tv Inside Story Al Jazeera May 28, 2023 2:30pm-3:01pm AST
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india also for care, less state as well around coaching. you'll max out at 33 degrees and in august on i think some hill storms will light up here through punjab providence. same providence. k p. k. it's been cold enough for snow on the mountain tops there. and that that's whether that was in southern jordan now sliding into northwest saudi arabia. so this is going to impact the popular tourist spot of our lot on monday. lot of rain in the forecast for you the discover, the world of difference determination. i am telling you that we need to we, i'm listening freedom shot. so this is 16 people, corruption, compassion outages. 0 was a selection of the best films from across our network of chapman's.
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the migration to britain is that breaking levels. this 5 consecutive party pledges to cottage labor has criticized the government for failing to do so. so what's behind these immigration policies and what's their impact on people seeking to stay in the u. k. this is inside story, the hello and welcome to the program. i'm fairly bad people. immigration is a central theme in british politics with the current conservative government taking a hard line against people seeking to come and stay in the country. one minister has described the u. k. s facing and invasion comments widely, criticized by rights organizations. government policies include proposals to
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process assign him seek is applications in wanda, the opposition labor party says it to wants to reduce the number of arrival spots with different plans. yet, despite the negative political climate numbers release this week, show integration is at record levels. with a net influx of more than 600000 people will be discussing this with, i guess in just a few minutes. but 1st, this report from alexi o'brien on why there's such political opposition to immigration in britain. the u. k has had a long line of governments which promised to bring down mid migration of this country needs a majority. conservative government, which really aims to get that migration into the 10s of thousands. and that should remain our official. it is mike, but we want to bring that migration to sustainable levels. what we want to do is bad down on a migration, particularly a skilled workers now and now the government, which pledge to reduce numbers is facing a different reality last year. so a re,
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quote hi, nick, migration of $606000.00, facing a backlash from his own conservative and pays. prime minister richie sooner consisted those numbers will come down. numbers the 200. it's as simple as that, and i want to bring them down. study related fees is accounted for $306000.00 arrivals. the largest source of migration work related fees is sold. the most dramatic increase mostly attributes to filling shortages in the health care sector . the war and ukraine and badges crack down in hong kong. also prompted an optic and humanitarian phases being issued, but they are the make up one 5th of the total number. experts say several unprecedented world events happening at once having an impact. despite these numbers, burson is facing labor shortages and several crucial sect is partially driven by an exodus of nationals of the brakes. it become a set of choices here,
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being based on this, on the market, the education sector, and other parts of the day for me to bring people into. what about this idea that we should also at the same time reduce the overall level of that migration. so fits into this kind of bias. johnson i knew everybody is of here says i need to get but the u. k. government insists it will cops, nit migration to leave pressures on housing and public services. this week it announced new rules bothering most overseas students from bringing the dependence with them. but summer questioning this policy, given the government's desire to economic growth, the way in which the economy is currently shaping given the recession, we just naturally avoid this. given the highlights, replace them with a given that was losing a lot of the migration following breakfast. i really don't see how the government could really bring down those numbers and keep the economy at a stable level where it's aiming for good. despite sticking to the idea of reducing migration, reminisced as soon as it has for now shied away from commissioning to any specific
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numbers, alexia brian, for inside story. while in britain, there's much media and political focus on people arriving on small boats and by irregular roads. and figures release this week, the office for national statistics estimates that's 76000 asylum seekers. arrived in the u. k. last year. but they make up just 12.5 percent of those seeking to stay long term the as well as spring in august. now, all of whom are in the united kingdom in london is krista ross in china. the u. k. chief of mission for the international organization for migration, enroll kingsbury fees a career sheet, the ceo of migrants rights network, a charity that supports migrants in the fight for justice. and also in london, peter gig and editor in chief of up and democracy and independent use website and
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best selling author of democracy for sale. and welcome to all of you. thank you for joining us on inside story krista, let me start with you for 13 years, a tories of promise to cut integration numbers, but you have 600000 more people arriving in the u. k. last year. help us understand these numbers 1st and what are the driving factors behind this increase? yes, it's really important to look at the numbers carefully because a big number can easily be misunderstood. and what we actually see is that most of the increase last year has been caused by a very specific one off events altogether. so it's the one ukraine where people are flights and arrived in the u. k. unrest and hong kong has met meant that some british nationals have come and it was, we've seen a lot of foreign students return off to the pandemic. but equivalent to of the, the, the numbers of, of the 600 over 600 thousands. all actually people who are coming to feel very important skills gaps,
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mostly in the health care sector. so what we see from these figures is that it's most the regular and we'll do the migration which can also be forgotten in the headlines, right? so where it is a $600000.00 figure come from what can you split it into e, you and non e u migration. a lot of it is, is known as you. and what we see is that, i'm sorry, another thing i think that that's quite important to note is that in the last 6 months, the numbers haven't actually increased. but the increase that we seeing between the last really is 6 months ago. and this one is that the asylum seekers are not also included and there are actually very small part about $70000.00 only. so about a quarter of the figure of the 600 thousands is people who are joining through a scale of labor roots move the old on a human to nationals. because since breakfast is what we've seen, that it's in their boots, the premium scope, labor from across the globe. right. and i do want to come back to break. so chris
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and ask you about the changes we've seen since breaks it. but let me come to you face and ask your thoughts about these net migration figures and why there's such political hostility in the u. k towards immigration. um, i kinda wish i could onto that question in terms of why the hosted etc. but i, i would suggest it is probably because it always needs to be a skate, goes around on the policy side of things, and the k destruction from what is happening at the moment, which is a kind of under resource public services. because the cost of living crisis, we call a $70.00, which is impacting people. i mean, we would say that that migration think there's an alarming, it's not a concern. we're, we, we should be really please that the you, k is a destination for people who wanted to make it at home. want to help it prospect build, you know, build a less skills or, or should i skills with us and just,
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but it seems to be a very unhealthy obsession with numbers and it started, as you mentioned, breaks it. it's then moved on to small by crossing it's now focusing on international students. it's just, it's an opportunity to figure out that everyone, the government tends to focus on, on. and the ends up dehumanizing it on the valuing the people. and it talks about people as disposable numbers and commodities rather than as individuals who will bring, you know, then selves and, and, and all they offer to the case. peter, let me ask you why the government is focusing on this. why make integration such a key issue? when the 2022 figures were in negatively going to be high because of, as a krista mentioned because of reset them and schemes for ukraine and hong kong, for example in somebody's there's a curious thing because you have a government that had previously to the conservative governments just to remind you of you has been in power now in the united kingdom for 13 years. at 500 years to
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start from kotis and the last day of the minnesota party. over 10 years ago, the dan british prime minister david cameron, said he was going to bring the migration down twice that attends of times per year . every successive concert of liter has been quite a number of them. since that i'm prime minister and it has has kind of research interest safety issues. so knock isn't talking about a talk at he's and talking about a specific number. how do you explain that within someone's what you are talking with internal parts of politics as well. and what you have is home secretary, a sort of brought from and who's why the scene is very much on the rights to conserve the party as why the scene is wanting, which is the next job when for leadership last summer has been very, very strong. and very vocal and said things around issues. emigration to frankie, previous home secretaries of not said she compared uh, people coming on, i'm flexible as on site sites, east coast. as of england, i refugees to an invasion, which is the kind of line which we haven't heard in versus politics from a front line politician for a very, very long time. the last time really we've heard language like that was 50 years
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ago. you know, pilots and in the instance you know, power was sacked from the cabinet. so not a problem interested in posting quite a lot of this is actually, frankly, to do some of that at least by law. the language around this is to do with internal, internal parts of politics because all the internal critics of wishing so you're not going to toys who want them to be tougher on lots of things, including migration and he ends up in his position as you say, well, he's actually trying to move away from numbers because i think he probably realizes does that. the numbers game is not a really, it's, it's not a very useful way to consider the issue of migration. and it's not something that's in the gifted of the conservative party at all to bring the figures in the way he's talking about the 10s of thousands of people. right. and you talked about david cameron wanting that migration default to tens of thousands for his johnson as well . so he about getting the numbers to less than a quarter 1000000. why do you think the success of conservative governments has failed to, to reach that target? the better questions, probably why you did decide to set to to or if you're targeting the 1st place, you know, the reason they've know they've not reached is because it's not really possible.
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brittany is quite a large country at $60000000.00 plus. it's an aging population. it requires a lot of skills and requires a lot of skills and migration. it requires also does migration due to types of work that there isn't the labor force. and there hasn't been the kind of policy puts in place that would cut creation and labor force, any nicer kingdom to do. so what you have is success and politicians saying they want to do something about a problem. what i think anything about the downstream issues that, that kind of lead to large, that binds migration, you know, the wires to shortages all labors and the same piece of maintenance. but because of a series of, you know, this, there's a series of good reasons on policy decisions that were never taken. and instead of actually thinking about as of what the kids are part of how students turn it into a political football. okay, interesting, chris, let me come back to you and ask you more about these recent arrivals and where. busy are they fit the critics of the government have long argued that britain needs a steady influx of migrants in order to boost its workforce and support ailing
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public services. we. we know, of course, that key sectors like health care, i have chronic shortages, staffing shortages, have the recent arrivals tackled this issue of scale shortages, especially in health care and social care. well, let me see really in, in many high income countries is that there is an aging population. so we do need migrant labor to, to fill some of the skills gaps, but also to make sure that people have to, to work longer. so this is not a you unique phenomena in the u. k. um, but in the, okay, the like in many other countries all skills gaps i think also looking forward. so we be, we talked about the car in shortages, but many countries looking at the green economy and trying to hit that 0. they will need new skills that they currently don't have. so of course, the countries that doing their best to increase the skills locally in their own population, but there was actually going to be a competition for people who could install heat problem. so console. so one of the
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solar panels. so i think it's very important that migration is talked about as in as an essential and very positive thing. and really focusing on the contributions that people make. but i think we also need to recognize some well found it appears that sometimes is people don't understand the large numbers and the see concerns around services and, and long waiting times, for example, in, in the health service. so we do need to really talk and explain what's behind the numbers. we need to talk about the contributions that get made, but we need to be able to look at community level. how can we engage with communities to make sure that my friends can integrate better? uh, let me, uh, bring, bring face a and ask you about this figure figure because you work directly with the, you know, people in the refugee community for example. how is this negative discourse around immigration impacting them and you know, how, how is it?
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is it more difficult today for them to, to settle it? and it's incredibly difficult for them to see. and the tires are very welcoming country. and you know, when we talk about who is welcome in this country, we've seen, obviously, and brilliant and rightly say for it's created for you claim and to create, to said for it's for hong kong to. but we haven't created to say fruits for any other nationality. being even i scanned, you know, in terms of the rest of the assessment, stevens have been really pulling used in excessive overall a many of them. so really we need to on pick who is welcome to the okay. and it does look like you know, that people from the georgia country don't welcome people from black and brown, but backgrounds on welcome. and so they feel incredibly isolated to the mainland. incredibly dehumanized. that conversations are happening about them with out of the and austin, of why they flipped. they know us getting them, you know, which. why did you have to take this journey of, of a, you know,
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you life at risk. it a small part would have been back to the options for you. um, what they usually intend to say to us is we would have loved us getting like the ukranian scans where we would give them an option, the ability to come to the. okay. so there's an element of crazy. so in this you would say the absolutely absolutely respectful go to prep for j system we think about. so dawn right now where there was a civil whole happening again, we have not created it's very safe for it's for sydney. so i fusion, i'm always behind this visit, let me ask you about who is behind this dehumanization that you've talked about? is it the politicians? is it the media? what's behind it? what's viewing this? i think it's a combination. um, i mean, you know, we've already lead you to language that that are covered in the home secretary his use. but also prior to about we've had all the homes, equities, preaching stuff, also use the humanizing language as well. um, we've had a successive number of,
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i'm secretaries that i've always made integration like so the full point of that issue. so too is it may create some cost on environment policies of focusing on documenting migrants. and then you have a successive home sex choice. you just ramp up the directory and we have, we do, we have a medium as well who, who, whose hand is and, and support. and we've got, you know, media influence is who been able to kind of, you know, jump hooks up which it stopped me. let to is things like the far right, you know, protesting outside hotels and intimidating refugees. so it's a combination of things that i think they help each other. you know, they the right here in terms of how it speaks about. mike went to the way to politicians, so it's a, it's, it's a positive relationship for them. and their way, one thing i did want to add in terms of why the, the, there's like when she say that might not be looking at figures, wallace, obviously it's achievable. but also the issue here is about big business needing
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labor. so they talking about labor shortages, and you do have the business set to know b, a and in college and the government to make migration, it's much more accessible to the set to. so you have this competing of the competition between the different sectors. we want it to more and so i think that's also a part of the whole, this kind of landscape is that you've got big business so, so it would go to best interest. so it's a case of the government, the government talking tough on integration, but also taking advantage of the benefits, right? you get from the significant numbers of peter. let me come to you and ask you about, you know, i think i mentioned the far right. and of course we all know about the found, right. and nigel, for raj and, and, you know, we talked about the conservatives. it's, but it's not just the tories now. is it even labor is not necessarily progressive when it comes to immigration? what, why do they feel? why does maybe feel that they need to be on the same ground as a conservative?
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i think it's, you know what you're looking at, labor's constantly, then somebody's fights, and the last 4 and the labor party is very aware that in 2019, it lost a lot of seats and traditional areas. what became known as the red wall, which is a kind of lease term for a lot of more associated probably from working class states, which traditionally all post industrial states which a bit like in america, parts of the midwest of america, would have long voltage democrats in the u. k. along both of labor. a number of them isn't of the same way that in america have turned republican, had turned concert and started voting for conservative party. so neighbors, very aware of those seats is of the view which is not always backed up by pointing to be honest that the people in the states are more concerned on immigration. they are aware that a lot of people vote for breakfast and immigration was a big issue into breakfast debate. and what's interesting, what do you take is immigration was such a big pop point. the hot button topic turned it back to the referendum in the year subsequently, afterwards, it actually became less savings and the political discourse in some respects and britain. but now it's really massively reappeared. and the labor party is very
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worried about being outlined to minutes use have been solved immigration, and it's kind of been somebody that a piece of where the labor party is at the moment that there's not a lot of those. and despite the fact that they're bringing far ahead in the polls, that doesn't seem to get out of policy confidence in the labor party about articulation. what might be seen as progressive values says, are there in somebody said the price of no, there's no pay apply. and then from library that no, no labours position for all of these, if they would keep with the same system that the current example would quote unquote do them better. and so they will give us about how the home office runs, the various right, the so a lot of the situations, am i going to put it in and make it easier to take time to u. k. r, appalling label purchase. i use those heavily or when it comes with they actually change the substance of those policies. no. okay. uh, kristen, let me ask you prime minister. so like i said, he's considering a range of options to help tackle numbers of legal migration and bring those numbers down, he said, and the u. k said it's going to be restricting student v several. we've talked
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about this a bit before in 2024, limiting the ability of international students to sponsor family members. do think such measures will actually help bring the numbers down always just just rhetoric. what i would say is the, um, an international organization that advises member states in how to make migration policy that benefits everyone. so the member states the migraines and also the sending countries off of my grins. we would say that the overall, it's really good to take a very broad view of policies to make sure that they're all aligned with each other and that they, they make sense and the reinforce each other. so for us, we would say that it's very important to look at the contributions that people make of students make very good contributions. and be we know that the country beach over 40000000000 to the u. k. economy. and more broadly, we know that uh, working age microns, they bring a lot to the economy,
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so they normally contribute 3 times more than what the government spends on them. but i think these old is sometimes can be quite difficult policy choices to make when there is a political landscape. so i think what we would advise as the un migration agency is to really a new policies and every evidence based way. so that the best way for what can be decided that really meets the case needs, but also protects my friends and supports countries of origin. all right. phase this obviously as we started very politically and racially charge discussion around migration in a country which for a long time it has to be said was seen as progressive in terms of race relations, right? for the public today in the u. k. illegal and legal migration it seems, is viewed, you know, as together and they want to see the numbers come down. so how then, you know, for someone like you works in this field, how do you change this mindset?
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it's not easy, especially when you have politicians and a government that's very set on talking about people in terms of need galaxy. and we don't use the language of ego because the states create new gleneagles that kind of states us as we speak, talk about people, we talk about a people who have ambitions and aspirations and you know what they, what they want to achieve when they get here but the fact that they want safety is about telling that human story, i think, well, we don't want to do what we don't do it language, right? it's not what is talk about people in terms of contribution. because we don't want that acceptance to be based on what they can bring to the u. k. in terms of economic value or skills, we know that people, especially if they've been on the, if they've been passed cases in the blood and you know, face tumor on that johnny, we should not be expecting them to immediately be kind of a what cost and therefore be their doctors and approximately how many miles do you
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have this conversation today? how do you have a genuinely informed conversation in the u. k. and debate about integration? i think you are the, you have to bring the michael, it's themselves and the refugees themselves and austin to share the stories about what they, why they came to the. okay. well, if i had a smoke that i'm patients where as i said, and i think through those stories, they will collect to people and say, well those beside about aspirations and impressions i have for myself and for my general review and future generations. so it's about humanizing, it is taking away from numbers and telling the, you know, the backgrounds of, um, people, i think it's so sorry about as educating people about colonialism as you know, imperialism those centuries and legacies that have created uh, you know, um you know, migration rates of why the u. k. is this the point for a lot of people to come to?
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okay. peter, let me come to you of the conservatives, as we said, continue to beat this drum even when the record on migration is not really great. how do you see this playing out in the next election? is this going to be a big issue? it's, it's very likely it will be from a couple of angles. as you mentioned, the labor party has decided to stay kind of similar grounds to the concern of the party. so this doesn't happen which i wouldn't be surprised that the labor party were to choose to conserve is up being being we come migration in labor parts of utah far. so that's the kind of politic to the last to the conservative party to the rice, the conservative party. there are frames kind of popular as parties that are very, very on to migration that made on to immigration. that's kind of a big time to their policies. as the partners like the reform party, which is kind of like the new version of direct some parts without knowing jeffreies today exist, they will make noise as well. and so when a problem understood impulse, she is still the home secretary, if she's in post the next election or even if she isn't, she would renew. she would love to be the next leader concerned the park isn't the
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little dice about that. she gave a speech of this national concert or conference in london earlier this week in which she, in many ways criticized heavily her own government from the right. so with her impulse, the likelihood of the issue of immigration and particularly this issue of small boats, which takes about a lot of the media oxygen for such a small number of people that it features very heavily in the right wing price in britain. then the media debates around the migration bretton does every time, so that will continue unfortunately, especially as we see more new. we've got new television stations in new. tabitha, it's a rise of politics as well. so it looks as if the kind of the, the ecosystem for this is very much alive and would probably continue. all right, chris, i'll come to you for the final word. how does britain solve it in a good should dilemma? and should they even try to solve this? well, i think migration is a, is a fact of life. so it has always been, it is absolutely critical. but the countries should manage it in a way that everyone can benefit of the migrants are at the center of the right,
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so respected that the receiving government benefits and also the country for regions so that the results just don't get drained. but i would say, well, we really need is an evidence based debate one where we really look beyond the emotions. we look beyond the numbers, we recognize people's fears. but we can see that the british public actually news, this isn't understands they sent a lot of the the recent polling shows that people feel quite positive for me about immigration and do so every year more. and it's very much a trend. we seen other european countries that people feel positive, they understand the positive contributions. so we really need to make sure that we keep that in mind and have a very positive outlook around migration, managing it. well we've, we've really home is the benefits and that we reduce me to get a to some of the challenges. thank you. thanks all 3 of you for a great discussion, chris, step, vault 10 china physical ratio and be to gauge. and thank you very much for joining
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us on inside story and thank you to for watching. you can always watches program again, any time by visiting our website that ologist era dot com for further discussion. go to our facebook page at facebook dot com, forward slash a inside story. and of course you can join the conversation on twitter. i handle these add a j inside story from me for you back to the whole team here in doha, thanks for watching. the, the, the story of a small community. in one of mexico's most dangerous states standing up to criminal
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