Election

[sade]

Immigration and the key parties in the UK election
05 May 2005

UK voters are going to the polls today, and while we won't know the outcome until early on 6 May, workpermit.com gives you an idea of what each party is offering in terms of immigration.


The Conservative Party is calling for annual refugee and immigrant quotas; bonds for temporary workers; compulsory health checks; offshore asylum processing centres; new border police; and, quitting the UN refugee convention.


The Labour Party says it will reduce asylum numbers by tougher rules on settlement and more deportations; it will create an electronic register of all crossing borders; skills-based points system for permanent immigrants.


The Liberal Democrats support common EU asylum policy with fair sharing of asylum settlement; they would allow asylum seekers to work so they don't have to rely on benefits; they back a quota for immigrant workers from outside EU based on skills.

So, who is the best?

To me conservatives seem like someone who is gonna spend lots of money and they will do nothing. Where are they planning to build offshore processing centres and which countries are going to be "v. happy" to have centres like these on their teritory? Which countries are going to accept the fact that many asylum seekers (fake ones) are going to flee these camps and mess around in their county? Poor countries are on the menu? Hm?!

labour - i don't get this electronic register of all crossing borders. If someone is let's say comming to uk and has visitor visa (or tourist visa, not sure how they call that!) and his visa expires so he wants to stay as overstayer (tough thing to do!) so he works somewhere illegaly and what on the Earth will the do with his electronic registration? They don't know his address, where is he, what is he doing - how electronic registration can help? Taxpayers money will go to nothing.
Liberals are maybe more realistic giving asylum people right to work they will know where are they and have more control.

I have impression that nobody wants to get rid of illegal immigrants!

[tgs]

Electronic register....

If there is a few thousand illigal immigrants in the UK, they not gonna police it, but let say there are millions of them, then they gonna start searching for these people.

Let us say you enter the country on a tourist visa and overstay with a few months and exit the country, they will have it on record. The next time you want to enter the UK, they will refuse your entry. Yes you can assume some illigal in the UK will never exit to avoid this, but if you know can they track your exit you will make sure you exit, especially if you want to be free to go and leave. This would be mainly to force Holiday workers to exit when their visas expires. If they don't leave in time, they might not be able enter the UK ever (when they leave for some reason)

[John]

Let us say you enter the country on a tourist visa and overstay with a few months and exit the country, they will have it on record.

Unfortunately the Conservatives abolished exit immigration checks in about 1982 when they were in power. Very short-sighted IMHO. Yes they want to reintroduce exit checks if now elected but over the last 13 years or so the UK has no record about who has left the UK.

No wonder no one knows how many illegal immigrants there are!

[sade]

The Conservative Party is calling for annual refugee and immigrant quotas; bonds for temporary workers

What does this mean?

[f2k]

Well they (the conservatives) lost the election anyway so you dont have to worry about Qoutas and Bonds for the time being

[Jeff Albright]

Unfortunately the Conservatives abolished exit immigration checks in about 1982 when they were in power. Very short-sighted IMHO. Yes they want to reintroduce exit checks if now elected but over the last 13 years or so the UK has no record about who has left the UK.

No wonder no one knows how many illegal immigrants there are!

Well, Australia has these exit checks, for example and the rules are so grisly there that they now indefinitely detain people who LEAVE the country without correct papers. Imagine, if you are an illegal immigrant, and want to LEAVE they will throw you in jail forever! Basically if you are illegal in terms of immigration, your life is doomed and you get a life sentence!

[sade]

Well they (the conservatives) lost the election anyway so you dont have to worry about Qoutas and Bonds for the time being

...I really want to know what does it mean?