‘A Contemporary British Issue’ Discuss a contemporary issue or problem in modern Great Britain.
Answer:
In essence, Britain has been a land of immigrants ever since the 80s. People have been settling in the UK for different reasons such as religious reasons, poverty, persecution, and different social issues. It is believed that Britain was among the largest market for transportation of human lives. Currently, Britain offers the rights for the LGBT as well as other minority that are not found in most countries across the world. Additionally, Britain is among the countries that offer health benefits to those that live inside. Consequently, Britain has continued to receive more immigr
ants compared to any European nation across the globe. Immigrants come from various countries including Ireland, Poland, and Afghanistan.
However, in recent times, there have been multiple complaints by the British natives that there has been too much influx of the immigrants in their country. Apparently, there have been close to 1.5 million people migrating into the United Kingdom in the last ten years (Slaven & Boswell, 2018). Two third of this population is thought to come from Asia as well as Africa. In the year 2006, the overall population of the United Kingdom was reported to be about 61 million people (Ottaviano, Peri, & Wright, 2018, pp. 81). In case the rate of immigration continues at the current state, the overall population of the UK is anticipated to be about 70 million people in by the year 2031 according to the actuary department belonging to the government. Currently, those people who are born outside of the United Kingdom are said to account close to 10 percent of the entire UK population compared to what it used to be in the year 1981.
This issue has no doubt made Britain an ethnically diverse country in contemporary society. However, there has been a major clash between the cultures that live in the United Kingdom. For instance, the native British people tend to believe in the traditional ideologies rather than fairness as well as values community instead of individualism. In this light, there have been too many complaints by the Native British people that the government tends to allow a lot of immigrants and therefore feel that the British culture has been drastically diminishing thanks to the new immigrants (Kaufmann, 2017, pp. 57). With such a high influx of immigrants, native British people feel that there is an erosion of their culture and therefore their traditions being harmed. With the freedom of movement among the EU nations, people are allowed to visit as well as stay in the UK any time. Nonetheless, most of these people tend to stay in the UK and chose not to return to their country of origin (Harris & Pickles, 2018). In case of an arrival of immigrants, they tend to form their own community and therefore transforming the original British community into their own. This has left frustrating feelings among the indigenous British citizens due to the fact that their old community and culture being turned into a foreign community.
Furthermore, there has been an overwhelming concern across the whole of Britain regarding the job opportunities that are taken by the new immigrants. In some cases, most of the immigrants are considered to come from poor countries and they would work hard and certainly get satisfied despite the fact that they get a minimal salary. As a result, many indigenous British people claim that immigrants tend to occupy their jobs (Dexter & Katona, 2018). Additionally, many indigenous British people have had complaints that the immigrants have received many health benefits than what they have actually contributed to the system in recent times (Esmail, Panagioti, & Kontopantelis, 2017). Indigenous British people argue that there has been a declining trend in their overall social services as an increasing number of immigrants tend to dry up the overall social funds in the UK.
In conclusion, the issue of immigrants in the UK has been perceived differently by the indigenous British people than what it used to be some few decades ago. Due to immigration, there have been various concerns by the British people regarding their diminishing cultural values as well as a decline in job opportunities.
References
Dexter, E. and Katona, C., 2018. Hunger strike renews concerns over health in UK detention centers. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 360.
Esmail, A., Panagioti, M., and Kontopantelis, E., 2017. The potential impact of Brexit and immigration policies on the GP workforce in England: a cross-sectional observational study of GP qualification region and the characteristics of the areas and population they served in September 2016. BMC Medicine, 15(1), p.191.
Harris, K. and Pickles, H., 2018. Immigration detention in the UK damages health and frustrates healthcare. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 361.
Kaufmann, E., 2017. Levels or changes?: Ethnic context, immigration, and the UK Independence Party vote. Electoral Studies, 48, pp.57-69.
Ottaviano, G.I., Peri, G. and Wright, G.C., 2018. Immigration, trade, and productivity in services: Evidence from UK firms. Journal of International Economics, 112, pp.88-108.
Slaven, M. and Boswell, C., 2018. Why symbolize control? Irregular migration to the UK and symbolic policy-making in the 1960s. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, pp.1-19
