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Europe

EU should 'undermine national homogeneity' says UN migration chief

2012-06-24

The UN need not worry, the EU is going full tilt in this direction despite the qualms of some of its ordinary citizens...

The EU should "do its best to undermine" the "homogeneity" of its member states, the UN's special representative for migration has said.

Peter Sutherland told peers the future prosperity of many EU states depended on them becoming multicultural.

He also suggested the UK government's immigration policy had no basis in international law.

I'd like to see the 'international law' he quotes; it's likely that it doesn't exist anywhere except in his head and the heads of people at Amnesty and HRW...

He was being quizzed by the Lords EU home affairs sub-committee which is investigating global migration.

Mr Sutherland, who is non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs International and a former chairman of oil giant BP, heads the Global Forum on Migration and Development, which brings together representatives of 160 nations to share policy ideas.

See, he's got his. Great houses, yachts, cars, likely a plane or two, a chateau in Switzerland and another one in Vail. It's easy for him to tell EU countries how they should be composed, he can leave whenever he wants.

He told the House of Lords committee migration was a "crucial dynamic for economic growth" in some EU nations "however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states".

An ageing or declining native population in countries like Germany or southern EU states was the "key argument and, I hesitate to the use word because people have attacked it, for the development of multicultural states", he added.

They're aging because the native population doesn't see the point in having kids these days. State policies combined with the incessant browbeating of the last six decades makes simple things like children, family, patriotism, etc all icky and untenable. So now to support the social welfare system the EU needs to bring in lots of foreigners who will gladly work and pay high taxes to support all the graying Europeans who want to retire at 58...

...yeah, right.

"It's impossible to consider that the degree of homogeneity which is implied by the other argument can survive because states have to become more open states, in terms of the people who inhabit them. Just as the United Kingdom has demonstrated."

The UN special representative on migration was also quizzed about what the EU should do about evidence from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that employment rates among migrants were higher in the US and Australia than EU countries. He told the committee: "The United States, or Australia and New Zealand, are migrant societies and therefore they accommodate more readily those from other backgrounds than we do ourselves, who still nurse a sense of our homogeneity and difference from others.

We also demand that our migrants become native -- at least, we used to. You might be born elsewhere, but you can be an American -- but your kids had better learn about and accept as their own history Valley Forge, Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, and baseball.

"And that's precisely what the European Union, in my view, should be doing its best to undermine."

But he's not arguing that the new immigrants would become British, he wants the British to become like the immigrants...

Mr Sutherland recently argued, in a lecture to the London School of Economics, of which he is chairman, that there was a "shift from states selecting migrants to migrants selecting states" and the EU's ability to compete at a "global level" was at risk.

In evidence to the Lords committee, he urged EU member states to work together more closely on migration policy and advocated a global approach to the issue - criticising the UK government's attempt to cut net migration from its current level to "tens of thousands" a year through visa restrictions.

Because the average Brit has figured out that the average immigrant from Pakistan isn't really interested in becoming a Brit, and indeed believes the average Brit to be an infidel...

British higher education chiefs want non-EU overseas students to be exempted from migration statistics and say visa restrictions brought in to help the government meet its target will damage Britain's economic competitiveness.

But immigration minister Damian Green has said exempting foreign students would amount to "fiddling" the figures and the current method of counting was approved by the UN.

Committee chairman Lord Hannay, a crossbench peer and a former British ambassador to the UN, said Mr Green's claim of UN backing for including students in migration figures "frankly doesn't hold water - this is not a piece of international law".

Mr Sutherland, a former Attorney General of Ireland, agreed, saying: "Absolutely not. it provides absolutely no justification at all for the position they are talking about."

He said the policy risked Britain's traditional status as "tolerant, open society" and would be "massively damaging" to its higher education sector both financially and intellectually.

"It's very important that we should not send a signal from this country, either to potential students of the highest quality, or to academic staff, that this is in some way an unsympathetic environment in which to seek visas or whatever other permissions are required... and I would be fearful that that could be a signal."

Perhaps you could work on having Brit kids become educated enough to hold their own at the highest circles...

Mr Sutherland, who has attended meetings of The Bilderberg Group, a top level international networking organisation often criticised for its alleged secrecy, called on EU states to stop targeting "highly skilled" migrants, arguing that "at the most basic level individuals should have a freedom of choice" about whether to come and study or work in another country.

There's a potentially valid argument. An immigrant who comes to Britain (or the USA), gets a great education (e.g., a doctor) and decides to stay is inadvertently robbing the old country of his talent. By 'targeting' the 'highly skilled', one could argue that we're simply practicing a new form of colonialism -- a century before we stole the natural resources of the colonies, now we're stealing the human resources. But that argument only works until you start to argue, as Sutherland does, that the less skilled should also be allowed to immigrate. That just creates misery everywhere. The correct solution is to fix up the third world countries so that a person who immigrates isn't hurting either the country he leaves behind or the country to which he immigrates.

Mr Sutherland also briefed the peers on plans for the Global Migration and Development Forum's next annual conference in Mauritius

Which has hotels, food and fabulous beaches, darling...

in November, adding: "The UK has been very constructively engaged in this whole process from the beginning and very supportive of me personally."

Asked afterwards how much the UK had contributed to the forum's running costs in the six years it had been in existence, he said it was a relatively small sum in the region of "tens of thousands".

Plus the boodle and the graft. And the jobs for all his kids...

Posted by:Steve White

#4 No.

Posted by: Switzerland 2012-06-24 13:43

#3 He told the House of Lords committee migration was a "crucial dynamic for economic growth" in some EU nations "however difficult it may be to explain this to the citizens of those states".

The Waco Kid explains it...

Posted by: tu3031 2012-06-24 10:22

#2

'undermine national homogeneity'
Not going to happen. Too much hate exists just crossing into another country. Historical hatred.
There will always be pure bloods. Multicultural idea doesn't happen. They don't mix but find their own area of people like themselves. Socialist democrat and communist left fantasy dream.

Posted by: Dale 2012-06-24 09:04

#1 "Undermining of homogeneity" nearly complete in Harare. Well underway and progressing nicely in Johannesburg. Very well done Albion!

Posted by: Besoeker 2012-06-24 07:17

00:00