Is Britain Full? | Guardian Alternative Party Conference

oh good afternoon everyone can I thank you for coming out an ordinary all new people would be a now underneath the duvet are in front of the television on a horrible day like this so clearly you are not ordinary people so thank you for being with us today our alternative party conference and can I just tell you quickly that it may or may not be germane to this conversation that I'm in London and I am son of migrant my father came here in 50 in the 50s I live in London I grew up in London I was at the school in London I work in London I go through a little street safe every day and today I bought the central line that local Street Station going in completely the wrong direction which kind of shows you that day even at my age you still do silly things but thank you for being with us we're going to spend 50 minutes together discussing the premise that Britain might be full is Britain for let me give you a couple of statistics that might inform that debate the number of people living in Britain is projected to rise from sixty four point six million where it was in mid-2014 to seventy three point three million in 2039 that's according to the Office for National Statistics RNs again they say net migration to the UK in the year ending March 2015 this March was three hundred and thirty thousand that was an increase on the previous year of twenty eight percent so that's some of the context what is the effect of that well according to the economists that it gauges the scenes from time to time it had a poll conducted by Ipsos MORI and the result of that was that we learned that immigration is now one of the main concerns for conservative voters but also for labour voters as well it's now singled out by fifty percent of respondents as being among the most important matters that worry them so that's some of the context we're going to talk about that I'm going to come to you for your questions so if anything occurs to you during our discussion and please make a note of it but as you see we have a stellar panel befitting of the alternative Party conference that as quickly introduce you them to you Sarah Regice Warren is the associate director op affairs at Edelman did the world largest public relations firm she was deputy head of black and minority ethnic research at the policy exchange and Kohl's of that units groundbreaking report a portrait of modern Britain next to her is Douglas Murray he is a British writer journalist and commentator he was the director of the center for social cohesion from 2007 to 2011 is currently what we called him the trade a bigwig at The Spectator I'm not sure that's what he had on his calling card yeah we also have with us Phillip Sadiq she's the Labour MP for Hampstead and Kilburn she's a vice chair of the All Party policy against anti-semitism and a member of the women and equality Select Committee can I have a round of applause for our panelists okay so is britain full let me give you a kind of quote that you hear quite a lot these days what great states of the world other than Great Britain permit the immigration of destitute aliens without restriction should Her Majesty's Government be prevented by any treaty obligations from making such regulations as shall put a stop to the free importation of destitute aliens into the United Kingdom as words are spoken by one captain column he was the Conservative MP of Tower Hamlets in 1887 so what we're discussing now well plus you sure that was Mary let me start with you I'm going to ask you all to set out your stall if you were in a couple of minutes so the notion it do you think Britain's fault no it's not and I have serious is a most irritating thing for any panelists to do I know but let me just quit all with the framing of that of this whether Britain is for naught is a saw writing in the way and unhelpful way to look at this the there is obviously space in the country though obviously all sorts of past the country you could build more houses on and and so on and this is the same with all European countries you I think that is it well because that's not really what we mean when we talk about what we mean is do people feel in the country that it is a country that can't take in any more people or shouldn't be taking in them in this rate and so on my own view on this is that is that as I said by assuming because a guardian event the most of your good Guardian readers and good left wingers we're all good so that lovely meta bad left-winger earlier so let me put it to you this way this is this seems to meet a very very big challenge for the left not the right hasn't had its own totalizations on this in recent decades but that on the left this is a big problem because broadly speaking one can't get around the fact that as Hugh said of the outset public opinion consistently actually in recent years has said that the public want less immigration they currently have a recent poll earlier this year showed a mere seven percent of the British population wanting an increase in immigration then we have this of course problem is that although that is a public opinion as I say fairly consistently held nevertheless that the parties the main parties struggle with this question so they struggle in part I would suggest because of the problem of language in the area and what they promise sounds tough as opposed to what they can actually achieve what can actually be done and there's no better demonstration of that than the current government which of course promised a few years ago to bring immigration down from the hundreds of thousands a year to tens of thousands and of course it magnificently obviously not managed to do that so I think there is a serious problem here what happens not just when public opinion wants something and politicians keep on struggling with what to do and how to frame it but also clearly politicians seem to be failing to actually do anything that responds to public opinion and this this as I say is is a very large problem and one which if I may just make one other additional observation one which is going to increase as a problem in the coming years I think I've been covering the so-called migrant crisis story quite a lot and it is very striking that of course in the whole debate about immigration we still struggle so hard in this country and other parts of Europe with talking about what we actually mean do we mean economic migration do we mean asylum do we mean people who want a better life and deserve better life and can we give it to them and all these sort of things is that really that is the this is the area we're still struggling in and the question of that being immigration doesn't do justice to it and whether Britain is formed certainly doesn't do justice to this which is which is a much bigger issue I think by the way now a much bigger issue than any one Gulf okay thank you very much thank you for that we can maybe start again and reframe the question or concern I don't know that where you're allowed this is the Guardian free speech comment is free syllabus City and I'll start off by saying I'm the daughter of a political asylum seeker so my mother came here in the 1970s from Bangladesh because 19 members of her family had been killed in Bangladesh and she moved here because it was simply too unsafe for her to go to Bangladesh practical English she didn't move here because she's looking for a job so immigration isn't simply an economic phenomenon we moved to Hampton Kilburn which is the area I represent where 46 percent of my constituency is not British born now the reason why I'm telling you this is because he was right to say that 46 percent of the people who were surveyed before the election said immigration was their number one concern out of those people who responded about 80 percent said they thought people came to this country looking for employment and that's the main reason they moved here if you look at hamsun Kilburn which is the area I obviously know best the economic the Irish people who came to kill them a lot of them not every single one but a lot of them did come because of employment for economic reasons the Jewish community which is very large and Michael see came because they were fleeing political persecution from Nazi Germany back in the day that's the point I want to make it there is a perception of why people come into this country and we do need to think about addressing that not necessarily challenging it but thinking about it and addressing it and I think what we need to do as a Labour Party and other mainstream parties is not trying to do I'll do you Kip on immigration the problem is for years and years politicians especially labor politicians didn't talk about immigration and that allowed you Kip to set the terms of the debate and I think that's very damaging for a country like ours which has always been seen as a safe haven for a lot of people trying to come into the country to scape the world in which they can't go back so I think we do need to talk about immigration I think we need to dispel some of the myths we need to talk about why people come into this country I also think if we talk about Britain being full let's think carefully a UN report says Britain was a hundred and fortieth most crowded country in the world that's not at the top and are we talking about London are we talking about written yes there is a problem with London it there is a lot of housing in London part of that is because of the housing crisis and the other thing is we cannot blame the overstretching of public services on immigration that's giving the government a free ride let's not do them Thank You julep sir hi um I feel like I need to say something about my background just because you can see I have done the same and I'd love to hear about deficit later but I'm the daughter of two immigrants who came here separately my father came to come to University and the 60s and my mother came with her family to go to school but her father had a job here and I like to talk about my my own journey being one of a social mobility because my parents started out in or my mother started out with seven kids in a two-bedroom in East London they moved to Croydon which from East London Corrigan is apparently going up in the world and then I moved from Croydon to Clapham which is again apparently going up in the world but I the whole way through my life my parents talked about talked about something which I think is sometimes lost and this in this conversation about whether Britain is full or not but the the buzzwords through my life was with integration it always was I grew up in Croydon in a time when actually I was the minority I go back to Croydon now and everyone's Tamil which is my background and but when I was growing up I was one of three tamil well three ethnic minority kids in my school and my parents never wanted me to feel that they made it very clear that I was Tamil and I had a heritage but they made it very clear as well that they chose to come to the UK for different reasons and that we were British at the same time and I think that within this debate about whether Britain is full on art which by the way I agree with like I said I don't think it is and and tulip and though I do think that we need to talk about making sure that the communities that are in the UK are integrated both that they feel that they are welcomed in the UK but also that they choose to integrate themselves and my mother's from well lived in Europe where where if you walk down the street now as a white British person you are very much the minority and you feel as though you're the minority we need to discuss whether those sorts of things are good or bad and whether we need to bring more integration within our schools but I don't think we should be necessarily talking about immigration as a good or a bad thing we've seen recently with the NHS calling for more nurses and the fact that they can get more nurses from abroad we still have a need for immigration and for skills in the UK there are jobs which white British people or British people in the UK aren't taking and so there's clearly those clearly a and a need that can be met but at the same time I don't want us to lose the idea that we need to talk about welcoming people and integrating them okay thank you very much I didn't know that another person from new yeah I'm going to reframe it slightly because well one because two the two of you conclude it but also because I think what might be helpful is if you say not so much it's written full but how much is too much and when we say how much is too much Douglas then just a ten minute I'm going to come to you but just a minute and we let the panel maybe two over this between themselves what's the criteria of how much is too much is it as you said perceptional or is it the do we get to a point where the figures just say hang on overload we just can't cope what should we be looking at and how do you make that decision it's well it's obviously not a science which is one of the reasons why is actually plucking and figures David Cameron seem to do it but it were under a hundred thousand a year net migration doesn't quite answer there is a there is definitely an element of it which I think public services have to come into it where the public services can provide adequately for everyone including everyone who's already here that's always you a part of it um I think that Z the identity question is obviously mellifluous one and obviously a highly problematic one because of everybody knows a lot of polls a lot of data on suggests for instance that a lot of people who live in really very money monocultural areas nevertheless perceive immigration has happening quite often at a higher rate and it is actually happening so there is definitely a problem about how you nail down the reception thing I would just point this out is that um to my mind the integration issue just just picked up on it's definitely part of this challenge the sample has to be in there somewhere and let me just if I may give a quick figure which is very if I think it's helpful quite often people talk about Britain and other European countries in particular Britain reason is as a nation of immigrants which i think is a is a fallacy I always wish to sort of knock on the head because although it's true that immigration has always happened it's never happened at this kind of speed and just to give some context for that quite often people talk about the Hyuga no migration into this country you can a migration in particular the East End of London after 1683 around 50,000 Hyuga nose came to the UK and and this was such a large migration as I say not only that we still talk about it but that it's it's still given as an example of you know but how integration happened I mean it took some centuries arguably I think not just decades for that integration to occur but but that it has but 50,000 is an average about six to eight weeks of emigration that we've had over the last 15 years since Tony Blair came to office and since that period so what women as a proportion of the population man yeah yeah sure but but this this this this question of what that what migration of that rate done I would argue that the one criterias I say it's not a scientific criteria but one criteria has to be that issue of our people coming and being part of the country or are they coming and having a parallel life and a parallel community that they can do and maybe not even being aware of the possible life they can have outside of that area and when that happens I think there is a problem and I think it's one that people rightly get concerned about so that's not numbers that's more cultural and that's more a matter of integration and more about of not having people coming but how are we coping with the people who are yes I mean I I think a lot of people who have lots of concerns about immigration would not be as concerned as they were if integration had happened to the faster and better rate Sarah well I think we are we are one of the most integrated countries in the world and other countries such as you know Paris will look to London and say we want this level of integration we want this level of integration that they have in the UK though I completely hear your point that the the largest concern often comes from people who do not meet someone from another ethnicity in their daily life and they are it's what we all know is true fear of the unknown and I would say an integration is is the thing that I'm most concerned by I think as I mentioned earlier it cuts both ways I think there are communities and I could say of my note my own who you know they come to you can and they hanker for the country they left in that time and they hold it an aspect and that's not a great thing and at the same time it's wanting to be more welcomed into the community you come into and I think that's where we get with this debate about immigration and whether it's good or bad it makes a migrant communities feel unwanted and unwelcome and we have to be careful whilst talking about numbers and I honestly don't know what the right number is I don't think anyone does and when you talk about numbers you have to be careful with your rhetoric you have to be careful with the actual message you're putting out to people and not making them feel like they're unwanted and because that won't help anyone and that's when you get British form people who feel that they don't belong to Britain Julie talked about perception and you said that labor perhaps didn't talk about immigration enough and presumably you try and talk about it a bit more when you're on the doorstep I'm sure as a hard-working MP you're on a lot of doorsteps and not just between elections I'm sure you don't do that um dream event okay what do you say when a constituent says problem we've got new she's got too many immigrants in countries four can't do one I think the shock of my life was then just before the election when I knocked on the door and a young black woman opened the door and said there's too many immigrants in the country so I'm not gonna be voting labor I said to her and what about you like didn't you come here many years ago and she said it's different I work hard I don't claim benefits and it's been different for me and I was like okay I a dozen be a long conversation and it was but what for me when people speak to me and they say that Labour didn't speak much about immigration one of the main complaints that comes up over and over again is that we didn't know who was in the country and that's one thing people really fear like how did how many people do we actually have in the country where we accountable for who came in and who didn't where our border controls strong enough to find out what kind of people were coming into the country and this is something I do sympathise with I do think we need to have some kind of border control where we find out who's coming into the country because we want to allow people in who we welcome and contribute to life but there's certain people we don't want in we don't want every single person walking in and the border controls it doesn't help to make cuts to border agency stuff because I think need to find out who's coming in saying that I do not believe in a net migration target which David Cameron has proposed and frankly speaking including refugees in that net migration target is immoral and we shouldn't be doing it but I also think one of the main problems is that you talked about people integral as being stuck in one area let's say for example of one community 88% of ethnic minorities in this country are in the poorest boroughs in the country so it's not so much that they gravitate towards a certain community because they want to sometimes there's no choice because of the lack of housing and how expensive housing is especially in London you talked about East London why do you think all the communities went there it's because the housing was cheaper what happens as a consequence is that the school's become pupils from just one community and that's because that's your nearest school so they are schools around and my area is very different but around slightly outside around Camden or they'll have an entirely Bangladeshi community like 98 percent will be being people of Bengali origin in one school and that's because of the housing problem so I think about immigration I don't think it's fair to say people gravitate just towards the communities also I'm sure some do but it's the cost of housing it's then as a result of going to schools and not knowing anyone else outside your community if it's not sheer numbers what is it that we should be doing that we're not doing in terms of integrating communities and in terms of perhaps diverting the resources towards those areas that need them the most because that's that's been seen to be a particular problem isn't it if you think of half of Kent that were very severely affected by various influxes and didn't have the money to deal with that so to what extent is this governmental whichever you want to pick that up and run with it can and I mean it's start but I'm going to start by almost not answering the question and going just great we'd love help unless that do this and there is a lot that government can do but there's also a lot that we can do at a cultural level and one of the things that I'm really interested at the moment is the idea that you recently had it with Ofcom camp they did a survey of ethnic minorities and how they thought they were represented in programming and publicly funded programming only and and and you often found across the sort of the the black community black Caribbean and black African community that they felt that there were like more people of their own race and with their own background on television but they were often a really really small subset of roles they were often the criminal or the policeman that won't play by the rules they were the Indians complained about always being the people that were owning the corner shop or the doctor and I'm not saying that these stereotypes don't exist but at the same time what it doesn't do is open people's minds to what else they could do you know young children watching this programming and they're seeing they're having their ideals and aspirations and penned in by what they're seeing and you think it might sound a bit trite but actually it's where a lot of young people get their aspiration from from the world around them from what they see and you'll find that you know many many different actors have spoken about moving to the u.s. because in the u.s. they're casting tends to be far more colorblind they just don't particularly care and they'll cast the best person that walks in that day in the role and I think that there's a lot that we can do as society to integrate better and then as often more that government doesn't government have a hand in that in terms of shaping people's perceptions they can't tell you how to think ya know because one of the things that they do when it suits them of course and that's all governments is they seek to shape public perceptions and have they done that in this area to the public benefit I'm sure they have I say I think this there's an oddity about the immigration discussion which is that people you very often hear people saying it's time we had a discussion about immigration and then somebody else's but we seem to be always discussing it you know um but the truth is is that there is something strange about the political discussion I think in this area I have a theory that only left and only the Labour Party you'll be pleased Hills to it only the Labour Party can actually ever address this properly need to get back involvement I don't have to get anybody to help you but but I do because there is there is undoubtedly a fear on the conservative side around this subject you can see it even with what I thought was a rather mild-mannered speech really bright resume as Conservative Party conference not sure about which was it was given it was given an amazingly in a vituperative reception outside of the hall but it by Tories and even by Tories yeah which I thought was surprising he didn't actually say anything particularly the lots of other people haven't said including Labour MPs but but it but there's undoubtedly a problem for the right on this and they're concerned about it and so arguably the only party that could possibly satisfy the word answer public concern about this answer the legitimate public concern about it and not have that fear would be the Labour Party but that's why I say this is an interesting time for this discussion to be going on on the left because this obviously has to be answered - you lose voters on this issue and and and you've got you got to got to come up with some answers on it if I can just say very quickly by the way I mean you met you mentioned some other examples at other countries this I mean it's very striking if you go to France I mean if you go to France you and spend any time there you will think my gosh we've done integration well in the UK and by the way and just one other thing which is on the on that issue of as it were representative role models I mean there is an oddity about this as well isn't there which is I I spent a long time the United States and I'd be very struck during the Obama presidency which a lot of us thought well thank goodness that's going to you know ease that in America actually the opposite seems to have happened and and so you know even when there's a black president he's probably hit by him being there it's actually polarized the debate somewhat because it's the parts of the u.s. politic 'old abate let's say do you tend to go oh well you know he's not he's not your typical Democrat he's either either black president who's going to do this sort of thing and which I think he to some extent in amongst the most right-wing of the Republicans if government have a role then I want you to give me some idea of what a Labour government when you're on your leading a Labour government or obviously maybe from officially or just piloting it from the sidelines how you will do think but just quickly pick up that point a dunce made about whether labourer the only attitude relayed by the only ones who can deal with this let me just give you a quote we hold that it's in the interest of the British people that the reputation of Britain for good faith and humanity should be preserved that was the Edward Heath talking about the the Galatians and whether or not they should be allowed and how we should deal with that so in the past and servicing politicians have many different noises having like uh I think the Labour Party does have a responsibility to address this immigration I don't I don't think it's the only party that does but I think they have a big role to play and I don't think they've done it very well and I was asked during the election would I drink out of the mug that says controls on immigration and I said I would smash it so no I wouldn't be drinking out of it or control and look this controls the way I've talked about it where we find out who comes into country there's certain people we don't want in the country but controls on immigration as a blanket policy no I don't agree I'll say a few things though I do think we could do one is we could work with local councils I used to be a local councillor local councils know their patch very well and in Brent there is in a school where they suddenly notice there was a huge influx of people coming from Afghanistan and Kazakhstan they decided to set up a service inside the school where the parents of the children coming in could start to speak English it was a local initiative that really worked and it meant that people knew more about public services but also nearly speak English knew how to integrate into the communities the small things you can do like that you can also work on the impact fund which has been floated a few times with Yvette Cooper in areas where if refugees are coming in or there's a huge influx of people coming in from outside you want to give them some money to find out how we can settle these people then yes that's something I think we can do as a government but what we really need to do and this is I think what aggravates people the most is the fact that they are dodgy employers exploit immigration for their own benefits and they make sure that workers are paying pay paid under the table or you know they're people who come in with desperate to work and dodgy employers will take advantage of this and no government has been very strong and cracking down on this and that's something we should be doing ok I think that's up go ahead feel free but I just have a very quick question or two because I think it helps us to get to part of another issue sorry it's very easy on the immigration issue as we all know to say you know motherhood and apple pie or something but you just mentioned something very important which is where there are people we don't want who are other people we don't want well any new few thoughts if you unknown to be a criminal who in your own countries then trying to escape because you have actually done something wrong and why would we welcome them into this country I'm not arguing for them but other than the criminal class is it how do you think we don't yeah why wouldn't you want who died I do think I think I think it's sort of incumbent on politicians to address it now I I mean I think for instance that they're continuing that a large import import of people to do jobs as you say this is because this is a this is a very concerning one the argument that we need for instance mass immigration because there are jobs that people in Britain won't do troubles may enormous and in article but it is it is a troubling area it's it's always seemed to me unwise to import a working class because something happens your working class okay and it'll become an underclass a passed over class or any all sorts of other things I mean to my mind that would be one of the things I would address first okay well I look I don't want criminals in the country but I also don't want people who don't abide by the rules I mean that's that's quite simple isn't it you come into this country you're taking advantage and you don't abide by the rules I don't want those people what I don't want to do I'm just going to make this point is our higher education economy in this country relies on international students okay they pay a lot of money they come in to country they help our economy to scrap things like the post work study visa means there's been a 38 percent drop in international students coming here we're shooting ourselves in the foot by doing that those are the people I do want I don't want people who come here you know health tourism or whatever it's calls and then people take advantage of the system they're the same people you probably don't want in the country so those are the people I don't want I just don't think we can have one straight blanket policy these are the people we don't want don't come into the country till if thank you very much let me open it up the keenest and the first is that as I might coming up to you oh I'm not sure you need it let's have it also which is a complement ok Martin I'm English for many generations so hopefully I can still speak on this subject know that someone who's lived abroad I actually believe very much in the ability to move so I've got two things to say one was a fact and the other is a question so the first is the fact which is that the population of the last 20 years has gone up 7.1 million 6.3 million of that is in people over 40 and only not 0.7 is people under 40 most of the immigration has come on has been filling up as people have got older and we're living longer so I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions and misunderstanding about this whole issue is that actually you know there's suddenly this wave of young immigrants coming in yes there are but they're just filling up and it's not our biggest population increases people not dying which is great news in many ways but it's nothing I don't want to knock yet but it is answering and then my question like my question is is this whole issue about control if you suggested that I needed permission and to be controlled if I wanted to move to Yorkshire I would consider you an authoritarian completely unacceptable government but for any government to suggest that that people moving from country to country it need to be controlled just is the matter of standard political discourse and I do struggle with that you know we've gone into this position so what does the panel think about that control point and whether we should control okay just really should we be so sniffy about the control so well I think the fundamental difference is that if you move from London to Yorkshire you wouldn't be in a different political structure you would be in a different tax structure you would remain that as in the United Kingdom and supported by the state and paying into the state where is were you to move to a different country as a permanent resident that wouldn't be the case and that's why countries seek to control that because they have a responsibility to their current citizens and the what their future of their country looks like yes I mean it's a very good point about the first point it's true it seems to have come to a shock as a shock to many politicians immigrants get old as well strongly unforeseeable fact but but but but the point you make then about for Disease ASA is I think a great era is already been said I mean obviously a country has its own borders for very clear reasons and nations need borders between each other for very clear reasons and if you doubt the necessity of those reasons just look at travel anywhere in central toward East and Europe at the moment what is happening borders are going back up because the dream of completely free with a Schengen is screwed if in case you're not aware of that now it's impossible they're not doing it and there are even where the borders aren't going back up effectively borders are going back up because nations need to have a say about who is in and who is not okay I'm gonna take another question or company first with it there you frontier mark the microphone is winging its way toward you hello um I've been I'm from Spain and I've been in this country for 29 years um I'll run a business for 27 years I find it enormously difficult to find English people to work in was a cafe um caramel because teachers didn't consider it worth in us ninety percent of my staff was international okay another thing the press has an enormous paper on how to change people's perception save people's perception about immigration the Sun we are swamped in The Guardian more people have left England to go to other countries that people from abroad have come to England okay I want to get as many questions okay so let me frame that to two but so you know why are we the cause of all problems okay in England as a perceptional question it's more the presentation I think the media has a big role to play and you know there is a lot of right-wing papers which definitely exaggerate how many people are in the country but also how many Muslims are taking over the country you know that's quite a spectacular headline that comes up quite often I just say something I don't know about the particular business that you ran a lot of the problems in this country come from the fact that work doesn't pay because the wages are so low especially in London I mean I know we have a national minimum wage but the London living wage has got to start coming into effect because people just feel like they can't work because half the time they're paying for their rent or paying for their children or paying for their cost of living and I think we have to have something like the London living wage and living wage in other cities I speak about London cause I'm a London MP that other cities is where where work has got to paint order for people to actually want to go to work so is it about the money because you do hear that at the same point made by lady there quite a lot but employers would say I'd love to employ more British people but I get them in and they don't last or they don't turn up and I employ migrants because they just work harder in the more lives I do you think a lot of it is about the money I think that that's where the greatest root cause is I mean that people will throw about ideas that immigrant populations are harder working than the native British and I don't know if that's true I personally haven't seen it being true I know that your experience is that you you haven't been able to get white British people to fill the jobs that you've got and but I would probably agree more with with Tunip than with with that assumption because I don't want to take another question there later then and I'm going to come to you I just want to ask the panel is there a reason that we don't when we're talking about immigration that it's not so strictly followed by our foreign policy that we don't combine the two yeah because for em we have to you you mentioned that and you had a wave of Afghanistan children coming there might have been a reason for that that wasn't coincidence so and we have to look at what we're it until the rest of the world to why we're having sways of people if we're what if we're forcing our ideals on the rest of the country and we're telling the world of how brilliant week to live here is then maybe that message is going to them and want them wanting to come here okay and we'll try to take as many questions as I can so that let us quickly do with that I'll be happy about the context dinner that's the very point um it's it's got a slight flaw in it which is that for instance Afghan wait incidentally by the way our biggest obligations consistently to my mind never get lived up to take the Afghan translators I'm struggling to get asylum in the UK it's shameful shameful they see the first people in but as far as it were I think what you're saying also is the way if our foreign policy is connected to this and so on well yes and no I mean this country has had no meaningful involvement into the Syrian civil war has it yet it is waves of Syrians that are trying to come in to Europe at the moment and and obviously form the bulk of I think of legitimate asylum seekers but even in that case by the way that is a minority part of the migration we're currently seeing into Europe if you travel to places like Lamba doozer and other of the islands Italy and Greece were the main reception points main entry points actually Syrians form a minority of this most of the people by my observation are are coming from sub-saharan Africa has anyone in this country you know this country had any involvement in Eritrea no but well then you could you could go and back in definitely if you want do they say any country that has ever had any financial dealings with the UK were responsible for I don't think the British people would follow you on that one sorry go I just want to add in that I mean we need to be careful not to mix up although it's part of it but not to mix up immigration with asylum seekers and refugees because they represent I think just over a quarter of percent of immigrants to the UK every year and it really really concerns you when we when we think about immigration and think it's you know everybody from Syria or Afghanistan or Eritrea which are our largest base of refugees also and the onus published is some incredible statistics and I was looking at them this morning and which they beloved map with it I would definitely recommend it and we're over the last two years our largest base of inflows and so the country or most people came from was China and I don't think we're necessarily pushing our ideals on the Chinese I heard might be the other way around and also over the last 15 years I know over since 1992 out of the top 15 countries that have represented largest inflow of people every year to the UK there are only three countries that have been in it for every year of the last 15 years and they were the United States Australia and Germany so when we think about this mass of immigrants coming here it's not necessarily the people that are visibly different from the white British population and I think that that's really important to bear in mind okay you say yeah they don't keep the theme my grandmother emigrated from Belgium Oh great-grandmother so you've sort of spoken a lot and is the classic thing this sort of feels like a you know a very southern based and look at this and it's sort of going Britain isn't full absolutely not but London is full and it's sort of going or you know capacities up there somewhere but the problem is like me for the Lake District I'm immigrating to the south because there's no worker there so I'm wondering how do you deal with that the issue that the south is draining from our North you know and if we put immigrants up there there isn't a capacity for them perhaps in terms of work a 30 second dancer and my offer to you is that you come to our debate later day which is London yeah the easiest plug I've ever had I'll just be very quick on this because I'm being told on 30 seconds but and look lots of reasons why people come to London from other parts of the world it's because if you want to do anything in politics for example you've got to be in London because all the internships all the apprenticeships Parliament is based here and I've been told for me it's the same thing you've got to come down to London if you want to make it so there is a problem about people in certain industries coming down to London because it's the only place they'll get a job and work in housing which is probably looks like you that's why you came here as well there is a problem with that but also I suppose it's also about and our main problem in London the overcrowding has come from a lack of building houses that is the main problem and people and selling flats to overseas buyers and who just buy without a mortgage and we the council's have absolutely no power to restrict that sale of property and as a local councillor before that really used to get to me so again when you think about the numbers you also think about public policy right at the back women of the back I can't see properly who it is so I'm not even going to get up yes sir see if the politicians wish to discuss control of immigration they can't unless we leave the EU control immigration from the EU and I hear very little other than from Nigel Faraj to make that point okay but the other thing I would say is that over the many years in which I since I immigrated to this country have been looking at these things we have managed to build large numbers of houses 300,000 a year at one stage we have managed to build a very large number of school places a huge number when we raised the school leaving age I really do need a questions left with we need to get my question is why have we never heard those sorts of responses when the politicians are challenged thank you very much sir and it's a much fun having this this discussion from within the EU and of course the EU is a large part of our and about immigrants stock but it's about 45% and about four to five and another 45% of people not from the EU saying that obviously we've seen with David Cameron's pledge to reduce immigration from the a hundreds of thousands for the tens of thousands that one of the reasons why he couldn't meet that with because of our membership of the EU saying that we're not alone we're not the only country in the EU struggling with borders Germany itself and you don't hear much of it from Angela Merkel in the UK but if you speak to German policymakers and people involved in German politics this is as active a debate in Germany as it is in the UK okay I want to stop you there quickly that's absolutely a very important point to make about the EU and know we can't really control our borders Ross were in the EU and I think a renegotiation of some kind is obviously necessary if I may by the way one of the reasons why when people say we need to debate immigration so on what it's tedious it's also absolutely vital again a very quick example of why last month Angela Merkel was unfortunately caught in a hot mic moment in New York of UN shooting designed Mark Zuckerberg at lunch and she was unfortunately caught with her mic on she sat down to lunch beside Mark Zuckerberg and the first thing she said was what can we do to stop people writing anti-immigration things on Facebook and Zuckerberg said we're working on it and I put my head in my hands when I thought I thought if you want this to blow that would be how you do it stop discussion of it okay I have to stop you there to look very very quickly please renegotiation is fine within the EU but we must stay in the EU and three million of our jobs is linked to us being in the EU and also think about all the Brits who are in the EU as well who go to other countries so it's not just people from outside coming in to us we go and live in countries in Europe as well in terms of trade investment employment we've got to stay in the EU but renegotiation is something I do agree with I think we need to and make the deal better for us but don't forget about all the Brits who are living in other countries inside the European Union can I thank you all have a round of applause Sarah I'm wiring to the clinic and Douglas Marie thank you for your questions as well your contributions will be very necessary if the Guardian is ever to return the government so thank you for sorry enjoy the rest of your day on we talk about the new politics in come the phrase of the hour a lot of people will have seen you on that day when the new politics emerged into the light that September the 12th ad when Jeremy Corbyn was announced as Labour's new leader and there you were singing the red flag with him so my question to you is how new is the new politics

Channel: Guardian Live

Views: 164,329

Keywords: douglas murray, immiration, migration, immigration, refugee crisis, migrant crisis, migrant crisis europe, migrants crisis, refugees welcome, refugee crisis europe, refugees from syria, uk, united kingdom, migrants europe, european migration, european union, syria, european migrants, economic migrants, economy, economic, welfare, benefits, immigration uk, net migration, immigration crisis, is britain full?, uk population, Tulip Siddiq, Saratha Rajeswaran, the spectator

Id: MH5MQF-PFZU

Length: 47min 8sec (2828 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 10 2015