Vital contribution from immigrants (From York Press)

Cue an indignant response from Quarrie: "I'm not racist, some of my best friends are German."

I posted a message over on Mr Quarrie's letter, but wanted to also comment here.

I do not disagree with anything you have said but rather want to point out that your perspective may be skewed by your current, minimal, experience of immigration. Your talk of Gurkhas and Ugandan Asians is, if I may say so, hopelessly out of date. As a Londoner I have seen the kind of levels of immigration that Mr Quarrie is concerned about.

I've seen the effects first hand of massive immigration. With the majority of Londoners now immigrants or of immigrant origins there is no host culture any more and therefore nothing for newcomers to belong to. Our society here is fractured and both immigrants and natives are suffering. It is not a fate I would wish on the rest of the country.

I am sure there will be posters along in a moment to start throwing around the bigot or racist word. But this has nothing to do with race. It is about cultural cohesion - a sense of community cannot survive where there is no commonality.

I'm afraid immigration is no longer a debate about Polish airmen, it is a debate about how much of our country we are prepared to accept as being of non-British culture. In London that figure is approaching 60%. Would you be happy with this figure in York?

Lastly the massive immigration we have experienced is in large part the reason for our creaking public services. We urgently need to build more hospitals, schools and houses. But who for? And we throw our arms open to welcome the Romanians and Bulgarians in 2014. Where does this stop?

We can`t support the people who live in this country at the moment - housing and the NHS being two major areas literally unable to cope.
Immigration isn`t about racism at all, though it is implied because immigrants come from other countries. It is the same argument if an immigrant is a white person from (e.g.) Canada.
People should only be allowed in if they have a job waiting and if they have skills we are short of. The majority of the new immigrants who will enter our country come 2014 will be unskilled, and more unskilled people we do not need. Can anyone say why that is a good policy and also tell me why that is racist?

Scandaleyes and inthesticks both hit the nail on the head. In short, there are too many immigrants, which has more negative consequences than positive. The net result is that the quality of life for the rest of us is diluted, and we end up with those who have put nothing in taking away from those who have. The last Labour government's open door policy has caused massive damage. Mass immigration must stop.

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Mister Chaudhry, surgeon, I think he was of Asian descent, and his wonderful multi-coloured multi-national NHS team for their recent help. Without their help I would probably have died before Christmas but thanks to them I will hopefully have a good few years to come.

But, the 'immigration issue' discussed is not hitting York. It's in other cities. I too have been to London and been unable to get directions because those I asked who live there have no English. Have tried buying a meal in a fast food joint on the run and the counter staff got it horribly wrong because the interaction was heavily flawed on their side. My grandmother in the last stretch of dementia talked of her fear of being totally surrounded by small asians in her care home whose speech she couldn't understand.

But I've also seen a work ethic that has served me amazingly well at train stations, street workers, council employees. Working around simple language issues by mediating your own language use and you soon forget these issues and see that many have come to stay and have families and be British. If it's so worrying, why is our population only 56 million today? We're not 70 or 80 million. Whatever flaws people think of in the government system of immigration, it hasn't actually snowballed so badly as peoples worst fears envisioned and the way the country is being run I wouldn't be surprised if many immigrants left for better opportunities realising there is little work, and the cost of living is too high for what is left, leaving the locals here suddenly realising things don't actually improve, looking abroad themselves.

Payyourtax wrote:
I would just like to take this opportunity to thank Mister Chaudhry, surgeon, I think he was of Asian descent, and his wonderful multi-coloured multi-national NHS team for their recent help. Without their help I would probably have died before Christmas but thanks to them I will hopefully have a good few years to come.

Good man and well said. I wish you well in your recovery.

YSTClinguist wrote:
But, the 'immigration issue' discussed is not hitting York. It's in other cities. I too have been to London and been unable to get directions because those I asked who live there have no English. Have tried buying a meal in a fast food joint on the run and the counter staff got it horribly wrong because the interaction was heavily flawed on their side. My grandmother in the last stretch of dementia talked of her fear of being totally surrounded by small asians in her care home whose speech she couldn't understand.

But I've also seen a work ethic that has served me amazingly well at train stations, street workers, council employees. Working around simple language issues by mediating your own language use and you soon forget these issues and see that many have come to stay and have families and be British. If it's so worrying, why is our population only 56 million today? We're not 70 or 80 million. Whatever flaws people think of in the government system of immigration, it hasn't actually snowballed so badly as peoples worst fears envisioned and the way the country is being run I wouldn't be surprised if many immigrants left for better opportunities realising there is little work, and the cost of living is too high for what is left, leaving the locals here suddenly realising things don't actually improve, looking abroad themselves.

YSTClinguist says... "But, the 'immigration issue' discussed is not hitting York. It's in other cities.... If it's so worrying, why is our population only 56 million today? We're not 70 or 80 million."

How long do you think York will remain in this comfortable state of low integratable immigration? Would it begin worry you if you saw the same massive influx and ghettoisation that is happening in other cities? Will you be worried when you are in a minority and the immigrants around you are not in the slightest "British" because they have had no host culture to integrate with?

Also I think you are being naive if you think the population is actually 56m. Our supermarkets, who should know these things, estimate the population as much closer to 70m already.

If people want to embrace this future where immigrants and their families make up half or perhaps the majority of the population (as they do in London) then that is one thing. But to deny that this IS our future is hopelessly naive. London wasn't always like this, it's happened in the past 10 years. That's how fast things can change.

Also, if I may say so, the pinpointing of individuals to demonstrate "good" immigrants is an exceedingly poor argument for immigration as a whole. I think we could all equally cite "bad" immigrants who have committed crimes or done nothing but be a burden on our society. Of course there are good and bad immigrant individuals, would anyone dispute this?

These kind of anecdotes about Asian doctors and physiotherapists are of absolutely no value in a debate about the general cost of immigration to our society.

Nice to read some courteous and balanced comments, albeit with different emphasis even opinions.
It was Mr Quarrie's use of "white" English that betrayed his blatant racism

Before that silly Buda accuses me of being racist, I should like to say that I can think of a few Asian Doctors who have the perfect manners of English gentlemen and I would swap them for a shed load of white British Chaves and Chavettes any day.
Having said that, I believe the fear was that of mass immigration and bad immigration. There is no doubt there is a problem with the numbers of people allowed or even not allowed now in our country. If ever there was a 'tipping point,' this perhaps is it.
Not that many years ago, an Islamic convert told the then Home Secretary John Reid, that he was 'not welcome in a Muslim area.' (East London) Add to that the home grown Islamic terrorists (West Yorkshire) and others that hide in our State but do not share our allegiance.
I'm all for good immigration but there is a lot of rubbish landed on our shores, if not to sponge on us or swamp us then to change our identity.
This is happening in Northern Ireland from within by stealth.
We have problems and our politicians just don't see it, they will but it will be too late. Even the United Kingdom is not so United anymore.
In any case, the UK is more than full and we need to deal with that problem, not build more houses in flood plains and make it even worse all round.

YSTClinguist wrote:
But, the 'immigration issue' discussed is not hitting York. It's in other cities. I too have been to London and been unable to get directions because those I asked who live there have no English. Have tried buying a meal in a fast food joint on the run and the counter staff got it horribly wrong because the interaction was heavily flawed on their side. My grandmother in the last stretch of dementia talked of her fear of being totally surrounded by small asians in her care home whose speech she couldn't understand. But I've also seen a work ethic that has served me amazingly well at train stations, street workers, council employees. Working around simple language issues by mediating your own language use and you soon forget these issues and see that many have come to stay and have families and be British. If it's so worrying, why is our population only 56 million today? We're not 70 or 80 million. Whatever flaws people think of in the government system of immigration, it hasn't actually snowballed so badly as peoples worst fears envisioned and the way the country is being run I wouldn't be surprised if many immigrants left for better opportunities realising there is little work, and the cost of living is too high for what is left, leaving the locals here suddenly realising things don't actually improve, looking abroad themselves.

Not hitting York ?

Black/ethnic minority increased from 4.6% in 2000 to 11.4% in 2012 - that's a 180% overall increase from 8,200 to 23,000. The rest of York's population excluding black/ethnic minorities ros by only 4.95%; from 170,900 to 179,100.

i dont think there is a problem with racism in york, the national front had a small following in the late 70's one of those idiots worked behind the bar in the exhibition back in about 78 when the pub was a dive, what the loony lefties dont seem to understand is that people have a problem with the amounts of people 'flooding' into the country, just look at the latest census result, 7.5 million people in 10 years, for an island this small and with a problem with unemployment and a housing shortage, letting that amount come in was just mental, it doesnt make sense! my barber is of polish descent his dad was a polish immigrant , they have cut my hair all my life, even he was moaning about the amount of people flooding in to the country, loony labour only let them in hoping they will be eternally grateful to them and vote for them so they can stay aboard the gravy train.

Amen to that.

YSTClinguist wrote:
But, the 'immigration issue' discussed is not hitting York. It's in other cities. I too have been to London and been unable to get directions because those I asked who live there have no English. Have tried buying a meal in a fast food joint on the run and the counter staff got it horribly wrong because the interaction was heavily flawed on their side. My grandmother in the last stretch of dementia talked of her fear of being totally surrounded by small asians in her care home whose speech she couldn't understand.

But I've also seen a work ethic that has served me amazingly well at train stations, street workers, council employees. Working around simple language issues by mediating your own language use and you soon forget these issues and see that many have come to stay and have families and be British. If it's so worrying, why is our population only 56 million today? We're not 70 or 80 million. Whatever flaws people think of in the government system of immigration, it hasn't actually snowballed so badly as peoples worst fears envisioned and the way the country is being run I wouldn't be surprised if many immigrants left for better opportunities realising there is little work, and the cost of living is too high for what is left, leaving the locals here suddenly realising things don't actually improve, looking abroad themselves.

Stop all benefits to immigrants until they have paid into the system for 5 years and see how many come then,I'll bet not as many as now,if we did this we would still get the quality of immigrants who want to come here and work not the ones who don't

Amen to that too !