IMMIGRATION

Below is an item from the Telegraph. The emphasis in italics is the English Rights Campaign emphasis and demonstrates the phoney nature of the Liberal Democrat/Tory coalition's concerns about, and supposed intention to end, mass immigration:

Immigration cap loophole sees massive surge

The Government's cap on immigration is being undermined by a surge in foreign workers who are exempt from new visa rules, official figures have shown.
Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary Theresa May walk through Terminal 5 during a visit to UK Border Agency staff at Heathrow Airport Photo: RUEUTERS
By David Barrett, Home Affairs Correspondent 9:00PM GMT 27 Nov 2010

Home Office statistics reveal that the number of foreigners arriving on "intra company transfers" (ICTs), which do not count towards the cap total, rose sharply following the Coalition's announcement of an interim cap in mid-July.

There were 30 per cent more ICTs handed out in between July and September this year than in the same period last year.

Experts said the increase showed that companies were to continuing to import cheap labour despite the Government's clampdown, and warned that numbers would continue to rise even after a permanent cap on migrant numbers comes into force next April.

Peter Skyte, of the trade union Unite, said: "It is a massive loophole. Our prediction has always been that the immigration cap would be all smoke and mirrors."

The ICT scheme allows firms to bring non-EU nationals who are already on their payroll into the UK. It is widely used in the IT industry.

One Indian company alone, Tata Consultancy Services, sponsored 4,600 employees to come to Britain in 2008; another, Infosys Technologies Limited, sponsored 3,235 in the same year.

Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has said she will fulfil a Tory manifesto pledge by capping the "skilled worker" routes at 21,700 a year, but she agreed to exempt ICTs from the new restrictions following pressure from business leaders and Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary.

In the third quarter of this year, as the Home Office was restricting other immigration routes, more than 8,000 foreigners came to work in the UK under ICTs - up from 6,000 in the same period last year.

If the current ICT rate is sustained, more than 32,000 immigrants would arrive under the route each year, meaning the true number of migrant workers would be about 54,000 a year when capped routes and ICTs are added together.

Mr Skyte said Unite feared there were significant loopholes in limits imposed on ICTs by the Home Secretary last week.

Under the terms of the permanent cap, ICT workers earning between £24,000 and £40,000 a year will only allowed to remain in Britain for 12 months.

Mr Skyte said: "We think companies will simply transfer lower-paid staff for 11 months and three weeks, for example, and then they will be sent home for a few weeks and re-apply under a new ICT.

"There doesn't seem to be anything in the rules to stop it.

"In other words, the number of people coming on ICTs could actually rise.

"The Home Office has also failed to take the chance to prevent companies counting allowances for things like accommodation as part of their gross pay, and it looks like some employers have sought to make as much use of the route as possible while current rules are in place.

"The Government's announcement has squandered a golden opportunity to tackle abuse and misuse of ICTs."

Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the pressure group MigrationWatch, said: "There is clearly a build-up of ICT applications this year.

"While it is essential that staff who are seriously needed can get into Britain, this route will have to be watched very closely to avoid it becoming a loophole in the whole system of economic migration."

On the possibility of workers exploiting the 12-month ICT rule, he said: "We have yet to see the details of this scheme but if it allows people permitted to come for a year to go home for a few weeks and return then it will rapidly become absurd."

One British worker, who declined to be named but is employed in IT by a well-known bank, said: "Employers will find plenty of ways to abuse the system.

"Where I work now there are British workers being made redundant and at the same time ICTs are being brought in to replace them. The Government's measures have had no effect whatsoever."

Another IT worker said: "Sadly the IT business in this country is doomed, primarily because they have printed ICTs and other visas like confetti."

Damian Green, the immigration minister, said: "The new immigration limit clearly sets out which workers we will allow into the UK job market.

"It has been drawn up following extensive consultation with businesses and reflects their views. But our view is clear: we need employers to look first to those who are out of work and already live in this country.

"The limit will allow us to protect those businesses which are vital to our economy, allowing them to attract the best and the brightest, but more importantly it will bring immigration down to sustainable levels."

In the whole of last year there were 22,030 ICTs but in just the first nine months of this year the figure had already reached 22,520.

The quarterly total of ICTs has crept up incrementally since the beginning of last year, when there were 4,355 applications between January and March.

In comparison, in 1992 there were just 7,000 ICTs handed out during the whole year.

THE EU

GET BRITAIN OUT OF EUROPE


Those on board the European gravy train have mounted one power grab after another
Thursday November 25,2010
By The Daily Express

THE Daily Express today becomes the first national newspaper to call for Britain to leave the European Union.

From this day forth our energies will be directed to furthering the cause of those who believe Britain is Better Off Out. The famous and symbolic Crusader who adorns our masthead will become the figurehead of the struggle to repatriate British sovereignty from a political project that has comprehensively failed.
After far too many years as the victims of Brussels larceny, bullying, over-regulation and all-round interference, the time has come for the British people to win back their country and restore legitimacy and accountability to their political process.
Following the debacle of the Lisbon Treaty – disgracefully imposed upon the public without the referendum they were promised by the three main political parties – many had expected matters European to take a lower profile in British politics.


But the opposite has been true as those on board the European gravy train have mounted one power grab after another.
At a time of austerity throughout Europe they have expanded their bloated budgets, pushing Britain’s disproportionate contributions even higher.
And despite not being part of the failing eurozone, British taxpayers have learned that under Brussels rules agreed to by Labour after it had lost the election they are liable to help bail out economies wrecked by the single currency.
A payment of up to £10billion for Ireland is apparently just the start, with speculators now starting to target the embattled economy of Portugal.

Despite unemployment across Europe averaging more than 10 per cent, Brussels continues to propose new job-destroying regulations and conspire to turn the whole EU into a zone of high taxation.
It is also seeking to take an ever more dominant role in border control issues, leaving its member states powerless to control migrant flows not only from other EU countries but from Asia and Africa too.
The European Court of Human Rights has continued to trample on British justice, preventing the deportation of terror suspects and demanding that convicted prisoners are given the vote.
Withdrawal from the EU should be accompanied by a withdrawal from the jurisdiction of this alien, pan-European tribunal so that matters of British justice are decided once again in British courts.
Ever since the British people were bounced into ratifying membership of the Common Market in 1975, after the political class had taken us in with no direct mandate, that institution has been stealing our rights to self-determination, remodelling itself in turn as the European Economic Community, the European Community and lately as the European Union.

Upon a wafer-thin permission for economic cooperation has been built a blueprint for the United States of Europe.
Almost nothing the EU has proposed or enacted has benefited Britain – our trawler fleet has been devastated by the Common Fisheries Policy while our taxpayers have found themselves massively subsidising inefficient French and Polish farmers under the Common Agricultural Policy.
The European Exchange Rate Mechanism – the forerunner to the single currency – caused a deep recession in Britain that was only ended by the removal of Sterling from its deadening grip.
This newspaper has always been hostile to the dilution of national sovereignty that EU membership entailed, but it has also always acknowledged that economic arguments were key. So long as there was a case to be made that leaving the EU would risk jobs and investment in Britain there was a powerful brake on thoughts of leaving altogether.
But since the ERM disaster 20 years ago that economic case has utterly collapsed.
We were told that staying out of the eurozone would be a financial disaster yet it is now clear beyond doubt that the opposite was true.
Joining it would have been catastrophic, removing Britain’s ability to vary its interest and exchange rates to suit economic circumstances and plunging us into a depression. The past two decades of European integration have turned mainland Europe’s economies from some of the world’s industrial powerhouses into also-rans, stuck in the global slow lane.

DEBATE: SHOULD BRITAIN WITHDRAW FROM THE EU?
Only Germany has prospered in the euro – thanks to the single currency locking its neighbours into exchange rates at which they are unable to compete.
And now the price of belonging to the EU, in terms of surrendered sovereignty, is to be further raised with countries like Ireland effectively having their public spending and borrowing decisions made by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt rather than by their electorates.
While the EU has spread economic sclerosis through its member states the two richest countries in Europe have remained outside: Norway and Switzerland have stayed as the lynch-pins of the European Free Trade Area – able to import from and export to the EU freely without being subjected to its federalist ambitions.
Were Britain to break free of Brussels there is no doubt that such a happy status would be open to us.
A s a heavy net importer from the EU we are simply too important a market for the EU nations to risk cutting their ties with us.
Taking Britain out of the EU should not be seen as a move to “Little Englandism”. On the contrary, ours is a great trading nation with markets all over the world.
The time has come to develop our neglected trading links with the new global powerhouses such as China and India.
The creation of the EU is explained by the perfectly understandable desire to avoid further conflict on a continent that had been the scene of two world wars.
But Britain is a land apart: A precious stone set in the silver sea, as Shakespeare so evocatively put it; a realm with a glorious island story stretching back a thousand years, with links to every continent and a language taken up throughout the world.
Our political class bought into the European experiment after losing confidence in our nation and accepting the inevitability of decline.
They viewed Europe as a life raft and clambered on board. The British people never took that view.
Now it is Europe that is in decline and Britain that is being held back. It is time to break free.


JOIN OUR CRUSADE TO PULL BRITAIN OUT OF THE EU


Join our crusade to pull Britain out of the EU
Thursday November 25,2010
By Macer Hall, Political Editor

A HUGE groundswell of support was last night gathering behind the Daily Express crusade for Britain to quit the European Union.
Senior MPs, peers and campaign groups acclaimed this newspaper’s stand against the sprawling Brussels super-state as a turning point in the battle to win back Britain’s independence.
And Eurosceptic critics of UK membership said the growing financial crisis among the euro nations this week – threatening to cost British taxpayers billions of pounds – has overwhelmingly confirmed the case for British withdrawal.
Philip Davies, Conservative MP for Shipley and a founding member of the Better Off Out group of MPs and peers, led the praise for our crusade last night.
He said: “I think it’s fantastic that the Daily Express sees such a positive future for our country. Britain should be developing trade with China, India, South American and emerging countries in Africa rather than being part of an inward-looking, backward-looking protection racket designed to prop up inefficient European businesses and French farmers.

“As a nation built on trade, we should be ashamed to be members of the EU. It is a major breakthrough for a national newspaper to support the case for British withdrawal.
“The Daily Express and the rest of public opinion are way ahead of a lot of politicians.”
The spiralling cost of Britain’s EU membership – expected to exceed £6billion in net contributions alone next year – was last night being cited as a clear-cut reason for Britain to walk away from the discredited European club.

And the warning earlier this week that UK taxpayers may have to pour billions of pounds more into saving failing euro economies like Greece and Portugal after the Government’s decision to lend £7billion to debt-laden Ireland was understood to be hardening public opinion in favour of withdrawal.

DEBATE: SHOULD BRITAIN WITHDRAW FROM THE EU?
But opponents of European Union are also angry about the threat to Britain’s democracy by meddling Brussels bureaucracy.
Critics claim Britain’s Government has lost control of immigration due to freedom of movement laws for EU citizens.
And the country’s law and order – and basic common sense – are being undermined by the European Convention on Human Rights, which all EU states are obliged to sign up to.
Nigel Farage, Euro-MP and leader of the UK Independence Party, said: “I am delighted to support the Daily Express in its new crusade to liberate our country from the clutches of the European Union. It follows in a fine tradition in which your newspaper has fought for Britain’s liberty.
“I am convinced that the vast majority of ordinary men and women of this country will support your crusade. It will no doubt make the political establishment very uncomfortable. Good, so it should.”
Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton and a leading critic of the EU at Westminster, said: “There are millions of people across the country who will be right behind this crusade.
“This is a watershed. For the first time, a popular, mainstream newspaper has said we should get out of the EU. It is a significant moment.
“It shows that supporting British withdrawal from the EU is not the preserve of a minority sect but has become part of mainstream opinion. When my grandparents’ generation was locked into the EU, they were told it was about the economy.
“But our priority today should be trade with the world, not just the member states of the EU.”
Lord Stoddart of Swindon, an Independent Labour peer who began campaigning against the Common Market in 1962, also welcomed the Daily Express crusade.
“We should never have joined in the first place. It is extremely expensive, and becoming more expensive all the time,” he said.
“What we should be doing is rebuilding the Commonwealth and going out to build trade with emerging economies like China, India and Brazil. That is where the future for a good, independent country lies. We are, ratchet by ratchet, losing our sovereignty.
“Our Parliament loses power every time an agreement is made. The EU is an undemocratic and dangerous construct.”
Leading Eurosceptic campaign groups were last night swinging behind the Daily Express crusade.
James Pryor, chief executive of the EU Referendum Campaign, said: “When Britain is broke, can we really afford to send £48million a day to Brussels? Around 70 per cent of our laws are now made in Brussels and that is just not democratic.
“The financial crisis over the last 10 days has really woken people up to the scandal of the EU.”


EUROPEAN UNION: COSTS ARE FIVE TIMES THE BENEFITS


European Union: Worst of all is the cost of red tape
Thursday November 25,2010
By Daniel Hannan, Conservative Euro MP for South-East England

HERE’S a nasty coincidence. All the welfare cuts put together will save £7billion: precisely Britain’s share of the Irish bail-out.
In other words, every penny we save from these painful benefits reductions will go to prop up the euro.
That £7billion is in addition to the £14billion which we pay into the EU budget every year: a budget that keeps rising.

Britain’s share of the increase for next year – not our share of the budget, our share of the increase – will be £435million: enough to pay for 12,000 nurses, 15,000 police officers or 22,000 Army privates.
But our direct contributions are only part, and not the most important part, of the overall costs of the EU.
The Common Agricultural Policy hurts our farmers and costs every household an extra £1,200 a year in higher taxes and higher food bills. The Common Fisheries Policy has wiped out what ought to have been a great renewable resource off our coasts.
Worst of all is the cost of red tape. Here, I can do no better than to quote a survey by the most recent internal market commissioner, Gunter Verheugen. He found that the cost of regulation in the EU was 600billion euros a year. On the European Commission’s own figures, the advantages of the single market are worth only 120billion euros a year.
In other words, Eurocrats themselves admit that the costs of the EU outweigh the benefits by five to one.
What about commerce? We are often told that half of Britain’s trade is with the EU. True, but look at the balance of that trade. For most of the period of our membership, we have run a healthy surplus with the rest of the world but a deficit with Europe. Top of Form
Bottom of Form
Since the financial crisis hit, we have run a small overall deficit on the non-EU share of our trade, too. Even so, our deficit with the EU last year was £14.4billion, as against just £1.1billion for the rest of the world.
Those figures are the answer to those who say that, if we left, our exports would suffer.
The other members benefit far more from cross-Channel commerce than we do. In any negotiation, the customer generally has the last word over the salesman.
In any case, we don’t need to be part of the EU’s political structures to be part of the single market.
Norway and Switzerland both sell around twice as much per head to the EU as we do.
They participate fully in the freedoms of the European market but are outside the CAP and CFP, police their own borders, settle their own human rights issues, trade freely with non-EU countries, and make only token contributions to the EU budget.
Oh, and unlike EU members, they pass the majority of their own laws.
Norway and Switzerland are thriving as independent states. So could Britain.


Join the campaign at www.express.co.uk/web/europecrusade

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

Front page of the Irish Daily Star, 24 November 2010, in response to the Irish government's agreement to ask for an EU bailout.