UK: I served in the Met. The lack of progress on diversity is disgusting

2019/02/22 Leave a comment


Canadian police forces also struggle with recruitment of visible minorities:

The question that needs to be asked is not “are the Metropolitan police institutionally racist?”, or “why does black and minority ethnic recruitment for the police still lag so far behind the diversity of London as a whole?” It should simply be: “Why do young black and minority ethnic people reject the Metropolitan police as a career choice?”

This week, marking 20 years since the landmark Macpherson report on institutional racism in the police, the Met said it would take 100 years for the force to mirror the wider diversity of London and will remain disproportionately white. Why?

The answer can be found in the experiences of black and minority ethnic communities of the police, which continues far too often to be marked by incivility, suspicion and distrust. The continued disproportionate use of stop and search and the vanishingly low numbers of stops that result in a substantive charge, never mind conviction, cements in young black consciousness an underlying enmity – a feeling that the police are “other”.

From those new recruits who manage to overcome this feeling of alienation, I’ve heard how the recruitment process can often make BAME individuals feel unwelcome.

Those who make it to become serving officers also experience a continued canteen culture which, while muted in its vocal expressions of racism compared with 35 years ago when I joined, nevertheless still has subtle ways of excluding BAME staff as well as LGBT officers. There has been significant progress both in terms of the initial recruitment and promotion of female officers, but this has not been mirrored for BAME staff. Promotion for black, Asian and minority ethnic officers continues to take longer, and come up against more obstacles than for white colleagues. As recently as 2008, I set up a mentoring and coaching programme to raise promotion rates for BAME officers, which had some early successes. Unfortunately, when I tried to extend the programme, the initiative was rubbished by senior officers.

Access to further and specialist training, and hence jobs with special squads, is holding BAME officers back: selection continues to be based on who you know rather than what you can do. That means the police service is missing out on talented individuals who could contribute to specialist teams, and help reduce the impression, for example, that responders are less careful about the safety of BAME suspects.

This depressing picture reflects a failure to fully engage with the Macpherson message that “processes, attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping disadvantages minority ethnic people”.

This week Cressida Dick, the force’s head, claimed the Met is not institutionally racist: “I don’t feel it is now a useful way to describe the service and I don’t believe we are,” she said. “I simply don’t see it as a helpful or accurate description.”

But in saying this, the commissioner is effectively rejecting the reality of the unconscious bias that certainly exists. She is also fostering the unhelpful idea that naming the problem amounts to a slur on individuals. This failure to recognise discrimination where it exists has stymied the progress that the Met could and should have made, both in its attitude to the general public and to BAME recruits and officers. It has sabotaged attempts to bring the Met into the 21st century, and will continue to do so.

Only when discrimination – whether implicit or explicit, wilful or unwitting – is recognised can it start to be addressed. And only when it is addressed will the daily experience of black and minority ethnic Londoners encourage them to join the police to create a virtuous upward spiral of respect, acceptance and diversity.

Source: I served in the Met. The lack of progress on diversity is disgusting

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7 UK Parliamentarians, In Protest Of Jeremy Corbyn, Leave Labour Party

2019/02/20 Leave a comment

The ongoing saga of Labour not being able to address antisemitism, as the Conservatives flail on Brexit. Sad:

Seven members of Britain’s Parliament quit the main opposition Labour Party on Monday, accusing its leader, Jeremy Corbyn, of letting anti-Semitism flourish and failing to support a plan to hold another referendum on Brexit.

“This has been a very difficult, painful but necessary decision,” Luciana Berger, one of the seven legislators who have resigned, told reporters at a press conference Monday.

“I am sickened that Labour is now perceived by many as a racist, anti-Semitic party,” said parliamentarian Mike Gapes, adding that “prominent anti-Semites” were readmitted to the party.

The party’s leader has long faced accusations of either being an anti-Semite or tolerating anti-Semitism. Berger said the party has failed to address a strain of anti-Semitism within its ranks and has become “institutionally anti-Semitic.”

Gapes also accuses the party’s leadership of being “complicit in facilitating Brexit.” The former Labour members have said the United Kingdom’s imminent withdrawal from the European Union will trigger economic, political and social distress in the country.

“We’ve taken the first step in leaving the old tribal politics behind and we invite others who share our political values to do so too,” said Chuka Umunna, another of the politicians ditching Labour. “We invite you to leave your parties and help us forge a new consensus on a way forward for Britain.”

The seven lawmakers will remain in Parliament as the new, more centrist “Independent Group.” They support a Final Say referendum — a second poll after citizens voted for Brexit in 2016 — which they say should take place days before the withdrawal from the E.U.

In a statement, the group said the Labour Party has abandoned its progressive values and now pursues policies that could weaken national security and destabilize the British economy for ideological objectives.

“For a Party that once committed to pursue a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect, it has changed beyond recognition,” the group said. “Today, visceral hatreds of other people, views and opinions are commonplace in and around the Labour Party.”

In response, Corbyn said he was dismayed the members of Parliament are leaving the party. “I am disappointed that these MPs have felt unable to continue to work together for the Labour policies that inspired millions at the last election and saw us increase our vote by the largest share since 1945.”

He added, “The Tories are bungling Brexit while Labour has set out a unifying and credible alternative plan.”

Other prominent Labour members also expressed their dismay.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan called it a “desperately sad day,” despite agreeing that the public should be allowed to relitigate Brexit and that anti-Semitism needed to be addressed within the party.

Khan and other members of the party worry that the split will lead to a Conservative government.

“We shouldn’t splinter in this way,” Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell told the BBC. “It is better to remain in the party, fight your corner.”

But Conservatives used the announcement as a chance to denounce the Labour Party and Corbyn himself.

Conservative Party Chairman Brandon Lewis accused Labour of becoming “the Jeremy Corbyn party.” He said, “We must never let him do to our country what he is doing to the Labour Party today.”

Nigel Farage, who helped lead the country’s Brexit campaign, also weighed in on Twitter, saying, “This moment may not look very exciting but it is the beginning of something bigger in British politics #realignment.”

Source: 7 UK Parliamentarians, In Protest Of Jeremy Corbyn, Leave Labour Party

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with ,

Third of Britons believe Islam threatens British way of life, says report

2019/02/19 Leave a comment

Not surprising:

More than a third of people in the UK believe that Islam is a threat to the British way of life, according to a report by the anti-fascist group Hope not Hate.

The organisation’s annual “State of Hate” report, which will be launched on Monday, argues that anti-Muslim prejudice has replaced immigration as the key driver of the growth of the far right.

In polling conducted by the group in July last year, 35% of people thought Islam was generally a threat to the British way of life, compared with 30% who thought it was compatible. Forty-nine per cent of those who voted Conservative in the 2017 general election thought it was generally incompatible, and 22% of Labour voters agreed.

Nearly a third (32%) said they thought there were “no-go areas” in Britain where sharia law dominated and non-Muslims could not enter. Almost half of Conservative voters (47%) and those who voted to leave the EU (49%) believed this was true.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/feb/2019-02-17T14:35:21/embed.html

The report said that while polling showed that attitudes towards Muslims in Britain had improved between 2011 and 2016, the terror attacks in the UK in 2017 had had a negative impact on perceptions.

In a separate poll of more than 5,000 people in August 2018, 30% said they would support a campaign set up by local residents to stop proposals to build a mosque near where they live. Twenty-one per cent say they would still support the campaign if either side became violent, because the matter was so serious.

Among the issues in the report is that of leftwing antisemitism. Hope not Hate said that while extreme antisemitism and Holocaust denial were less common, there were many examples of “conspiratorial” antisemitism and the use of antisemitic tropes, “especially in relation to supposed Jewish power”.

The report points to research that found an increase in antisemitic Google searches in the UK. It found that 5% of UK adults did not believe the Holocaust happened and 8% said the scale of the Holocaust had been exaggerated.

https://interactive.guim.co.uk/charts/embed/feb/2019-02-17T14:36:44/embed.html

The report’s authors said a large group was involved in “denying a problem exists and dismissing the issue as a rightwing and Zionist smear”. It concluded that the Labour party was still not doing enough to tackle antisemitism.

“The family history of so many members of the British Jewish community includes first-hand experience of persecution. Many people in the Jewish community therefore identify with a sense of the precariousness of their safety, where material security and educational attainment are not seen as guarantors of security and safety,” it said.

“The inability of the Labour party leadership to understand and acknowledge this experience is particularly chilling when the Labour party and the left in general hold values of equality and antiracism as core to their identity.”

The report also found that while the numbers arrested for terror-related offences in 2018 was down on the previous year, there was a growing threat of far-right terrorism, which came both from organised groups such as National Action and from lone actors who are radicalised over the internet.

The group warned that there could also be a rise in support for Islamist extremist group Al-Muhajiroun following the release of one of its founders, Anjem Choudary, from prison.

“Our latest polling also reveals a disturbing level of anti-Muslim prejudice and discourse running through society, with a third of people saying they believe there are Muslim-run no-go zones, and rising antisemitism on the left, which we have exposed in a new investigation,” said Nick Lowles, the chief executive of Hope not Hate.

“Meanwhile, while the banned terror group National Action has finally been destroyed by the authorities, there is a growing threat of violence from the younger neo-Nazis emerging in their wake. There are justified concerns that the police response to these rising threats, especially against MPs, has fallen short. We believe a very real threat remains from terrorism carried out by lone actors, too, radicalised over the internet.

“Added to this febrile mix is the release of Anjem Choudary and many of his network’s leading figures, likely to regalvanise their supporters and provide yet another seedbed for the far right to grow their support, too. We cannot wait for a traditional, united, far-right umbrella organisation to emerge before we act. We need to start connecting the dots now.”

Source: Third of Britons believe Islam threatens British way of life, says report

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UK citizenship tests: Gangs help cheating candidates pass

2019/02/05 Leave a comment

When then CIC revised the citizenship test in 2009, one of the issues identified was that there was only one test in circulation, which resulted in the answers being memorized in a “song” with the a, b, c or d in correct order. CIC then switched to having different versions of the test to reduce this cheating.

The “cheating fee” appears to be more than the £1,206 citizenship fee:

Gangs are helping foreign nationals cheat their UK citizenship application test with the use of earpieces, a BBC investigation has revealed.

For a fee of up to £2,000, criminals secretly listen in and, via a hidden earpiece, give the answers to those taking the Life in the UK test.

Such an operation was secretly filmed by a BBC journalist, who was given help to pass.

The test is failed by about one in five would-be British citizens.

The Home Office said it took any cheating “extremely seriously”.

A pass in the test, which assesses candidates’ knowledge of UK laws, history and society, is usually required as part of the process to secure UK citizenship or indefinite leave to remain.

The number of applications for citizenship made by EU nationals rose by 32% last year and the BBC heard some were paying criminals to cheat the Life in the UK test, as anxiety grows over citizenship rights post-Brexit.

One woman told the BBC she decided to cheat after failing first time around, saying she “felt so much panic” about her situation.

Over the past year, nearly 150,000 people have sat the test, which consists of 24 multiple-choice questions.

The test, which is taken on a computer and has a pass mark of at least 18 correct answers, is supposed to be held under strict exam conditions.

Administration of the tests is outsourced by the government. There are 36 testing centres in the UK.

BBC researchers were able to access organised cheating when they went undercover at training academies in and around London, where candidates take classes to prepare for the test.

Masoud Abul Raza runs the Ideal Learning Academy in east London.

He was filmed telling an undercover researcher that he could guarantee a pass.

“You have to spend nearly £2,000. This is the business, it’s completely hidden. But you are getting a result,” he said.

Mr Abul Raza and his gang later provided the undercover researcher with a hidden two-way earpiece, linked wirelessly through a Bluetooth connection to a concealed mobile phone with an open line. This meant the gang outside could hear the audio feed of the test questions and provide the answers.

“Everything will be arranged. He will give you the answer,” Mr Abul Raza told the undercover journalist.

Tony Smith, the former director general of the UK Border Force, was shown the secretly recorded footage and described it as “clear and blatant cheating by an organised crime gang”.

“One would hope that the standards will change significantly so that the public can be assured that people going through this process are genuinely entitled to stay in this country,” he said.

The Home Office said test centres were required to put in place stringent measures to prevent cheating, including searches of candidates to ensure no electronic devices enter the test room.

“Unannounced visits” are also carried out to audit these processes.

But the BBC’s undercover researcher was not searched or told to hand over all electronic devices.

He sat the test, giving the answers provided to him, and within minutes of it ending he had received the pass certificate required to apply for citizenship and a UK passport.

Despite being caught on camera, Mr Abul Raza denied cheating, maintaining he only organises legitimate training.

However, he is not the only one profiting from cheating the system.

The BBC heard reports of other training academies doing the same thing, with the same method of cheating having been used at testing centres around the UK.

At the English Language Training Academy (ELTA) in east London, Ashraf Rahman told the BBC’s undercover researcher that he had arranged cheating in Birmingham and Manchester, as well as London.

“I’ve been here for five years and no-one gets caught,” he said.

Mr Rahman later denied he arranged cheating, claiming he was just discussing what others did.

ELTA denied cheating took place on its premises and said Mr Rahman was not an employee.

Source: UK citizenship tests: Gangs help cheating candidates pass

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The Great British Race to Get a Second Passport

2019/02/04 Leave a comment

Good overview:

For the vast majority of British citizens who oppose a no-deal Brexit, the state of play in Parliament is dismaying. Although many members of Parliament are resolutely opposed to the United Kingdom crashing out of the European Union come March 29, the reality remains that no deal is their default option: Should Prime Minister Theresa May be unable to find support for her withdrawal agreement—which, by every indication, will be the case—Britain will have no choice but to leave the EU on the severest of terms.

Among the most vulnerable in this scenario are the 1.3 million British citizens currently living in Europe. They would have only a year and change to reorganize their lives, until December 2020, when the Brexit transition period ends and their rights to remain expire. A number of advocacy groups have joined together in a coalition called British in Europe in order to raise awareness and lobby lawmakers. But so far these groups—including the Brexpats, Bremain in Spain, RIFT(Remain in France Together), BRILL (British Immigrants Living in Luxembourg), and others—have struggled like everyone else to move the needle. For its part, the EU has encouragedmember states to “take a generous approach to the rights of UK citizens in the EU, provided that this approach is reciprocated by the UK.” Whether the U.K. will ultimately reciprocate, seeing as the free movement of people was a lightning rod of the Brexit referendum, is far from guaranteed.

Even if the British government fails to retain access to Europe, however, British citizens living at home and abroad may be able to find a way on their own. The solution: a second passport. Across the English Channel lies an obscure but inviting matrix of citizenship and residency laws that, for some, promises to keep alive the freedom to live and work throughout the continent. And in a nation where 48 percent of voters, or 16 million individuals, voted to stay in the EU, the opportunity to do so—albeit in a different form—is sure to be appealing.

Of the British citizens living in Europe, 310,000 are in Spain, 280,000 are in Ireland, 190,000 are in France, 107,000 are in Germany, and 64,000 are in Italy—followed by a significant drop-off to a smattering in other countries around the continent. Fortunately for these British citizens, and for the handful living elsewhere, passports are not particularly difficult to come by (at least compared with other parts of the world). And seeing as the number of British citizens with dual EU nationality increased by 159 percent in the year after the referendum, many have already realized how to escape a fate they did not choose.

Roughly speaking, second passports can be obtained in three ways: organically, financially, or ancestrally. The organic route to the passport is perhaps the most difficult as it requires lengthy naturalization processes. Ireland, for example, which saw a staggering 497 percent increase in new citizenship for British people in the pre- and post-Brexit years of 2014 to 2015 and 2016 to 2017, requires applicants to prove residency for five of the past nine years. France, which has seen a 226 percentincrease, is even stricter, with the same five-year residency requirement plus proficiency in French, proof of integration, and a citizenship test. Germany, which has seen a remarkable 835 percent increase in citizenship for Brits, is stricter still, with requirements of six years of residency, language proficiency, a citizenship test, and an integration course. Although the British government estimates that 900,000citizens are “long-term residents” of another EU country, it is by no means a given that all or most of them will meet their host country’s naturalization criteria. And while marriage can offer a bit of a shortcut, restrictions still apply—Ireland requires three years of marriage, France requires four with three spent in the country, and Germany requires two years of marriage along with three years of residency. For the British citizens who have suddenly been struck by the possibility of no deal, meeting requirements and spouses will be a tall task.

For a murky few, however, a much easier path is available in the form of “golden passports.” This is the financial route to citizenship, a backdoor into the EU that can be accessed through foreign direct investment for five-, six-, or seven-digit sums, often coming in the form of real estate purchases. The BBC has the figures: On the lower end, Croatian passports will cost 13,500 euros. On the higher end, a Luxembourg or Slovenian passport can cost upwards of 5 million euros. For price tags in the middle, wealthy people can get away to Greecefor a quarter of a million euros, Spain for a half a million euros, Malta for a million euros, Cyprus for 2 million euros, and more. However, the elitism and corruptibility of the golden passport scheme hasn’t gone unnoticed, and only a few months after a report from Global Witness and Transparency International detailed the more than 6,000 unaccounted new citizens, 100,000 new residents, and 25 billion euros gained through golden passport programs, the European Commission launched its own inquiry into the peculiar “investor citizenship” arrangements. The results of that inquiry were released last week and made the case for tougher security checks, more rigorous residency requirements, and better transparency. And although they did not go nearly as far as some had hoped, the very fact of the report’s existence suggests that the golden backdoor will eventually be closed.

The final path to a second passport, the ancestral option, emerges as both the least demanding and the least expensive. For some countries, such as Italy and Ireland, the generous principle of jus sanguinis invites anyone who can prove their ancestral ties to the country (with birth or citizenship records in a direct line of parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or great-great-grandparents) to claim a passport of their own. It is difficult to determine just how many people actually qualify, and in some cases those eligible may not even know. But the eagerness among many to find out is eminently clear: Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs reported a twofold increase at the same time that one Italian law firm reported a tenfold increase in pre- and post-Brexit passport applications.

The ancestral option offered by other countries, however, has the much darker dimension of reparations and restorations for some of the most heinous offenses in the history of Europe. This variety of ancestral passports begins with allocations for Soviet exiles and their descendants, offered by Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. So far, these states have not reported much traffic, but this is quite likely to change given the 25,000Baltic men and women who came to Britain in the 1940s and the thousands more who came in the decades after.

For Germany and Austria, where descendants of the victims of the Third Reich are also offered citizenship, applications have surged. In pre- and post-Brexit years, new Austrian citizenship among Brits has risen 112 percent. The number of applicants to Germany’s specific reparations program has swelled even more, by an astounding 1,500 percent. While Poland offers the same program to Soviet and Nazi victims, exiles, and their descendants, it has been somewhat less popular, seeing only a 100 percent increase in citizenship.

Going back even further in the timeline of Europe’s atrocities, Spain and Portugal offer citizenship to Sephardic Jews who are descendants of victims of the 15th-century Inquisition, the mass exile of Jews and Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula that began in 1492. (Somewhat controversially, however, passports are not granted to Muslims whose Moorish ancestors suffered the same fates.) Since Spain and Portugal extended this offer, some 10,000 special passports have been granted—with an eightyfold increase in British-based applications in the months following the referendum.

Proactive though some European states are, one glaring absence in the list of victim and ancestral passports cannot be overlooked: colonies. It remains the case across Europe that the victims of colonization and their descendants are marginalized in the accounting of Europe’s faults as no major reparations program, citizenship-based or otherwise, is offered. And even though reparations for some do exist, many victims and their family members have been rightfully reluctant to seize the opportunity. Shortly after the referendum, Harry Heber, an 85-year-old Austrian-Jewish refugee, told the Guardian, “The proposition of seeking sanctuary in the very place that murdered my relatives absolutely appalls me.”

Source: The Great British Race to Get a Second Passport

Filed under Citizenship, Dual Citizenship Tagged with ,

UK: Sadiq Khan demands plan to charge EU nationals to stay in UK changed

2019/01/15 Leave a comment

Bringing the London perspective to the UK immigration debate:

Sadiq Khan has written to the government to demand changes to its planned post-Brexit immigration policy, saying that forcing long-established EU nationals to pay fees to stay showed ministers had not learned the lessons of Windrush.

In a letter to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, the Labour mayor said the wider immigration policy, including plans to restrict immigration to people earning above £30,000 a year, would badly damage London’s economy.

Khan has been a critic of Theresa May’s Brexit plans. He also differs from official Labour policy on the subject, supporting a second referendum.

In the letter, Khan said the immigration white paper, published just before Christmas, was disappointing in content and tone. “The promised ‘new conversation on immigration’ is off to a poor start,” he wrote.

The mayor criticised the £65 fee millions of EU nationals will need to pay to apply for so-called settled status, likening it to errors that saw some members of the Windrush generation targeted for immigration enforcement when they could not prove their status.

“There are hundreds of thousands of young people who were born in the UK or, like the Windrush generation, brought here as young children, who are prevented from participating in the economic, social and political life of the UK by the prohibitive cost of applying for leave to remain or citizenship,” Khan wrote.

“While the previous home secretary rightly waived fees for the Windrush generation, the government clearly has not learnt the wider lessons. There are many others still at risk from the same policies that led to the Windrush generation experiencing discrimination, destitution, and deportation.

“The Home Office now faces the unprecedented task of registering 3.4 million EU citizens resident in the UK. Many people will find this process inaccessible and unaffordable. As a matter of fairness, the government should waive the settled status fee for EU nationals and their families who were resident in the UK before the referendum took place.”

Khan also argued that the plan to restrict immigration to skilled people with salaries of £30,000 or more “simply won’t allow London to continue to grow its economy and provide crucial public services”.

The mayor added that the official “shortage occupation list”, which would help people move to the UK to take roles that need to be filled, should be expanded to assist the needs of London, and possibly devolved to the city.

Jasmine Whitbread, the head of London First, a grouping of leading employers in the capital, said a decision to reduce the minimum salary to the London living wage, currently £20,155, would “avoid a recruitment cliff-edge, keep the UK open to a range of skills, and ensure workers are decently paid”.

Source: Sadiq Khan demands plan to charge EU nationals to stay in UK changed

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UK and German immigration: a tale of two very different laws

2018/12/21 Leave a comment

One of the better articles on planned changes to immigration policy in both countries:

Two European countries announced radical overhauls of their immigration rules on Wednesday, but there the similarity ended.

Britain, where concerns about long-term impacts of immigration helped drive the 2016 vote to leave the European Union, billed its stricter regime as “a route to strengthened border security and an end to free movement”.

Germany, however, facing such a shortage of workers that is threatening economic growth, said it was easing immigration rules to attract more foreign job-seekers.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the British home secretary, Sajid Javid, stressed that the Conservatives’ 2017 election manifesto had made clear the party’s “commitment to bring net migration down”.

His counterpart in Germany, Horst Seehofer, said: “We need manpower from third countries to safeguard our prosperity and fill our job vacancies.” The economy minister, Peter Altmaier, hailed the new law – keenly awaited by business – as historic.

Britain’s priority appears primarily to be establishing a system of tough controls capable of keeping certain people out. Business has accused the government of putting a political imperative for restriction before the needs of the economy.

In contrast, by introducing looser visa procedures and reducing red tape Germany’s emphasis appears to be on making it easier for certain people to enter and to stay. Some in Angela Merkel’s conservative alliance and in the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) have said such a move ignores public concerns about immigration.

The UK’s system does not put a cap on numbers but aims to reduce annual net migration to “sustainable levels”. It requires skilled workers to earn a minimum salary, to be decided next year. After Brexit there would be no more special treatment for EU citizens; a transitional temporary worker scheme would allow them, and workers of any skill level from other “low risk” countries, to enter Britain without a job offer for up to 12 months.

Business leaders have warned that the system will leave the UK poorer, depriving industry of a migrant workforce on which it has depended. The proposed £30,000 salary threshold for skilled workers would leave hospitals, the contstruction and hospitality sectors, manufacturing, agriculture and logistics desperately short of labour, they said.

Germany’s Fachkräftezuwanderungsgesetz, or skilled labour immigration law, will allow skilled workers such as cooks, metallurgy workers and IT technicians to enter the country for six months to try to find a job, provided they can support themselves financially.

More controversially, the law will offer the prospect of permanent residency to asylum seekers who have a job and speak good German but currently face deportation if their asylum applications are turned down.

Immigration has been a key political issue in Germany since Europe’s 2015 migration crisis, when the country absorbed more than 1 million mostly Muslim refugees and migrants, sparking a xenophobic backlash and surge of support for the anti-immigration AfD in federal and regional elections.

Ministers stressed the new rules were a “pragmatic solution” to a pressing economic problem. The AfD said they would fuel immigration, providing “a fresh incentive for people from around the world to come”. In Germany, however, those politics have not, so far, prevailed.

Source: UK and German immigration: a tale of two very different laws

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Brexit: EU immigration to UK ‘to be slashed by 80%’ after we leave bloc

2018/12/18 Leave a comment

A taste of what is coming under Brexit. Noteworthy that EU migrants pay more into the public purse than British born residents:

The home secretary is said to have plans to cut European immigration by 80 per cent under stricter entry conditions after Brexit.

Sajid Javid is expected to publish plans to end free movement and preferential access for EU migrants after December 2020 – which will see net immigration from Europe reduced to as little as 10,000 a year, according to the The Sunday Times.

Official figures published last month revealed EU net migration has hit a six-year low at 74,000 in the year to June 2018 – 60 per cent lower than in June 2016 and the lowest level since 2012.

The government’s immigration white paper, expected to be published next week, will reportedly state this figure will be slashed further, to between 10,000 and 25,000 long-term migrants each year by 2025.

A source told the newspaper: “We are going to take full control over who can come to the UK, prioritising those with the skills the UK needs rather than on the basis of which country they come from.”

It is expected to lead to a cut in the number of highly skilled EU migrants from 15,000 last year to about 11,000, while those who are “medium skilled” will be slashed from 18,500 to around 4,500. Most of the 40,000 EU citizens with low skills are expected not to come at all.

Medium-skilled migrants will only be allowed in if they have a job paying at least £30,000 a year, while low-skilled workers will get short-term visas of up to a year if they are from a country that is a “low risk of immigration abuse”, according to the newspaper.

The reports will fuel concerns about the impact of Brexit on the economy after a study commissioned by the government found EU workers pay far more to the public purse than British-born residents – at £2,300 more in net terms than the average adult.

It found that over their lifetimes, migrants from the EU pay in £78,000 more than they take out in public services and benefits – while the average UK citizen’s net lifetime contribution is zero.

The reports will also stoke fears about gaps in the workforce in sectors that rely largely on EU workers, such as social care nursing and the hospitality industry.

Mr Javid is also set to distance himself from Theresa May’s “hostile environment” towards migrants and pledge to launch a “new conversation” on immigration with a “fair and transparent compliant environment” that helps protect legitimate migrants while cracking down on illegals.

The white paper is also expected to outline that EU nationals will no longer be able to travel to the UK using a national identity card but will have to use a passport.

Rather than a visa, they will be allowed to obtain an online Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA), while Britons travelling to the EU will have to pay for an ETA costing £6.

The report comes after MPs expressed outrage that they would not view the government’s immigration plans before the meaningful vote on 11 December, which was subsequently postponed.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not comment on leaked documents. We plan to publish a white paper on the future borders and immigration system soon.”

Source: Brexit: EU immigration to UK ‘to be slashed by 80%’ after we leave bloc

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Bar on low-skilled immigrants will hurt UK, say bosses

2018/12/04 Leave a comment

Of note. Canada also gives priority to higher skilled immigrants (save with respect to family and refugee classes), with lower skilled workers generally being Temporary Foreign Workers:

A new immigration system that places severe limits on low-skilled immigration risks inflicting “massive damage” to livelihoods and communities, one of Britain’s most senior business figures has warned.

Carolyn Fairbairn, head of the Confederation of British Industry, issued her sternest warning to date about the new “global system” being drawn up by the government, which is expected to place major restrictions on visas for low-skilled workers. The business community, she said, was very concerned about suggestions that migrants earning under £30,000 a year might struggle to win the right to work in the UK.

“This idea that there’s a £30,000 cap below which is described as low-skilled and not welcome in the UK is a damaging perspective for government to have for our economy,” she said. “People earning less than £30,000 make a hugely valuable contribution to our economy and society, from lab technicians to people in the food industry.

“Many of our universities have staff on less than £30,000. So our offer to government is to work with us. We understand the challenge of building public trust, but we think there are much better answers.”

Her comments came in the week that Theresa May claimed that British firms struggling to fill low-skilled jobs should train British workers to fill any gaps. While the cabinet has agreed on the principle that all migrants should be treated the same after Brexit, with EU citizens no longer given preferential treatment, the government’s white paper on the new system has still not been published.

Pro-business ministers such as the chancellor, Philip Hammond, and the business secretary, Greg Clark, have been keen to heed the warnings of industry about introducing strict rules too quickly. However, May won support for a tougher system after the independent migration advisory committee (MAC) backed a clampdown on low-skilled workers.

Fairbairn said: “Our economy is hugely reliant in absolutely critical sectors on people who are so-called low-skilled, such as our care sector, caring for the older generation. We have a nursing shortage. This is a massively important sector.

“It is reasonable to want to bring the level of immigration down. But we must not underestimate the scale of the change that this would mean to our economy and the massive damage it would do to livelihoods and communities if we move too quickly.

“At the very least, we need to recognise there needs to be a transition period that needs to be reasonably long. Businesses can adapt, but they can’t do that overnight. If we do procure a system like this quickly, and some of the talk is that we would bring it in very quickly after the end of the Brexittransition period, we would hugely damage our economy. Jobs will be lost, communities will be damaged. There is a strong alarm bell from business on this.”

MPs have been angered by the suggestion that they may not be able to see details of the white paper before they vote on May’s Brexit deal next week. Sajid Javid, the home secretary, said last week that the plan should be published before the end of the year.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “When we leave the EU, free movement under EU law will end and we will bring forward a new border and immigration system that focuses on the skills and talents people have to offer, not where they come from.

“It will ensure the UK continues to attract the people the nation needs to compete on the global stage, while ensuring that we take control of immigration, continue to secure our border, and reduce net migration to sustainable levels.”.

Source: Bar on low-skilled immigrants will hurt UK, say bosses

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

Islamophobia is a form of racism – like antisemitism it’s time it got its own definition

2018/11/28 Leave a comment

From the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims. The definition:“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” :

In recent years, British Muslim communities across the UK have experienced an increase in Islamophobia. To eradicate the deep-rooted nature of Islamophobia from our society, each of us has a responsibility to tackle prejudice wherever it occurs.

But the absence of a clear understanding of Islamophobia has allowed it to become normalised within our society and even socially acceptable, able to pass what Baroness Warsi described as the “dinner table test”. The consequences have been horrific.

The killing of grandfather Makram Ali outside Finsbury Park mosque in 2017, the murder of another elderly Muslim male, Muhsin Ahmed in Rotherham in 2015 and the brutal stabbing of Mohammed Saleem in Birmingham in 2013, serve as grave reminders of the perils of what can happen when Islamophobia goes unchecked.

The attacks on hijab wearing women in the street, the bombs threats made to places of worship, through to the coining of “Punish a Muslim Day”, has left vulnerable Britons feeling unsafe to go about their daily lives.

Islamophobic hate crime is a growing problem. Recent statistics highlight how attacks on Muslims have seen the highest increase. Nevertheless hate crime is the just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the underlying causes which remain hidden from sight. While we can tackle the overt manifestations of Islamophobia in the form of hate crimes, we are less conscious and less clued up about tackling that which lies beneath the waterline.

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the Runnymede Commission’s first report, which brought Islamophobia into the English lexicon. And 2019 will mark the 20th anniversary of the MacPherson Report. Between these two landmark events and in the backdrop to the growing phenomenon of Islamophobia, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims, which we chair, initiated the inquiry into a working definition on Islamophobia as a catalyst for building a common understanding of the causes and consequences of Islamophobia. If we can define the problem, we stand a better chance of properly addressing it.

Our six month long inquiry heard from academics, lawyers, activists, victim groups and British Muslim organisations, as well as first-hand accounts from communities in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and London. Today we publish our report, Islamophobia Defined, which provides a working definition of Islamophobia:

“Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness.” 

The definition is further exemplified by case study examples and real life incidents, presented within a framework resembling the IHRA definition of antisemitism, providing guidelines on how the definition can be applied.

This isn’t about protecting a religion from criticism, but about protecting people from discrimination. The APPG on British Muslims received countless submissions detailing the racialised manner in which the Muslimness of an individual was used to attack Muslims or those perceived to be Muslims. The racialisation of Muslims proceeds on the basis of their racial and religious identity, or perceived identity, from white converts receiving racialised sobriquets such as “p*ki”, Muslim women attacked due to their perceived dress, bearded men attacked for the personification of a Muslim identity or even turban wearing Sikhs attacked due to the perception of Muslimness.

The adoption of this definition provides an opportunity to help the nation turn the tide against this pernicious form of racism, enabling a better understanding to tackle both hate crimes and the underlying institutional prejudices preventing ordinary British Muslims from achieving their level best across different aspects of our society.

By and large British Muslims feel able to practice their religion freely in Britain, and most believe that Islam is compatible with the British way of life. In recent years, we have seen British Muslims make huge strides from the first Muslim home secretary and Mayor of London, to the first female Muslim British Bake Off champion, through to the ordinary doctors, teachers, business leaders, police officers and the service men and women of our nation. These few examples demonstrate the huge potential for Muslims to flourish in Britain, but these few examples can’t take away the huge barriers ordinary Muslims face to reach such positions.

We strongly encourage the government, political parties, statutory bodies, public and private institutions to adopt this definition in helping to achieve a fairer society for all, as we believe the conclusion to the inquiry will become the benchmark for defining and tackling the scourge of Islamophobia.

The mistakes of this past summer and the denial of political parties to accept a definition of antisemitism must now not be repeated with another minority community. We need to get to the point where it is as socially unacceptable to be Islamophobic as it is to be homophobic or sexist. The adoption of this definition does just that.

Anna Soubry and Wes Streeting are Conservative and Labour MPs respectively, and co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims

Source: Islamophobia is a form of racism – like antisemitism it’s time it got its own definition

Filed under Multiculturalism, Religion Tagged with , , , ,

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