Sunday 7 June 2015

More than 100,000 Romanian immigrants registered to work in the UK last year

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The number of Romanians who registered to work in Britain in 2014, after work restrictions were lifted more than trebled to over 150,000 people, according to figures released this week.


I had previously seen a lot of reports that far fewer Romanians emigrated to the UK in 2014 than feared by the British tabloid newspapers. Months ago, the Guardian reported that the number of Romanians and Bulgarians in the UK rose from 205,000 in September 2013 to 252,000 in September 2014, an increase of 47,000, which was much the same as the rise of 45,000 in the corresponding period in 2012-13. In other words, nothing to see, move along. UKIP was accused of scaremongering but it seems UKIP, who had no means of knowing what the figures would be, were perfectly realistic. Although people accused the Daily Mail of misleading its readers, it was Guardian readers who may have been misled.

Many Romanians are offended that some people in England would like to limit Romanian immigration, which puzzles me, as Romanians and other East Europeans have a strong sense of national identity themselves. I have heard very many Romanians complain about the number of immigrants in the UK and that they think London too cosmopolitan. I have also heard Romanians complain about the behaviour of Romanian gypsies in England and say it's unfair that the English confuse gypsies with Romanians, just because the gypsies happen to be Romanian citizens. (For Romanians ethnicity counts much more than citizenship). 

But attempts to restrict Romanian immigrants hurt Romanian pride and feeds into their painful national inferiority complex.


Incidentally, I know a Romanian woman acquaintance who moved to London about five years ago and who chatting on email told me 
“I saw Romanian gypsies being disgusting around London and felt ill- like puking. So dirty and uncivilized! Defecating near Marble Arch! I felt pure disgust! I am not religious but I pray God that Britain does not open the gates to them.”
I don't share her attitude towards poor Romanian working class immigrants - she also complained about "sluttish Romanian waitresses" - but I find it odd that Romanians, who mostly hate gypsies, now complain about discrimination. I suppose it's the intellectual fashion.

Personally, for years, I always thought the only thing I didn't like about Romania was the fact that it wasn't the Hermit Kingdom it had been under Communism and there were such large numbers of people, like me, from Western Europe here, though most of us do good.


Most Romanian immigrants in England also do a lot of good, in my opinion, in England, although a small minority of Romanian citizens are responsible for worryingly high crime figures, to which Rod Liddle has drawn attention. But though Romanians are, mostly, very good immigrants, when governments decide immigration policy what is important, or should be, are numbers and national identity. 

Of course, in this case, governments do not decide and the EU does instead. And, thanks to the EU, Romanians' right to work in the UK is very secure.

Meanwhile, Romania is dying. Her birth rate is too low to maintain the population, the abortion rate is very high, though much lower than it was, millions have left and millions more want to. Romania will shortly have to consider whether to import immigrants in large numbers and if so from where to take them.

9 comments:

  1. I cannot understand why you bring back this email who has nothing to do with the working rights of Romanians in the UK. Are you implying that Romanians holding an NI numbers are defecting near Marble Arch ? Why should they need a NI for that? Also NI numbers are not an objective criteria for counting the number of Romanians in the UK. Many Romanians stay a few years then return to Romania yet the NI remains valid as it will be needed for pension purposes. UKIP was complaining that 29 millions of Romanians and Bulgarians will get working rights. Presumably Farage and his party wanted a apartheid regime where the new European Untermensch, Romanians and Bulgarians had no rights while the superior ones (read Western Europeans) have all of them.

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  2. According to http://www.worldometers.info/, the number of Romanian citizens who have legally registered to work represents 0.4% of the UK population. It is a right and many Romanians (Roma and non-Roma) have chosen to exercise that right.
    Inversely, according to the BBC, an estimated 5.5m British people have exercised their right to live permanently abroad – almost one in 10 of the UK population. I am one of those fortunate people who have made Romania my home and have been well received and welcomed.

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    1. I too am very blessed to live in this marvellous, traditional, as yet unglobalised country. I fell in love with it within minutes of coming here in 1990. I only wish I did one hundredth as much good as you do, Ian. I would not like it so much if there were huge numbers of British people here. The British have ruined Spain and Turkey which are no longer the old fashioned places they once were.

      I might add that Romanians make very good immigrants, conservative, hard-working, family-minded, Christian. The EU is lucky if it needs immigrants to have a large supply of East Europeans. I wrote about this here. http://pvewood.blogspot.ro/2013/12/romanians-make-good-immigrants.html

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  3. Ron Liddle belongs to the league of haters of Romania in the British media, along with Raheem Kassam (Breibart's editor and Farage's henchman), Richard Desmond (owner of Daily Express and donor of UKIP) and Paul Dacre (Editor of Daily Mail). I would rather trust Pravda articles on Romania than any of the utterings of these "journalists". Just read the comments made by Razvan Lalu and Dacus to find out how Liddle twisted the data on Romanian "criminality".

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  4. Liddle doesn't hate anyone. He is concerned about the UK losing her identity. Romanians are or used to be mostly pretty right-wing on Third World immigration themselves. Thank you for leading me to Lalu's and Dacus' comments on Liddle's piece. Liddle didn't twist anything but they make a very good point that as legal Romanian workers were excluded criminals, beggars, prostitutes etc came instead. In fact many Romanians got legal jobs, though.

    I wouldn't say the British rules were unfair though. David Short, whom I knew for years before and while he published ZF, makes the point that the crimes are mostly committed by Romanian gypsies.
    I still find it odd to hear Romanians complaining of discrimination, when they are not in most cases at all PC, but I suppose Romanian see themselves as EU citizens. I wonder whether my compatriots now do.

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    1. It was Dacus, not Lidddle, who pointed out that "legal Romanian workers were excluded criminals, beggars, prostitutes etc came instead", as response to Liddle's claims that Romanians are mostly criminals.

      As for evidence of Liddle's deep hatred of Romanians, please read these Spectator blog entries:
      http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2013/09/whats-the-difference-between-romanian-immigrants-and-second-home-owners-well/
      http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/rod-liddle/8857961/isnt-germanys-attitude-towards-romania-a-little-at-odds-with-the-eu-project/
      http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2013/07/what-has-happened-to-the-deluge-of-romanians/
      http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/rod-liddle/2014/05/german-or-romanian-neighbour-which-would-you-choose/
      http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/615276/here-in-transylvania-it-feels-okay-to-be-proudly-english/
      Note that he illustrates all his articles with pictures of gypsies to represent Romanians. Goebbels would be proud of him.

      I stand on my previous comment on Rod Liddle.

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  5. This text isn't but a collection of most horrendous anti-Romanian propaganda slogans, devoid of any trace of truth, common sens or decency. It's UKIP propaganda at its lowest level: lies, manipulation and hate speech.

    Nothing, strictly nothing of this confused and incoherent text is true, everything is false, distorted or invented.

    It's simply outrageous.

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  6. The truth stinks, Rasvan ;)

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  7. I think what emerges most strongly from this post is the fact that the Romanian gypsies ruin the image of Romanians generally, although they are probably a relatively small proportion of the total number of Romanian immigrants into the UK. Sadly, most British people are unaware of the different ethnicity of the two types of immigrant..

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