Friday 26 April 2013

UKIP - Immigration

UKIP ran what I thought was a very professional and effective broadcast for the Local Elections. Except being UKIP it wasn't really about the local elections, it was about immigration.
In one sense I have some sympathy with the UKIP position, in that I think there has been a huge volume of immigration into the UK in recent years and it has put pressure on housing and services.  At the very least, it could have been handled better and local councils could and should have been given more resources to cope with the influx of new people.

But, on another level, I think UKIP have got it all wrong on immigration. They were basically saying, leave the EU, get control of our own borders back, problem solved.
If only things were that simple.  The USA has control of it's own borders. Has it solved the 'problem' of immigration legal or illegal ?  No of course not, there are millions of people in the country illegally.

The fact is the world has changed - the typcical UKIP activist yearns for the past.  Everything was better then. We weren't ruled by Brusells but by British MPs - the finest in the world - umm, yes, I can see the problem with this argument.  Anyway - the world has changed, 32 million of people come to visit the UK every year. Even more trips are made by UK residents going abroad.  Do you think any Government can check or control that volume of people ?
The second problem is that having 'control' of your own borders doesn't give you control of other people's.  If you want to deport people "back to where they came from" you have to have the agreement of the country to which you are deporting someone.  Surpring to some, but often they are not very keen on ahving people back, that is of course assuming you can establish where they came form in the first place.   What you need is some sort of international co-operation, a sort of overarching body that can set rules everyone has to follow, something well, like the European Union.

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