Its a two way street though. People here have got to want to work for these businesses and sectors. Its up to them to make the jobs attractive or people will not bother.

Interested that our political masters (

) aren't suggesting that people go to get jobs in other EU states, as they are perfectly entitled to do, of course.

Did you hear him being interviewed? If back peddling were an Olympic sport he be a cert for Rio.

Seconded. I met a incredibly pretty Canadian girl who was over in the UK on a 2 year working visa. Things were going well...and 6 months later we made the decision she was going to try and stay on in the UK, to see if this could be something long-term.

After multiple phone calls to the UKBA (ironically, often speaking with someone who was not British), hours spent trawling through the UKBA website, numerous e mails and phone calls to immigration solicitors and much heartache, we discovered the only way for her to have a good chance of getting in to the UK is if we could show we had been living together in a subsisting relationship for 2 years. Clearly, having only known each-other 6 months this was never going to happen.

Of course, she could have overstayed, we could have got married, had a kid and then put in an application for her to stay using the right to a private and family life. But I didn't fancy the idea of harboring an illegal immigrant.



No, you never get a sensible one. Because most people are too scared to say what they really think for fear of being branded racist.

The Racist Van?

'In the UK illegally? go home or face arrest'

How is that racist? It's silly and pointless but racist? how?

This is part of the immigration discussion that really gets on my nerves, the slight mention of the word immigration and the knives are sharping and the eyes are focusing waiting for your next sentence, if it's even a whiff against...RACIST.

The silly tit for tat childish slanging match of the commons is suddenly out in the open, there never seems to be a common point in which to debate your for/against discussion, everything is too polarised.
You're either with it and a lefty liberal or against it and branded a dangerous racist, pathetic.

I don't think its necessarily racist although if I were non-white and living in one of the targeted borough then I may have a different opinion.

What I do think it is is stupid, and I expect more from public servants, naive, but true.

Its stupid because it isn't going to work, no person who is staying in the country illegally is going to tweet "I'm here, can you send me home please, where shall I meet you ?"

Its clearly a publicity stunt devised by the Conservative party to try and reclaim some of their right wing who have been expressing interest in UKIP's ideas (I refuse to call them policies), a showpiece to say "Hey look, we can talk tough as well", but they are doing it with public money rather than their own advertising budget, its the Home office who are doing this, with public money.

If its NOT a Conservative Party recruitment campaign funded by public money and it REALLY is a genuine Home Office well-thought-through campaign then its gross stupidity beyond words and heads and gold plated pensions should roll.

Such stupidity deserves mockery and its getting it in loads at the moment - no doubt there will be some massaged statistics coming along next week to show that its really working, without any real data to back it up - you know, names and addresses, that sort of thing.

I've been through a similar situation. I'm not seeing what you think the Govt should do. You knew when you started seeing her that she would have to leave. She would have been even more aware of it. Do you really think that short term flings that *might* develop into more should be recognised by the Govt as worthy of giving extensions to visas? I don't.

If the both of you aren't prepared to go through the "long distance thing". If you weren't willing to make the effort to go to Canada for 3 months to stay with her to further your relationship then why should she be given an extension? If they gave extensions to visas for people in short term relationships then pretty much everyone over here on a working visa is going to be hooking up with people to stay longer.

As I say, there were various ways round it if I was prepared to blatantly flout the rules and play fast and loose with the law, as I suspect many do each year.

The UKBA is a completely useless organisation and she could have easily overstayed. It would have been 18 months before anyone had noticed, at which point we could have done a human rights special and she would almost certainly have been allowed leave to remain. If they tried to boot her we would have no doubt had numerous rights of appeal, which could have been dragged out over several years, at great expense to the taxpayer.

What could the Govt do? Off the top of my head, how about a system where you can 'sponsor' someone?

Canada is Commonwealth, we both have the same Head of State. I would have happily provided a financial bond, and offered assurances that she was living with me, in return for extending her visa. Further, she had funds, and would have happily put several thousand pounds c/o HMG.

At the end of a couple of years if we could prove a stable and subsisting relationship then they could return our bonds and grant a 5 year visa, followed by indefinite leave to remain if still together at the end of it.

You may think this is batpoop mad, or unworkable, but a very similar system is already in place. If you are in the armed forces and marry someone from outisde the EU they get a 5 year initial UK visa after which they can apply for indefinite leave to remain. If at any point during the 5 years the marriage breaks down they are supposed to leave, but in reality many have kids and a life in the UK by this point so they claim leave to remain using Article 8 right to private and family life.

Clearly if Miss Canada had been from some second-world EU country with no command of the English language and no intention of doing anything but rinsing our benefits system, there wouldn't have been a problem.

It wouldn't have been you playing fast and loose with the law, it would have been her.



She could have overstayed. But it would have been putting any future visit to the UK in jeopardy because of that overstay. Her work would have been illegal, as her allowance to work would have expired. If you two had split up 2 months after her overstay then she'd have struggled to ever get back into the country ever again.



You want extensions for a *girlfriend* that the armed forces get for being married.

We've already seen that the moronic ad campaign of driving around with a "Illegal immigrant? Go home" has been branded racist. I don't see any racist undertones in that ad, just that it's stupid and a waste of time. If the Govt did what you suggest I think there are going to be genuine calls that the UK system was blatantly racist.

If the "girlfriend" extension to visas was introduced then the number of applications is going to skyrocket. Hardly anyone is going to marry someone to help them stay. Virtually every guy would accept a "very pretty Canadian" as their girlfriend if she needed to stay.

From what you've written it seems that you and the Canadian split up rather than go through the long and hard process of maintaining a relationship. You and her decided that you didn't feel the relationship was worth the effort but you think the Govt should have.

Disco Inferno.

[urlhttp://www.edl.me/[/url

Immigration in this country is simple and straightforward, open and fair as currently applied.



If you are white and can speak and write English then come on in, especially if you have loads of dosh.

If you are white but come from Europe, well we have to let you in but don't expect us to like you in fact we will use the media into making you pariahs

If your skin pigmentation is anything other than "white" then the darker the shade the tougher the entry but can be compensated and scaled by how much dosh you can bring in.

If you have skills knowledge, experience that will benefit both the country and you, forget it as they are irrelevant (see under UKIP, NF, BNP, Tories etc.)

That about sums it up doesn't it.

All a bit complicated isn't it.

It was much simpler when Labour were in office, "You wana come in?", then in you come.

No, not really.

It's a rich/poor issue, not a colour issue.

Now, there are colour issues because many poor countries are not white. But take China and Japan for instance. A Japanese person is going to get into the UK far easier than someone from China would, but most Brits would struggle to know the difference between the two.

Had she been living with me, I suspect I might have been on the hook for something, had they had bothered pursuing me for it.



Agreed.



The problem with the armed forces is that 18 year old squaddies marry girls they have just met because there are large incentives to do so. House, extra allowances, free travel to and from the UK if based overseas etc... These marriages are entered into without any real thought and often end in tears very quickly.



I genuinely don't understand what you mean by this, please explain. That said, the system is already racist. I can bring in anyone from an EU member state, but not someone from outside.



You make it a condition that they have to put a bond down, prove co habitation and also that the sponsor earns a certain amount a year or has a certain amount in assets. Such conditions already exist with the UKBA for certain types of applicant, so this would be nothing new.



Alas, in pursuit of a cheap jibe you miss the point. Even if we had elected to stay together we would had to have proved a sustaining relationship. One of the many criteria required to show this is co-habitation for a period of no less than 2 years. Which is a bit difficult when you have several thousand miles of ocean in between you.

I suspect you have never tried the long-distance relationship thing. And I don't mean Leeds - Manchester, I mean when you live in different countries, sometimes on different continents, and only see each-other once every 3 or 4 months.

The Govt has made it extremely difficult for a Brit to marry anyone outside the EU and co-habit with them in the UK.

I have provided a half-workable solution on the back of a fag-packet. If the Govt gave it some thought a proper system of bringing non EU partners to the UK could be developed.

Ok, first things first.



I've been married to an American for 12 years on Aug 1st. That's if the divorce doesn't come through before then.

I met her when she was here on a short vacation. That short vacation became a longer vacation when she met me. I supported her. She then went back to the US. I went and visited her there for a vacation. She then came over and I supported her for nearly a year. We then got married. We then went to the US where we sorted out her visa for her residence in the UK.

The first half of our married life was in the UK. Then she wanted to go to the US so we went there. At the end of our marriage I wanted to try and make a go of it in the US but circumstances made it impossible. So I came home.

So if you want to suspect I haven't been through a LDR, you are wrong.



Unless you were employing her, they wouldn't have touched you. You are a British citizen, you can love and live with who you want. They'd have only been interested in the illegal overstayer.



I agree. But the fact they are prepared to make that commitment of marriage means that the Govt aren't going to split them up.



We didn't particular choose to allow EU citizens in freely. It came with the package of joining with the EU. We have also been given the right to freely live and work in the EU too. It's just that we are handicapped by the fact we speak the world language and don't particularly want to learn new ones.

There's no difference at the border to a US citizen who is white and one who is African American.

There will be differences between rich and poor.

There's a thread about a mobile billboard asking illegal immigrants to go home. That's being declared racist.



So rich people can have girlfriends from abroad, but poor people can't?



No they haven't. Your girlfriend would have had to expend the same amount of energy on being with you as she first expended to get the work visa. If she wasn't allowed a work visa she could have come over and lived with you and not worked. You and her decided the relationship wasn't worth that. And you want to blame the Govt for that.



And they'd have 10 times the number of immigrants than they have now.

I think you edited something before I replied.



You can't prove co-habitation. For the obvious reason that you were following their rules. But you would be able to show that you were both making trips to see each other.

They would amount to pretty much the same thing.

More horsepoop from the uninformed

Immigration is one if the very few areas exempted from race legislation, primarily because it discriminates on nationality (not skin colour) grounds

Change girlfriend to partner and yes, based on the current rules, thats pretty much it

Lumping the Conservatives with the BNP and NF is informed is it....

As much as many on this forum will hate to admit it, rich people can have many things poor people can't. Big houses, expensive cars, private education etc... Ultimately most things in life will come down to one thing - money. It is not unreasonable to expect people to put a few £££ down if they are serious about coming to this country, or inviting someone to come to this country. My sister wants to go to Aus for a year. She has been asked for a £3,000 bond. No bond, no stay.



It is very easy to get a Tier 5 youth migration visa. Which is what she was on. The UKBA website suggests you cannot convert this to any other type of visa to stay in the UK, whilst you are in the UK. So our only real option seemed to be for her to go home and then we apply for the unmarried partner or married partner options. Both require you to show a 2 year relationship, with co-habitation being a key test.

They have deliberately engineered a situation where it is fiendishly difficult to meet there criteria. No doubt it is done to discourage non EU nationals from coming to the UK.



She could have come on a tourist visa, but even then I think there are limits as to how long she could have stayed. And, by not working, she would not have been earning. Which would have made her poor. And only rich people are allowed to play the overseas relationship game, remember?

That said, I really don't see how you can claim to quantify what the relationship was, or was not, worth. We looked at various options ourselves , consulted 2 immigration solicitors, and decided decided it was unworkable.

Said girl is now back in Canada and leading a happy life. I spend much of my time working abroad but my new squeeze is a 25 year old doctor who lives in London. Needless to say, she scrubs up well too.



In summary, alles ist gut. Everyone's happy.

No, frankly, it doesn't.
I have personally known white aussies with a reasonable grasp of English who had to go home after their sponsorship expired.
London is the home of so many French that only Paris has more, I can't see there would be so many if they felt like pariahs.
Non-white people have been allowed in perfectly legally, granted there is now a greater requirement for being able to support themselves.
Skills and knowledge are exactly what is looked-for in potential non-EU immigrants.

What is a scandal is the way that multinational companies with a presence here and, say, India are legally allowed to bring as many as they like into the country, with automatic visa approval and very little checking about whether that company has Brits who could do the job, largely to cut costs, i.e. bringing people who are perfectly fine people but who are not immigrating, are not going to stay and have no intention of investing their future in this country.

Who did that?

'Leaguefan' above.

In my opinion we don't need a new debate on immigration at all. Immigration was too high, now it's coming down. It's just about striking the right balance between those immigrants who will benefit our society and those who will be a drain on our resources. I don't think immigration will be a big debating point at the next election between the main parties, although no doubt they will be drawn into talking about it by UKIP. Are Labour and the Tories very far apart on the issue at the moment? Not sure they are.

No they aren't, but there is a HUGE amount of paranoia gabbled about immigration "on the street" aided and abetted by some of the printed media, so its bound to become an election issue and you'll get much the same option from the three major party's because they don't want a fourth major party.

The truth about EU immigration and the right to work across the union could be seen in this weeks episode of the series about London Transport which featured Victoria Coach Station this week where three Polish coach operators now have a permanent base bringing Polish nationals into, and out of the country - the coaches being just as full when leaving the country as they are when arriving (after a 17 hour journey).

They interviewed three young Polish men who were going home and asked why they had come here, the answer was "to find work", they had stayed for three weeks and when asked why they were going home replied "because we couldn't find any work", or more likely they found as many are finding, that the job agencies who mop them up like sponges are generally offering thousands of minimum wage warehouse jobs which do not exceed what they could be earning back in Poland, couple that with a much higher cost of living here and its not surprising that the coaches leaving Victoria are full of Poles who came, looked, and found it wasn't worth it.

That is the EU purpose, you take on countries that need investment, you invest in them, raise their standard of living so that tax revenue increases, then tax them - its very simple capitalism and a long term strategy that the likes of UKIP and some blinkered far right politicians just will never understand.

She will have known that she couldn't convert that visa when she got it, or she should have. You want them to ignore the conditions of her 2 year work visa and convert it to something because she met you and liked you.

You are the one wanting unreasonable things, not the IA.



No it's not. They're just not got to convert a non-convertible visa on the back of a six month relationship that you and her don't have faith in anyway.



When me and my wife did it she could stay here 6 months on a tourist visa and I could stay in the US for 3 on a tourist visa.

Me and my wife decided the relationship was worth it. You and your lady didn't. TBH, I think you and your lady were right.



If you and your gf had decided that you were both destined to be together you'd have made it work. You both chose not to. It was you and your gf who decided not to carry it on, no one else.



Glad to hear it. Let's hope that you squeeze doesn't grow to mind you being abroad too much, because then you'll be back here claiming that the your employment conspired against you like you're claiming the govt did.