Too-generous Britain sinking under the weight of world’s lazy honey bees.

By Peter Bills

Article from:   New Zealand Herald

February 19, 2011

Don the explosive-proof clothing, put on the hard hat. For here is a stroll into a minefield. It is a topic that arouses just about every emotion known to mankind _ hatred, sympathy, jealousy, caring … you name it, chances are it applies.

It is an issue of growing relevance throughout Europe. As economic times become increasingly harsh, the spotlight in many countries is focusing on immigrants and their place in society.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel addressed the topic in brutally frank terms last October when she made a speech freely conceding that “multi-culturism has failed utterly.”

Merkel said it was an illusion to think that Germans and foreign workers could live happily side by side. She said “We kidded ourselves for a while that they wouldn’t stay, but that is not the reality.

“The tendency had been to say, let’s adopt the multi-cultural concept and live happily side by side and be happy to be living with each other. But this concept has failed, and failed utterly.”

About 3.5 million people of Turkish origin alone live in Germany today.

In Italy, the Government last week asked the European Union for help in tackling what it called a potential “immigration emergency” _ the increasing number of boatloads of illegal immigrants heading for the country’s elongated shorelines from Tunisia, where the recent revolution has sparked huge uncertainty.

In the UK, immigration is a topic that has invoked increasing debate, although attitudes have moved on from the days of the 1950s when landladies in Birmingham put up signs in their windows with the firm stipulation `No blacks, dogs or Irish’.

Yet UK immigration figures tell of significant shifting perspectives regarding the population. In 1939, for example, when Britain still had an Empire, the Indian population of Birmingham totalled 100.

By 1991, 52 years later, the Indian population alone in the city had risen to almost 850,000, plus about 476,000 Pakistanis and 162,000 from Bangladesh. Today, more than a million Indians are living in Birmingham.

Whatever your views on this thorny issue, some facts are undeniable and disturbing.

In 2009, for example, almost 25 per cent of children born in England and Wales were from women born abroad.

In one London borough, Newham in the East End, 75.5 per cent of all births were to immigrant mothers.

Policing the numbers appears to have become impossible. A record number of people became British citizens last year and the number of migrants allowed to settle indefinitely in the country rose almost a third.

In 1997, 37,000 were allowed entry; last year, 203,000 applied successfully to stay. The number of immigrants living in the UK recently rose 20 per cent in one 12 month period.

Today, official figures show that between 4.6 and 5 million people from minority ethnic groups live in the UK.

Yet how accurate are those figures? How many illegal immigrants have slipped into the UK through its notoriously porous borders.

Estimates suggest up to 600,000 people could be living illegally in Britain. But no-one knows for sure.

All this is not intended as a statement of condemnation. A study by researchers at University College London last year showed that EU migrants made a major contribution to the UK economy, paying 37 per cent more in taxes than they received in welfare payments.

Yet other figures would have us believe that 75 per cent of immigrants were claiming welfare benefits within six months of their arrival.

Some of that may well be true. How else to explain that would-be illegal immigrants from as far afield as the Ukraine, Iraq and even Afghanistan cross countless borders where apparently a far higher quality of life can be enjoyed, in their desperation to reach Britain?

A land of too many free hand-outs has attracted the lazy honey bees of the world to gorge themselves.

Immigration, the movement of peoples, has been one of the underlying traits of mankind. Its modern day version may be altogether more structured but similar principles apply.

Yet in a world where population numbers continue to explode, the march towards the richer countries of Europe has become something more akin to a human tsunami.

This movement now threatens the inherent quality of life in those countries. So many people have made Britain their home in recent decades that England is now the most over-crowded of the 27 nations of the European Community. By next year, it will have 402 people for every square kilometre of its terrain.

This is more than four times the density of population of France, a country five times bigger than Britain but with an almost identical population, about 60 million.

Equally undeniably, this has put enormous strain on the country’s basic services and resources. It has also given the extremists fodder to exploit for their own purposes.

It seems obvious that European nations will soon have to declare that enough is enough. But with the free movement of people in the EU enshrined in law, saying that will be a lot easier than achieving it.