Immigration: Call for a grown-up debate

There is a traditional mistrust by the BME community on the approach to immigration from the Conservative Party. David Cameron appears to have made an honest speech about the current state of immigration in the UK. Since 1997 it is estimated that immigration has increased by 2.5 million.  Is it perhaps time for an open debate about immigration? Writes Keima Allen.

In David Cameron’s view economic migrants come to the UK because there are jobs available otherwise a number of them would have returned home.
 
Controlling immigration from inside the EU to the UK is not possible as the UK is a member state. The course David Cameron is advocating is to put a limit on those coming from outside the EU. Vince Cable has accused David Cameron of playing politics and that his speech would provoke extremism, in my view this does not appear to be the case.
 
David Cameron has rightly pointed out that the welfare system has encouraged people not to work. Thus encouraging the view that immigrants are taking up the jobs that people in the UK would not do. Now that the government has taken the lowest paid workers out of paying taxes it would make it more appealing for people to find work rather than relying on welfare.
 
Further it’s about time that the mainstream parties were bold enough to address the issue of immigration and not leave it to extremist parties to cause mischief.
 
David Cameron touched on clamping down on bogus colleges and sham marriages in his speech. David Cameron showed leadership and was bold enough to tackle the difficult and sensitive issue without being fearful of being attacked by the left. Bogus colleges do more harm than good by encouraging students to come to the UK on false pretence knowing they would not get a decent education.
 
David Cameron plans to introduce an entrepreneurial visa for people who want to come to the UK to start up a business. This is an encouraging proposal as it rebalances the view that tend to persist that immigrants should only come to the UK to find work rather than creating jobs. In these tough economic times we need many entrepreneurs to expand the economy. In my view, this is a step in the right direction by David Cameron.
 
The difficulty with the speech however is that most of the economic migrants to the UK, comes from the EU and there has already been a gradual decline in the number of migrants from the developing world as students wanting to come to the UK from that part of the world are already finding it difficult.
 
Furthermore, controlling immigration, though a difficult task, risk restricting people with genuine reason to come to the UK from outside the EU. Overall the speech laid a foundation for a proper dialogue on immigration to begin.

Keima Allen (pictured) stood as a Local Councillor Candidate for Abbey Wood and a member of Facilitators For a Better Jamaica.