UK Immigration in 2015

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Table of Contents

Statistics
Public Perception of Immigration
Who the Immigrants Are
Causes of Immigration
Reduction of Immigration
Conclusion
Works Cited

In the contemporary world, travelling and immigration are two of rather day-to-day happenings. Ever since the beginning of the process of globalization, millions of people all around the world started to move around for various reasons such as work, housing, cultural, economic and political issues, and education among others.

Some countries tend to become preferred destination points more often than others. Logically, sates with well-developed business industries and labor markets, countries with better economies and living conditions are chosen over the ones suffering from economical crises, wars or high rates of unemployment. Immigration carries both benefits and disadvantages for the receiving side. Certain kinds of immigrants are very useful for the economical development of the country as they bring valuable and rare skills.

At the same time, the arrival of immigrant laborers from less developed countries leads to the decrease in average payments in some spheres, causes unemployment among native workers, and disrupts the balance in social care. To a certain degree, immigration is an issue for every well-developed country on the planet.

This paper will explore the problems with immigration faced in Britain nowadays, its statistics, the size of foreign-born population, difficulties that occurred due to immigration, public opinion concerning it, and policies directed at the optimization of the current situation in the UK.

Statistics

As Toni Blair mentioned once, a great country can be defined according to the behavior of people towards it: if the population is trying to get in, the country is great, if it is happy to get out it is not so great (Nelson par. 1). According to this definition, Great Britain has been a great country for quite a while. Its greatness has been growing rapidly over the last twenty years.

Statistically, in the period between 1993 and 2013 the number of immigrants on the territory of the United Kingdom grew by more than 50 percent, this way 3.8 million of foreign-born people gradually turned into 7.8 million over just twenty years (Rienzo and Vargas-Silva par. 2). The same tendency can be observed among foreign citizens living in the UK. Their number grew from 2 to 5 million over the same period. In 1993 the percentage of the foreign-born population in the country accounted for 7 percent, and in 2013 it reached 12.5 percent.

The largest number of immigrants is concentrated mainly in metropolises. For example, London is on the leading position according to the size of its immigrant population which constitutes approximately 2.8 million people in total and estimates 37 percent of the overall population of Inner London (Rienzo and Vargas-Silva par. 3).

In the top ten of the countries of citizenship of the UK immigrants, there are Germany, France, Lithuania, Romania, Italy, Pakistan, and the United States, although the three leading ranks belong to Poland, India, and Ireland accordingly (Rienzo and Vargas-Silva par. 6).

Public Perception of Immigration

Immigration in the United Kingdom today is majorly viewed as one of the largest concerns for the public. Even though the percentage of immigrants on the territory of the country truly has grown over the last couple of decades, the framing of this phenomenon makes the citizens of the UK consider it more serious than it is.

The issue of immigration in many cases is blown out by the press and politicians during the periods of elections mostly because the citizens associate the reduction of immigration with the improvement of their quality of life since there is a common belief that the newcomers take over the jobs of the citizens creating the growth of unemployment and the asylum-seekers use up all the social benefits.

The most recent surveys demonstrate that the population of the United Kingdom is not very well informed about the actual number of immigrants in their country. For example, Ipsos Mori social research facility noted that the rate of misperceptions considering immigration is high since most of the citizens are convinced that the newcomers constitute 24.4 percent of the British population while the actual number is nearly twice smaller (Nardelli and Arnett par. 7).

Besides, the perceived percentage of Muslims on the territory of the UK is 21 percent, while it is only 5 percent (Nardelli and Arnett par. 5). At the same time, the number of Christians is severely underestimated. Such misconceptions lead to the growth of the negative attitude of the public towards immigration. According to the data collected by the British Social Attitudes Survey in 2013, over 56 percent of the British population agrees that the level of immigration should be reduced significantly.

Who the Immigrants Are

Asylum-seekers from poor countries torn up by wars and crises are viewed as one of the major problems for the United Kingdom while by the end of 2013 the actual number of these people in the country constituted only 126055, this way the refugees escaping true horrors of their homelands represented only 0.23 percent of the countrys total population (Colvile par. 5). The number of refugees claiming asylum in the UK is less than that of other European countries such as Germany, France, and Sweden.

This way, the majority of immigrants coming to the United Kingdom are not looking for benefits, they pursue work opportunities. Practically, they might eventually start using medical services as they grow older, or they might have children and create the difficulty for the schools to accept the growing population of children, yet that is not what they initially come for.

Viewing this issue objectively makes it clear that the vast majority of the immigrants in the United Kingdom come there to acquire the jobs British population would not want or be able to do. Most of such immigrants can be divided into two categories. The first ones represent upper-end professionals who fill in the skill gaps of the British workforce.

They mainly work for London-based large corporations which have access to the global labor market and come to the country because the UK is currently unable to train enough professionals for certain fields. The second category of immigrant workers is those who take over the so-called 3D jobs,, which means difficult, dangerous and dirty (Colville par. 8). These are the low-skill workers who obtain unpopular among the native citizens professions.

Finally, there is another large portion of immigrants, which is represented by the foreign students. The country annually obtains at least 250000 of non-EU students. Approximately one-fifth of these students tend to stay in the UK as long term immigrants.

Causes of Immigration

Globalization is frequently named as one of the natural causes of peoples migration all around the world. Yet, this is not the case of Great Britain. The force that pushed the rates of immigration up in the country was the British Government. The major leap of immigration rates occurred while the Labor Party was at power. Most importantly, the leap was inflicted by the political leaders without the awareness of what was happening. Moreover, their opposition was not informed either.

Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron was aware of the actual numbers considering, immigration from both EU and non-EU countries. Besides, the issue of immigration was generally unpopular among the British politicians over the last several decades, so the citizens who experienced discomfort living in the areas significantly transformed by high rates of immigration had no political leaders to confide in.

While many of the contemporary politicians of the United Kingdom still support the idea of creating a true multicultural society in the state, the native populations negative attitude towards immigrants is named among one of the most popular reasons of social conflicts (Kern par. 3).

Among the most significant outcomes of the growing rates of immigration in the UK, there are difficulties with education caused by the unusually large number of students and housing shortage. The general perception is that Britain is overcrowded. Besides, it is important to remember that the number of illegal immigrants in the UK estimates approximately 860000 people (Kern par. 1).

Reduction of Immigration

British National Party is one of the political forces openly protesting immigration. To reduce the number of foreign citizens in the UK the party leaders suggest to deport all illegal immigrants and foreign-born criminals, reject asylum-seekers who can find refuge in countries nearer to their homelands, and restrict all immigration apart from exceptional situations. The leaders of BNP are convinced that white Britons have been made second-class citizens (Immigration par. 4).

The current Government of the UK approaches the issue of immigration more seriously now. The immigration from poorer EU countries is among the first happenings to e restricted since it not only reduces the chance of native citizens to find low-skill jobs and reduces the income level in the state, but also robs less progressive EU members of talented workers.

The countries whose citizens are likely to experience restrictions concerning immigration into the UK are Eastern European states and other new EU members. Besides, older members such as Spain might fall under the new policies too, since they are also recognized as popular senders for the immigrants.

Conclusion

Today, Britain can definitely be described as a country of immigration. The current issue of immigration in the United Kingdom can be viewed as both a positive and a negative phenomenon.

First of all, high-skilled immigrant professionals fill in the severe and growing skill shortage in such fields as engineering, the IT, and science. At the same time, a lot of immigrants coming from poorer EU countries take over the low-skill professions and agree to work for lower salaries, and this generally influences the native workers obtaining the same positions.

Overall public opinion considering immigration in the UK is negative as most of the citizens are misinformed about the actual rates of immigration. This creates tension between the native and fore0gn-born communities. The current Government of the UK claims to start dealing with the problem of immigration, yet the practical results, for now, are minor.

Works Cited

Colvile, R. Our immigration problems are a result of Britains success. 2014. Web.

Immigration. British National Party. Web.

Kern, Soeren. Britain: Immigration Seen as Top Problem. 2013. Web.

Nardelli, Alberto and George Arnett. Todays key fact: you are probably wrong about almost everything. 2014. Web.

Nelson, Fraser. Leaving the EU wouldnt solve our immigration problem. 2014. Web.

Rienzo, Cinzia and Carlos Vargas-Silva. Migrants in the UK: An overview. 2014. Web.

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