea,” he said, “Since no country can control emigration and Britain cannot now control immigration from the European Union. And then British labor market has performed very well to create jobs, unlike in Continental Europe, so the goal turns from almost impossible to impossible.”
Likely, a compromise will have to be reached to appeal to voters, or Conservative members may have to face selling the idea of leaving the European Union all together.
