Daniel_

I guess it's about time someone British posts here...

Do you see immigration issues in Britain?

There are some, but from my perspective (I live in the most crowded and therefore most expensive part of the UK) so we don't get huge communities of monoculture. There are places in the country where a single population of immigrants has established a ghetto (stereotypically it's "Indians in Bradford" for example) but this has ALWAYS been the case, and we've ALWAYS integrated in a few generations and moved on, stronger for it.

Put in a historical context, this nation is based on so many waves of immigration I can't count them - we've had Celts, Angles, Saxons, Romans, and Danes in the millennium up to the 10th century, Norman French in the 11th, Jews in the 12th, French, Dutch, Germans, Huguenots, Italians, Spanish, between the 13th and 17th, Africans and Caribbean in the 18th, Chinese and Indians in the 19th and Jews again in the 20th.

As the Empire gave way to the Commonwealth we had waves of Colonial repatriation and economic migrants - Indians escaping problems in Uganda, or Indians and Pakistanis escaping problems of Partition. We've had Nigerians escaping the Biafran war, Vietnamese, Lao and Cambodians escaping the USAF and ARVN, we've had Eastern Europeans escaping economic deprivation as the Soviet Union and it's block collapsed, we've had Yugoslavian escaping the civil wars there.

And every time, we've assimilated and moved on.

Compared to the US we're desirable because we treat sick people free too.

Great Britain has assimilated more cultures than the Borg!

How do they compare to those in mainland Europe?

As the 6th largest economy in the world (after USA, Japan, China, Germany and France), and the third most crowded (after Japan and Netherlands), and widely seen as politically more stable than almost anywhere else in the world, we are a desirable destination. Add to that the fact that we are home to the language that is most commonly spoken in most of the world as a first or second language, and the HUGE proportion of the world that has been taught for generations that England is the motherland and you find that many people come here.

With the Shengen agreement that grants free passage throughout the EU, anyone who can get through the porous borders of Eastern Europe and Southern Europe can get here very easily - America might seem better, but the Atlantic and Pacific make just arriving here simpler.

The remainder of the EU has less of an issue as they had smaller Empires and fewer countries speak their languages - France has a large north African immigrant population, and Germany has many Turkish migrants given the Hapsburg/Ottoman ties, but we have the whole world thanks to the Empire and Hollywood.

Will the recent influx into Britain change its place in the world economy?

Personally, I think that it helps us. Look at it demographically - we have an ageing population, but are making up the shortfall by importing young workers in the prime of their working lives, but many of them hope to take their money home and retire overseas before drawing a British pension. While they're here, they pay our UK taxes and support our schools, hospitals, infrastructure and pensions.

How have you seen immigration change policy?

It's interesting - the influx of young families at a time when our own birth rates were expected to drop have caused a re-focus on school building, maternity services and so on that were not originally expected.

As many immigrant populations are poor they can become an underclass, and there are issues relating to criminal activity increasing in areas with many migrants, but these tend to be transient - living through them is shitty, but when it's over, you tend to find that the migrant ghettos are more productive than the "native" population - what's very interesting is that there are people here now who call themselves "native" because they were born here and live here and they resent immigrants coming into their areas; but these people are themselves descended from immigrants who came here themselves only in the last 40 years.

Put simply, each wave of migration resents the next. Counting only from the 1950s, you have Caribbean followed by East Asians, followed by Eastern Europeans; each viewed the next with suspicion as not being here for the right reasons. I find this hilarious.

What political parties are favored by those who support immigration?

There is no major party that proposes open borders. The three main parties propose variants of the points based system that is already in place in Australia and Canada, but only the Liberal Democrats are doing anything NEW to my mind - they propose that a work permit restrict the parts of the country you can work in - the aim being to prevent ghettos forming, but not close the doors to skilled workers.

The electoral system we have makes it very hard for the Lib Dems to gain power, but with the polls as they are, they could well be the second party in a coalition by the end of the week after next, and this is an issue that could well be key in the horsetrading that goes on.

How does one gain British citizenship, anyway?

Work permit --> Permission to remain indefinitely --> application to become a citizen --> exam proving you speak english and know our culture --> citizenship

There are options to do this in a few years if you are already an EU citizen, or are married to a UK national.

There is a half-way house that we are unique in having too - if you were born in a former part of the Empire WHILE IT WAS STILL IN THE EMPIRE you can have a passport, but you are not a citizen - however if you satisfy this rule becoming a citizen is a little easier.

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Overhead, the Albatross hangs motionless upon the air,
And deep beneath the rolling waves,
In labyrinths of Coral Caves,
The Echo of a distant time
Comes willowing across the sand;
And everthing is Green and Submarine
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