Progressive? How can anyone use this ludicrous term without cringing. Progressive is a catch-all term which means nothing, because it means anything. It could be relied on to appear in any speech by any left-wing orator, particularly the soviet leaders, before the collapse of the socialist countries in the late 1980′s. “Progressive forces of mankind” meant “people who we approve of”. For the average guardianista, “progressive” simply means “that of which I approve”. If you think the ideal state is one ruled by sharia law, then progressive simply means anything that advances the caliphate. When you see it being used without irony, you know the user comes from the ranks of the intellectually dishonest.

Do you mean to say we’ve had a decade of Labour government and we don’t have a progressive immigration policy already?!

“Over 150 people crammed into committee room 9 last night for a lively and informed debate on migration.”

I hope the FULL range of progressive opinion was represented, all the way from those who welcome immigration as a key engine of a vibrant, multi-ethnic society to those who welcome immigration as a key engine of a society that’s vibrant and multi-ethnic.

Excellent! The government has used the past 10 years of relative prosperity to keep 5 million Brits on benefits, while at the same time importing a whole new workforce from elsewhere. Immigration just happens to be at the top of the public’s concern in poll after poll, but so what? Let’s have even more of the same!

Oh dear, the hysteria starts again.

Quite why anyone with an IQ larger than the average Alabama death row prisoner could possibly think new labour current immigration policy is ‘progressive’ or aimed to deliberately ‘import a whole new work force from elsewhere’ is beyond me.

Anyone who is remotely familiar with blogs will be aware that in the last few months the government has been callously denying visas to Iraqi employees of the British army at serious risk of being killed because of their work for the armed forces. The home office has also attempted to deport an Uzbek dissident into the cauldrons of Karimov’s gulags and even tried to deport a championship footballer probably earning a 6 figure salary. In all cases there have been campaigns against these deportations/refusal to allow in, and thus policy has softened a little. But in the numerous cases up and down the country where there is less publicity immigrants are being detained and deported to countries where they are being tortured and killed. Not quite what one would expect from a government in favour of immigration is it?

Xenophobia still rules the masses it seems.

Can you? I doubt it.

Starting from a “we are ‘progressive’, you are xenophobic/hysterical” attitude is probably not the way to win anyone around, is it?

If only those pesky ‘masses’ would shut up…

The government actuary estimates that immigration will add 200,000 to the population each year for the next 30 yeears, accounting for around 80% of overall population growth.

How much more ‘progressive’ would you like immigration policy to become?

You are making the mistake of assuming that (a) those figures are accurate and will remain constant over 30 years – nice to see some people still trust government stats, and (b) that the numbers are the result of deliberate government policy rather than the side product of factors like EU enlargement, the reduction in the cost of transport and increase in frequency of transport between nations that provides more opportunity for migrants, the lack of regulation in employment that makes it easy to employ cheaplabour in the industrialised world, etc etc.

“I hope the FULL range of progressive opinion was represented, all the way from those who welcome immigration as a key engine of a vibrant, multi-ethnic society to those who welcome immigration as a key engine of a society that’s vibrant and multi-ethnic.”

LOL couldnt have put it better myself. We are the Judean peoples front !!

Seriously, what on earth does “progressive” mean in the context of migration anyway, we already have virtually no controls over it, and the social and economic effects are not even known by the government, let alone managed. You need to make the case for migration rationally, not just in terms of “It will lead to more diversity, and diversity is a good thing, therefore migration is a good thing”.
Nothwithstanding the fact that many people do not see diversity as an unqualified good, the impression given is that the left will not be happy until the UK resembles a transit camp for the worlds flotsam and jetsom. If people really are fleeng torture and persecution, why do they cross the whole of Europe to get to the UK, surely if you are in fear of your life the nearrest state sanctuary would do.

“we already have virtually no controls over it”

i think that talking about a [progressive] or [any other kind] of immigration policy first requires one to be aware of what current immigration controls there are.

clearly not too many people are aware of what the status quo is – which isn’t all that surprising since most of you lot are British and therefore are NOT subject to immigration control.

However it is not too difficult to find out – and it seems that not too many commentators/commenters are actually willing to go and find that info out – which is a bit bizarre really. Would make the discussion so much more constructive! clearly some people would have a very different view of ‘virtually no controls’ – to someone else – so again, some factual knowledge would really benefit this ‘immigration’ debate.

If people are really that interested in immigration, policy or otherwise, I’d suggest they familiarize themselves first with the website of the Border and Immigration Agency

Get my data from a government website, er no thanks.

My view is based on returning to Heathrow with a group of people (non uk and non eu nationals) who once through “immigration”, (consisting of waving a passport at a disinterested clerk) were openly celebrating having done it – and that’s just one flight out of thousands. God knows why migrants bother paying to sneak through ports in the back of dodgy lorries, just get on a chartered flight from anywhere.

The government are unable to produce any reliable immigration figures (witness their spat with local councils of all political hues over funding based on government underestimates) which strongly suggests the numbers are not accurately recorded. As any management consultant will tell you “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it”. You can’t have a migration policy without acuurate migration data, any more than you can have a transport policy without knowing how many cars are on the road. Amazing really when you consider that normally this government has an almost evangelical beleif in the power of measurable targets.

I have no axe to grind (I’m the product of 2 migrants myself) and no hard political alleigances, but we are lacking an informed and balanced debate on the subject in part because of a lack of reliable data.

You are falling into the usual left wing rhetoric of assuming the default position is that mass migration is an unqualified good and detractors must prove that it isn’t, or simply be dimissed as racists/xenephobes/daily mail reading frothing at the mouth right wing authoritarian reactionaries.
I would argue that you need to demonstrate it is beneficial before expecting others to embrace it.

Well it’s clearly beneficial to the migrants themselves!

I’d agree we are lacking reliable data though. Partly why I take the ‘innocent until proven guilty’ view that migrants should be allowed in unless it can be demonstrated that they cause harm. And imposing a virtual sentence of death on people by deporting them to regimes that will torture and kill them is just disgusting and one of the most shameful policies of the home office. I’m aware that if you make it easy to claim asylum then you get false claimants but this illustrates the difficulty of actually having a humane and workable policy that has an actual effect and control of numbers. I’d rather have too many immigrants (however ‘too many’ is defined) than see people being deported and killed which is what is happening every week at the moment.