Cornelius
5 Sep 2006 / #151
Since these 4 years my impression is that England is getting more and more crowdy. It is not only polish it is emigration in general. When I go to town on saturday morning I struggle to hear english language on the street. I could believe that English people can feel sometimes intimidated in their own country.
I wouldn't say intimidated, but sometimes a little outnumbered and when you are in your native country its a strange feeling!! Its also frustrating sometimes, I got irritated the other day cos I was in a supermarket and had to talk to five different people before I found someone who could speak English. The other thing is that the country has changed so dramatically since it became so diverse, unfortunately, in many ways for the worse. A "community" is a rare thing to find these days in England and its sad to see, it was a different world on this island when i was a lad. With the introduction of so many different cultures and so many people who do not see England as home has come a failure to recognise "shared values" that hold our communities and society together. I am not a professor in sociology and haven't access to sufficient research material to say whether this is primarily due to immigration or not. I can see how people make the link between the two however as both immigration (without adequate integration, as immigration itself is a GOOD thing) and social degradation have both gathered pace over the last ten years.
I want to stress that I am not against immigration, I am in favour of managed immigration and implementation of comprehensive integration strategies, which is common sense and something most immigrants would agree with. My wife is an immigrant and does nothing but contribute to this country and has more place here than a born and bred Englishman who claims the dole!!!
But as your government opened borders..... I also understand polish people lots of them will come back no doubts about it. Most of my friends have good jobs in Poland and they come here only on holidays. But I can understand people who lost jobs, young people who just started life that they are attracted to England as it is still easy to find work and value if pound is high. It is main attarction economical stability and value of money.
Its Tony Bliars fault, if there was a clear control and strategy for management of EU accession then people would be able to look upon it as something other than a door being thrown open to a call of "come one, come all!". The massive numbers and total lack of control is what is providing so much fuel for discomfort and objection amongst the English.
Its totally understandable for Polish people to want to come here. If England had such a high level of unemployment Poland would be full of us by now!! Polish people are doing what any of us would do in the came circumstances.
