By Prasun Sonwalkar, IANS
London : The ever-lurking issue of immigration has once again occupied the centrestage of British public life with several groaning councils seeking more funds to deal with large-scale migration predominantly from the enlarged European Union.
Much to the glee of the Conservative Party, the Gordon Brown government squirmed this week as it announced figures of foreign workers, then apologised that the figures were wrong, announced a new set of figures, and revised them again – all within days of each other.
The Brown government has promised to further tighten immigration rules for people outside the EU such as India from early 2008. The new measures include an Australia-style points system, compulsory knowledge of English and closer counting of people coming in and going out of the country.
Amidst the cut and thrust of politics over immigration, the Local Government Association (LGA), which promotes the interests of over 400 councils in England and Wales, demanded 250 million pounds as emergency relief to cope with the pressure on public services due to the ‘significant influx of migrants’.
An LGA report claims that official population statistics seriously underestimate the number of immigrants. In some rural areas, such as Boston, Lincolnshire, the number of migrant workers is nine times the number cited in official statistics, it says.
The groups considered responsible for the extra pressure on public services are mainly those migrating to Britain from the new member-countries of the EU, such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Lithuania.
There are public declarations about the benefit to the British economy from immigration. Figures of contribution by foreign-origin workers (from EU as well as outside EU) are said to be in the range of 40-60 billion pounds annually.
But, at the same time, people inside and outside government have expressed much concern over the problems that migration is causing in several parts of the country. The migration from the enlarged EU is considered one of the largest in Britain’s recent history.
Several police forces have approached London to sanction extra funds to deal with crime involving the new migrants, who need translators to communicate. For example, the West Midlands Police alone spent 10 million pounds on translators for foreign criminals since 2000.
In the report titled Estimating the Scale and the Impacts of Migration at the Local Level, the LGA said public services in some parts of the country were coming under strain without sufficient funding to deal with a significant influx of migrants.
Simon Milton, chairperson of the LGA, said: “The problem is that the money that is being generated (by migrant labour) isn’t necessarily finding its way back down to the local level. Official statistics on how many migrants are coming and where they are going are inadequate.
“No one has a real grasp of where or for how long migrants are settling so much needed funding for local services isn’t getting to the right places. The speed and scale of migration combined with the shortcomings of official population figures is placing pressure on funding for services like children’s services and housing. This can even lead to unnecessary tension and conflict.”
Conservative leader David Cameron Thursday accused Gordon Brown of “treating people like fools” over immigration, and called for an “overall limit” on migrants entering Britain. He said the government was “incompetent” at managing immigration.
Cameron found unlikely support from Trevor Phillips, the Labour-appointed chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, who backed Cameron’s call to embark on a grown up debate about immigration.
Phillips said in Birmingham Thursday: “For the first time in my adult life I heard a party leader clearly attempting to deracialise the issue of immigration and to treat it like any other question of political and economic management.
“And given that Mr Cameron is speaking against a background in which his party’s policy inheritance is defined by Howard, Hague, Thatcher and Powell, this seems to me like a turning point in our national debate about immigration – one that will make it possible for us to speak openly and sensibly about the subject, which most of the country sees as the single most important in politics.”