UK's 'elitist' immigration rules billed for January 2008

.... Austrialian style

borders. Does this mean they will two us 1000 miles furher out to sea and surround us with Great White sharks?

Aussi style immigration policy works because the country is hard to get to.

While you can slip into the UK and work illegally gathering cockles, picking cabbages, serving pints etc. (not to mention some older professions) like the half million or so illegals who are already here whats the point of making it more difficult to be a legal immigrant.

its a tough one

ok, years ago when i was young and naive I wouldn’t have agreed with this.

but i go to hull a lot to see mates (where I went to Uni).

the town now is inundated with eastern European 'workers'. very few have jobs, most have quite nice cars due to the gov giving them hefty car grants (most of my mates cant afford cars - let alone good ones like this lot get)

lots of shops and buildings have been given to the immigrants - most now have signs in saying 'no English', 'members only' etc.

when you walk around the streets very few people speak English (and hull people struggle with English anyway lol) I feel like a foreigner myself

i just dont know - england seems to be going to the dogs, large unemployment, high taxes, high interest rates (only good for the wealthy - my mortgage keeps going up and up), yet we insist on treating immigrants better than people who have lived here all their lives and often paid a hefty tax for the privilege

why should we just let in people cos they like it better here. and let them send 1/2 their giro (which is more than i would get if made unemployed) back to their own country. how is this helping anyone in the UK?

if you have no skills and cant speak English then what good are you here?

I’m sorry that its shite in your country, i really am, but all coming over here is just making it shite here. Time to be selfish and sort our own country out before we keep on being the Philanthropists of the world. the empire is dead and we are all skint. stop giving all our hard earned taxes to everyone apart from us

/rant over :)

Aussie style

I went through the Aussie 'General Skilled Migration' a while back, and it was a bureacratic nightmare: getting written reference letters from places I had worked 4 years previously as a contractor for 6 months, getting detailed course description for my university degree completed 15 years previously, joining the BCS as the IT content of my degree (maths) was deemed insufficient.

This was just to get the skills assessment from the ACS. Then more mountains of paperwork for the actual application. Took about 3 years in total. During this time they'd occasionally write and ask for the next thing they required; don't answer within 60 days and your application is automatically cancelled.

Not something for the faint hearted.

at long last....

i have also been through the Aussie style immigration process.. and recently it has been improved.. it still took over a year to get the Visa but wasnt that painful.. the one thing it does mean is that you really really have to want to come over here and therefore you do the work...

also you arent allowed to claim anything for at least 2 years..

The immigration policy of the UK was one of the reasons i finally upped and left the country.. the place has been ruined by uncontrolled immigration and ridiculous laws that give all the rights to the scumbags.. and none to the workers...

rant over... lets hope for the UK's sake they do it before the country collapses under the benefit burden...

Pointless

Any change of policy, regarding immigration is completely pointless. The vast majority of the more than 600,000 immigrants into the UK in recent years are from the old eastern bloc countries that have joined the EU.

Freedom of movement, within the EU is perhaps the most sacrosanct tenet of the treaties that govern it.

The half baked attempt to limit the ingress of Romanians and Bulgarians is an illustration in point. So... they are not allowed to enter for work unless, they have some value to us, as workers..... picking fruit or something. On the other hand they are allowed to visit, and if they like it here, they just stay, quite legally, and work on the black.

This policy by Labour, might well be regarded as racist, since the reality is, that the only people that are going to be stopped at the border, are Asians and Africans, mainly from the old Commonwealth countries that do not "enjoy" the dubious benefits of EU membership, as is well known, most of those are not white caucasians.

So is the problem, too many immigrants, or is the problem, too many black and brown people? I think we should be told! The only effective, immigration control that we could introduce, would be to leave the EU, and then control, via a work permit system, Aussie style, who enters. In this sort of system, we would be able to allow anyone, regardless of colour, to enter the country, as long as they are capable of making a positive impact.... i.e. pay tax.

I would suggest that the main thrust of Mr. Byrne's policy, is to pull the wool over our eyes, in an attempt to make us think that our government is doing something.

No Comment!

...the town now is inundated with eastern European 'workers'. very few have jobs, most have quite nice cars due to the gov giving them hefty car grants (most of my mates cant afford cars - let alone good ones like this lot get)...

This single statement is more then enough to confirm your lack of understanding your own country.

Liam

Perhaps Liam would be so kind as to point us all towards this mythical Government programme that gives car grants to immigrants. Otherwise we might be forced to call BS on his Daily Mail rantings.

Yeah, sure, it's all us, eastern Europeans...

...it's not your own local council types, Vicky Pollards & Co, innit?

Having studied in a UK uni I can safely say that the majority of people slacking off were local. I dare you to go and ask any lecturer on their opions on students from eastern Europe. Sure there are few odd slackers, and yes, being immigrant I'd say UK laws need tightening, but please, don't blame it all on migrants, that's just stupid. I pay all my taxes unlike some of the sweatpant wearing indigenous crowd.

Liam Byrne making me unhappy

All fair and all, but.

Liam Byrne has personally cost me a lot of money, time and tears for someone coming from abroad (non-EU).

I came into this country on a HSMP (Highly Skilled Migrant Programme) visa, on which I declared that I will make the UK my home and I have no intention of going back to my home country.

I worked from day 1, I've never taken a single workday off, my salary bracket is well above £100k/pa, I pay more than £3.5k tax a month, I bought property in my first year and a car to travel with.

In January, I had to get my HSMP renewed, Mr Liam Byrne decided in December 2006 to retrospectively change the rules, making anybody that has NOT gone to Uni unable to gain enough points to get their visa's renewed. Excuse me, but I did not go to Uni because it would not be beneficial for me, I'm still convinced of this and I'm sure many other IT workers would agree.

I was forced to leave the UK, (and all my assets), try and get work back in the UK from my home country within enough time to not lose my property and then come back to the UK on a Work Permit via my new employer.

Please anybody go through that for a christmas present and tell me that this is fair to a human being.

Hell yes, I am upset for any immigrants coming in and getting freebies but most non-EU immigrants are unable to claim anything for 5 years (until citizenship) anyway.

Grr! Cheers.

in my defence :)

ok,

would you like me to direct you to the company i know of that cashes 4k car cheques handed out by the gov?

its not BS and i would consider myself an ideological leftie anyway - but there must be a limit.

and yes, the vast amount of spongers are english - but that only means that anyone coming in cant sponge as we have enough spongers anyway. the excuse - 'well the english sponge so its ok for the immigrants to sponge' is ridiculous.

im also not talking about the students - yes they generally study harder than uk people - i admit that.

but when i see 'no english allowed' signs and large groups of eastern europeans harassing english girls and attacking english people it annoys the hell out of me. there have been MANY cases of hull girls being attacked by immigrants and the sexual assualt rates have gone up 6x since the town had a large influx of immigrants

the gov doesnt help. about 5 years ago they deemed it clever to have 2 opposing groups of immigrants from, i think, the old yugoslavia, they caused so much trouble having running battles in the streets and causing mayhem for a week.

i have even seen a large group harassing an english black kid and screaming the n* word at him for no reason at all. threatening to kill him just for walking near him.

Liam

Liam,

You are trolling, aren't you?

"Running battles" between ethnic groups from the former Yugoslavia, government grants - specifically for immigrants, mind - to buy cars, "no english" signs, marauding Poles roughing up English kids (not just any English kids - *black* English kids - to prove that despite all appearances you're not a miserable, embittered hard-right fantasist thug) - which sputtering, sickly synapse in your head generated these Nostradamus fantasies?

How are these East Europeans surviving up there in Hull if they're not workers but only "workers"? It's certainly not off benefits - citizens of the eight East European countries that joined the EU in 2004 are not here on the same basis as citizens of the EU-15. Essentially, they are here on sufferance for another four years, leaving them ineligible for welfare payments. Romanians and Bulgarians are barely allowed to work here at all. So - all those East Europeans - they're either working, dead, or a figment of your febrile little imagination.

I *think* you're a troll, but your trolling is so distasteful that you'll have to forgive me for loathing you regardless.

Anyway, the Right Honourable Mr Byrnes' ideas are outstanding. Students will be assessed for eliteness before their allowed into the country. If they're not leet, then they won't be able to get in. So how, pray, are they to attain eliteness in the first place? Our cash-strapped unis will be delighted to see their valuable foreign revenue streams collapse, I'm sure....