I got a UKIP leaflet through my letterbox this morning. On it, it states that "UKIP would reduce net immigration to zero".
This has a potential problem. As Britain's population ages, there are less people able to contribute to society through work. Reducing immigration would only worsen the dependency problem we are soon going to have.
Some other points. It's often claimed that immigrants are taking British jobs. In fact, they tend to do the jobs that British people don't want to do. And all of them contribute to a society in some way.
People come to Britain because we speak English as a national language. It's not like German or French is taught in schools in Romania, par exemple.
There's a nasty racist undertone to the whole anti-immigration business. UKIP, consciously or not, are playing on people's fears of their jobs being taken by foreign workers, who will (they claim) drive down wages. That's not an argument for reducing immigration, that's an argument for increasing the minimum wage.
As regards to multicultralism, what's wrong with it? We should celebrate diversity, not force people to give up their culture. If their practices are too far off mainstream or violate human rights, then there's an argument for banning them, but not for the sake of it. By the way, I do think that some anti-offensive measures are a bit silly.
Just out of curiousity, how would all those planning to retire to Spain react if Spain banned immigration from Britain?
I'll disable comments on this one.
