In reply to MountainsAreBetterThanOffices:
> (In reply to MG)
> Uncontrolled immigration?
When or where was this policy ever implemented?
Currently, if you're a non-EU national and you want to move here, you're basically going to struggle.
If you're an EU national, then you can move here, because we're in Europe.
What happened in recent years is that there was a long period of economic growth during which industry said to govt that they wanted slack control of economic migration and that's what they got.
Now we're bust we want tight controls and in policy terms, that's what we've got.
The system has always been weak and it is easy to get around the policies (sham students, sham marriages, sham work permits, etc) but that's not a policy that's a failure to implement one.
So what seems to many people like "uncontrolled immigration" is just a function of economics, and the people who lobbied govt for slack policies were just interested in their businesses, they may have been social conservatives or liberals. Govt policy dances to the tune of big business first (that's how we get economic growth) voters' desires (aka the tabloid press) second.
Now there are black and brown people everywhere you look (people who were invited to work in periods of growth, and their families) it's a popular view that there is or has been a policy of "uncontrolled immigration" but it is simply, factually untrue. And the only meaningful policy change available to reduce immigration is to leave Europe, and there's certainly a debate about that going on.