British people - Thinking about emigrating...

[Napoléon]

Alright, thanks so much for classifying me as "far more tolerable", that's lovely.

Well you would be. Don't see what the problem is.

[Dystopia]

Alright, thanks so much for classifying me as "far more tolerable", that's lovely.

Well you would be. Don't see what the problem is.

Tolerance is sometimes used indistinguishably from "acceptance" but they are not the same word - "I don't mind the existence of X people but I prefer to not go near them" - This is more accurately described as tolerance, in fact, the law can force you to be tolerant towards others - Tolerance doesn't mean anything - You complained about Muslim immigrants in the past, but you still tolerate them in your society - There's a difference between tolerating, which is associated with negativity distrust when compared to acceptance that means you are ok with X group of people and don't see them as a threat.

[Napoléon]

Derail accepted! There are the obviously bigotted, generalised views of immigrants presented by the likes of UKIP, EDL, Britain First, the Daily Mail and others who are the main users of 'scapegoat' tactics: blaming immigrants for the rise in unemployment ("They took our jobs!"), housing problems ("They took our houses!"), welfare costs ("Immigrants claim loads of benefits!"), educational standards ("Immigrants are taking over our classrooms!") and other wildly inaccurate & overly-simplistic, crackpot claims (who can forget that Daily Mail headline "Flights & Buses Full! Romanians head for the UK!" that landed them in front of a tribunal).

Conflating UKIP with the likes of the EDL and Britain First always struck me as a little disingenuous. I don't think you can dump them in the same category and be taken seriously.

All I hear in response to the points UKIP makes are "hurr racists". Not very convincing. Neither are the supposed cries of "they took our jobs". Very few people actually use these arguments and responding to all criticisms of immigration and more importantly, integration, is nothing better than flagrant straw manning.

Then there are the more subtle misrepresentations offered by main-stream politics & media: that immigration costs the country more than it earns, that there's not enough room in the UK to fit all the immigrants, that large proportions of European populations want to emigrate to the UK, the NHS can't cope with the influx, 'Call me Dave's' Calais comments. These are factually inaccurate but more subtle and difficult to find the data on so a surprising number of people think that 'immigration is a problem' in the UK when quite the opposite is true.

Lol, I just read these 'surprising facts'. Sorry to say, none of them were surprising:

1. British workers are British born. No shit.
2. Foreign workers come from everywhere. No shit.
3. Immigration has risen significantly in the last 20 years. Uh, not sure who has the wrong opinion on that, it's actually why people have an issue in the first place. It's why you've seen such a rise in more far-right groups who blame immigration for their problems.
4. Europe's immigration destination: Germany. Yeah, okay, we're still second in the whole of Europe though. Seems another silly 'surprising fact' to me. And the data only shows up to 2013. I wonder if that's still the case. I wouldn't be surprised if it isn't.
5. Polish plumbers. Again, Poles are still the 3rd largest group of immigrants to the UK. The biggest of any from the EU. The ordinary Brit has seen a visible influx of Polish people, a lot of Indians and Chinese (I suspect) are more inclined to take 'skilled' jobs. A lot of Poles come to take jobs that have fewer skill requirements, and it's easier for them to come in because of the fact that Poland is in the EU.
6. Why immigrants come, according to them. Oh this one is fucking ridiculous. What immigrant is going to admit that they come here for benefit tourism. You're a smart guy Ben, surely even you can see how stupid this 'surprising fact' is.
7. Benefit recipients. They're mostly British, oh shit, what a surprise. Again, don't think anyone with a brain cell would ever dispute this.
8. Foreign recipients of UK social handouts. Don't even need to talk about this one.
9. Romanians and Bulgarians coming to work. The website says it conflicts with public perception because people think of 'crime' when they hear Bulgarians or Romanians, but strangely, no crime statistics or anything to do with the reasons why people might have such perceptions is contended.

All in all, seems like the only people doing the misrepresenting are websites like this that try to pretend like immigration is all rosey and that people should be "surprised by the real facts". I've gotta be honest, I haven't read such a bullshit article doing as much mental gymnastics in the face of subjective questionnaire data in all my life.

None of which in the article you quoted, actually says anything about whether immigrants really are a factor in some of the issues you mention.

Also, I'm dubious of using the term 'facts' in relation to perceptions of populations and answers given to rather subjective questions.

[Napoléon]

Tolerance is sometimes used indistinguishably from "acceptance" but they are not the same word - "I don't mind the existence of X people but I prefer to not go near them" - This is more accurately described as tolerance, in fact, the law can force you to be tolerant towards others - Tolerance doesn't mean anything - You complained about Muslim immigrants in the past, but you still tolerate them in your society - There's a difference between tolerating, which is associated with negativity distrust when compared to acceptance that means you are ok with X group of people and don't see them as a threat.

Bad wording on my part then, I should have used acceptance.

[Dystopia]

9. Romanians and Bulgarians coming to work. The website says it conflicts with public perception because people think of 'crime' when they hear Bulgarians or Romanians, but strangely, no crime statistics or anything to do with the reasons why people might have such perceptions is contended.

Romanians are also hated in Portugal - I don't know if there are any Bulgarians - Mostly because they beg a lot and are annoying to the everyday pedestrian - Curiously Portuguese equate Romanian with Gypsy because the majority of Romanian immigrants are Romanian Gypsies - If only they knew how much we hate Gypsies I think they'd think twice before coming here. I've said before that I have biases against Gypsies and I won't deny it, even though my girlfriend is part Gypsy - It's hard not to when you don't have a single positive experience with said group.

[Napoléon]

Romanians are also hated in Portugal - I don't know if there are any Bulgarians - Mostly because they beg a lot and are annoying to the everyday pedestrian - Curiously Portuguese equate Romanian with Gypsy because the majority of Romanian immigrants are Romanian Gypsies - If only they knew how much we hate Gypsies I think they'd think twice before coming here. I've said before that I have biases against Gypsies and I won't deny it, even though my girlfriend is part Gypsy - It's hard not to when you don't have a single positive experience with said group.

Right, but in the article like Ben quoted, we should be surprised that most Romanians come to work?

Well, sure, maybe. But I don't think anyone seriously ever says "all Romanians are thieves and scumbags who don't come to work". It isn't the respectable ones that form the stereotypes.

[Little lunch]

Jump on a boat and come to Australia.
We love immigrants.

[Ben Davis]

*slaps self

I've shot my credibility with a bad link (I remembered the Huff article as more sound...). Apologies Napo, I'm at work and didn't have the time to do the job properly. I'll respond later.

[Ashground]

I'm not in London but if you speak English most people in the UK won't care where you come from. (Although as with every country we have a few bastards too).

I don't think they're bastards for it.

We got 'nuff immigrants over here. But one that comes from Portugal is far more tolerable than any of the current brand of shitstains we have rolling in from the Middle East.

By 'bastards' I wasn't referring to people who simply say 'immigration is too high', I was referring to the BNP/National Front mentality. Frankly, I'd be half-tempted to deport those groups and replace them with an equal number of genuinely desperate Syrian refugees. Export our 'shitstains'. Also, the idea of an English parliament is very tempting for me so the EDL are just plain embarrassing!

So to clarify; I was saying all countries have groups of racist, xenophobic morons and although I don't support them I wouldn't put groups like UKIP in that category.

P.S Dystopia, I didn't realise I'd be derailing your thread just by typing the word 'bastards', sorry!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If you're going to live in London, you better prepare yourself if you don't think you'll be earning too much money in the short term. The cost of living in London is ridiculous, and as a someone who was born there and visits family frequent, I'd never want to live there. If you're going to rent (inevitable), living in even the shittest part of London is likely to set you back around £1000 a month as a minimum.

There are plenty of other cities in the UK where you could move and live more cheaply albeit with perhaps fewer opportunities, but it depends entirely on what you want to do.

I'll say now that for the 'haves', the UK is a great place to live with very high standards of living and a vast array of services to spend your money on or invest it. For the havenots, it can be difficult. Like Portugal, youth unemployment is a problem here, and there is a growing sector of employment that offers relatively low wages with very little security (zero hour contracts as an example). Welfare services are also under strain in many areas, especially London boroughs, where cuts to the public sector have reduced staffing levels and growing populations have added burden, so increasingly the have nots are seeing it become more difficult to live.

Would you be looking to study here? Or get a job in law? If so its rewarding if you can get on the employment ladder, but again, competition is high.