The Slovakians are taking over the United Kingdom

The view of the United Kingdom has been flavored by classic movies and
TV like the hit 1960s series "The Avengers".  But bowler hats and proper
English gentlemen are gone to be replaced by immigrants from around the world.

With the fall of Communism the peoples of Eastern Europe are pouring into the United Kingdom


A Slovakian take over?  Actually it is a neck and neck race for percentage increase in Eastern European immigration to the UK.  The top five nations fueling the rise in Britain's immigration are all from Eastern Europe.

Slovakia, with a population of just five million, leads the boom in foreigners in the UK.

New figures reveal 49,000 Slovakians came to live here in 2010, a massive 513 per cent increase on the 8,000 who arrived in 2004.

The former Communist bloc country has a 12.1 per cent unemployment rate - almost double that of Britain - and its workers earn around £7,000 a year.

Helpful books for immigrants

And under EU regulations, migrants are entitled to state handouts including jobseeker's allowances and housing benefit.

Many of Slovakia's neighbors like Latvia, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania have joined the rush to live here now they are in the EU.

Poland has 521,000 of its citizens in Britain - 448 per cent up on the 95,000 who arrived here in 2004.

The figures, calculated using data from the government's Office of National Statistics, also highlight the number of foreigners leaving the country.

Nationals from Malta, who have few rights to work in the UK, left the country at a faster rate than any other foreign group.

In 2004, 32,000 of their citizens arrived, but last year, 7,000 - 22 per cent - had left, while 54,000 Irish left, a drop of 12 per cent.

 THE FASTEST-GROWING POPULATIONS IN THE UK

   COUNTRY                 2004                         2010                              RISE
  1, Slovakia                 8,000                       49,000                             513 %
  2, Latvia                     7,000                       39,000                             457%
  3, Poland                   95,000                     521,000                            448%
  4, Romania               14,000                      68,000                             386%
  5, Bulgaria                11,000                      53,000                             382%

... AND THE FASTEST FALLING POPULATIONS

   COUNTRY                2004                         2010                              FALL

1, Malta                       32,000                      25,000                             22%
2, Uganda                     62,000                     53,000                             15%
3, Ireland                    452,000                   398,000                             12%
4, Kenya                     143,000                   129,000                             10%
5, Hong Kong               86,000                     78,000                               9%

 

Immigration in Scotland

On Edinburgh's Royal Mile, the ancient road running from its 12th-century castle at the top down to the Enric Miralles-designed parliament at its bottom, you'll find some unlikely proponents of Scottish nationalism. Sporting tartan turbans and proudly brandishing the Saltire, the Sikh small-shop owners are sometimes viewed curiously by tourists and festival goers. The example is symbolic because at a time when Scottish identity is being appropriated in various arenas, it does raise the question of where ethnic and racial minorities fit into a country dominated by myths and legends of an ostensibly "white" nation dating back millennia.

Scottish National Party leader Alex Salmond with
SNP MSP Humza Yousaf prior to taking the oath of
allegiance at the Scottish Parliament.

Perhaps with the exception of Herman Rodrigues' 2006 exhibition on Scotland's Asian communities, little is said of the "new Scots". It is nevertheless a matter of enormous pride to the SNP that the only ethnic minority MSPs have been members of their party, the most recent being Humza Yousaf who earlier this month swore his oath of allegiance in Urdu, wearing traditional Pakistani clothes supplemented with a band of tartan. Elsewhere, less "visible" minorities, such as the Italians and now eastern Europeans, have stitched themselves into the fabric of Scotland's major cities, as indeed have Chinese groups and other east Asians. Hence one of Edinburgh's most loved Scottish folk musicians is the Kirkcaldy-born Andy Chung.

Yet the most fascinating feature of Scottish nationalism is also the least noticed: there's a mighty difference between a nation's identity and people's national identities, which reveals itself in the saying that while England owned the British empire, it was the Scots who ran it. No wonder then that the Indian military has a Scottish tartan in its formal regalia (3rd battalion, the Sikh Regiment, traces its lineage from "Rattray's Sikhs" named after Captain Thomas Rattray of the 64th Regiment of Bengal Infantry). Whatever else people in Scotland think makes up their idea of Scottishness, the identity of Scotland as a historical nation cannot really be understood apart from that of India and other places of empire.


Central Mosque in Glasgow, Scotland


There goes the Neighborhood:

Scottish - Pakistani says Eastern European immigrants are trashing the city.

The area around Govanhill on Glasgow's southside is home to one of the country's largest communities of "new Scots" - people whose families moved here from India, Pakistan or Bangladesh.

There are sari shops, shops selling a wide range of exotic looking sweets, shops that offer money transfer to the sub-continent, food shops and plenty of restaurants and take-aways.

One man, whose family came from Pakistan, told a BBC reporter he'd lived in Govanhill for 20 years. But he's moved away now.

"The area's hit the skids", he explained.

And who did he blame? The government, for letting in too many Eastern Europeans and asylum seekers.

The reporter had not hadn't expected that.

Wasi Khan:   "I moved out of this area five years ago, but I've still got family here. It's declined massively. There are lots of reasons - the government letting in Eastern Europeans and asylum seekers. That might come across as really racist. But it's not."

The BBC reporter was also surprised by another conversation, with a man who told him he has been living and working illegally in Glasgow for nearly five years.

He insisted he didn't want to claim benefits. But to work and pay taxes.

The man added: "The Asian community here they want only permission for working.  "If you don't give them permission you are losing, financially."

He went on to explain that some businesses exploit workers who they know are in the country without permission, paying them low wages.  - - ( BBC story )

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