It’s too early in the morning for casual xenophobia. FOREVER

[nanila]

The conversation with the taxi driver began innocuously enough. We chatted about the nice weather. He said he hoped it would continue as he was going on holiday in a couple of weeks. I replied that we were as well, to Turkey, for the first time. He said he loved Turkey because of the food and the hot weather and the people and how he’d thought about moving there but --

“They’re really strict on immigration laws.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Well, you can’t just move there and get a job. You have to prove that you’re not taking a job from a Turkish person. So if you want to open a restaurant, you can be the owner, but you have to train and employ all Turkish people. You can go around and greet customers, shake hands, be seen, but you can’t cook or wait tables or even be seen sweeping up after it shuts or they’ll close you down. I completely agree with that idea because it means the jobs created all go to the Turkish locals.”

I considered my reply carefully. “That’s how the visa system works here, too, for non-EEA* migrants.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yes. When I got my first job here, my employers had to prove that they couldn’t find a British candidate with my skills in order to obtain a visa**.”

“I didn’t know they bothered with that.”

“Yes, they do. It’s not easy to get a visa even if you have highly specialised skills like mine.”

“Well, I think Turkey have got it right. Everyone should have to do that no matter where they’re from. We don’t need more people doing stuff like going over to Spain to work part-time in a bar. We have enough people to do all the unskilled jobs here.”

Thankfully we arrived at my destination before the seemingly inevitable “and that’s why I’m voting UKIP”. /o\

* European Economic Area. Americans are non-EEA migrants, although most British people seem to think that "non-EEA migrant" == "asylum seeker". Oh and by the way the immigration system is just as draconian for asylum seekers as it is for other non-EEA migrants.
** Tier 2. It is now even more difficult to obtain a Tier 2 visa even through an employer like mine, a top-ranked academic research institution. More and more positions, even post-doctoral ones, are advertised with the proviso that applicants must already have the right to work in the UK.

Comments

[davidgillon]

What got me was the graphic yesterday showing that UKIP support is highest where there aren't any immigrants. *headdesk*

[cmcmck]

'Next door' syndrome is classic.

You get the greatest fear of Muslims where there aren't any Muslims.

The 'kippers know it and play on it. :o(

[yvi]

Somehow it's less easy to be racist when there's Ali at work, who shows you pictures of his children and knows a great car garage with good prices, or Kumar, who's your insurance agent and sympathetically listens to your life story.

[cmcmck]

It's true.

We live in a delightfully multicultural area with Gulmini two doors down and Eyna next door to her and I suspect my having had an African boyfriend in my graduate studenting days back in the seventies also opened my eyes really wide as to how not to be a racist dimwit! :o)

[cosmolinguist]

UKIP's worldview doesn't survive contact with reality.

[davidgillon]

I don't know whether to :) that, or :( it. :(

[yvi]

I suppose that's the same everywhere - support for our local racists in Germany is strongest in the East, which is both poor and has few immigrants. The regions which actually have a lot of immigrants, like where I grew up, have less problems with that.

(In that specific case, though, that's changing because the region I grew up in is also getting poorer and that usually leads to people trying to find someone to blame...)