Fmr Labour Home Secretary, David Blunkett, warns Roma immigration 'could cause riots'

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-Blunkett.html

Roma migrants could cause riots in cities, warns Blunkett

British cities could face race riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates “frictions” with local people, David Blunkett warns

A Roma camp in Triel-sur-Seine, near Paris. David Blunkett says Roma people should be discouraged from throwing rubbish and living in over-crowded houses.

British cities could face race riots as an influx of Roma migrants creates “frictions” with local people, David Blunkett, a former home secretary has warned.

Anti-social behaviour by Roma people in his Sheffield constituency has resulted in “understandable tensions” among the indigenous community that must be addressed to avert disorder, Mr Blunkett said.

Roma migrants from Slovakia must “change their culture” and send their children to school, stop dumping rubbish and loitering in the streets in order to soothe tensions, Mr Blunkett said.

Otherwise, the community could “explode” in the same way northern towns were rocked by disorder between Asian and white neighbourhoods in the summer of 2001, Mr Blunkett said.

Concerned: Former Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett warns of civil disrest.

Britain is now home to 200,000 Roma migrants, one of the largest populations in Western Europe, a recent study shows. Most have come from eastern Europe since 2004 and the numbers are growing rapidly. Several hundred families live in the Page Hall district of Sheffield. Locals have set up “street patrols” in response to anti-social behaviour by migrants.

"If everything exploded, if things went wrong, the community would obviously be devastated,” Mr Blunkett said. “We saw this is Bradford, Burnley and Oldham all those years ago when I first became Home Secretary. If things implode it’s not outside here that cops it, it’s the community.”

In 2001, the northern towns of Bradford, Oldham and Burnley saw serious rioting, following tensions between the growing Asian community and far-right groups such as the National Front and the British National Party. Shops were torched, hundreds of police officers injured and more than 200 people jailed.

The cultural gulf between the Roma and the settled community is 50 per cent greater than that between white Britons and Pakistani immigrants who came to Britain a generation ago, Mr Blunkett told BBC Radio.

“The Roma youngsters have come from a background even more different culturally, because they were living in the edge of woods, not going to school, not used to the norms of everyday life. We’ve got to change that,” he said.

Local police must persuade Roma people “not to spend all their time in the street” and discourage them from throwing rubbish and living in over-crowded houses.

Indigenous locals are entitled to “grumble” about the influx of migrants, Mr Blunkett said but must not “stir up hate”.

“I wouldn’t want other people to put up with things I wouldn’t put up with myself,” he said. “This is nothing to do with criticising people about being racist. By all means grumble, but don’t stir up hate. If you set a fire alight, you came from Bradford, you saw it – nobody gained from that.”

He added: “There’s always a danger that you are right on the edge of the understandable tensions. It’s a cry for help from very, many people: ‘please, for goodness sake, put us back to the semblance we had before’,” he said.

In 2011 official estimates suggested “relatively few Roma citizens” lived in the UK.

The Government has is “head in the sand” over the true numbers and is failing to take advantage of European Union funding to help cope with migration, Mr Blunkett said.

Asked about his own policies for handling migrants while Home Secretary, Mr Blunkett said: “They weren’t as brilliant as I would have liked, but they were there.”

Local charities have done a “phenomenal job” in bringing the communities together, he added.

Hmm that's funny, imagine if Nigel Farage had said something like this even though it's 100% true - he'd be labelled a racist, scaremongering, 'stirring up tension' etc.

So there we have it. From January 2014 the borders will open up to Romania and Bulgaria - countries containing 29m very poor people. Now you could ask, well why aren't the government doing anything about this? Well, because we're in the EU and this is a result of EU open borders.

So what do you think? Is Blunkett right to warn and should the borders be opened or not?

[AgnesIO]

Of coursrimmigration should be controlled but is no one else fed up of this constant scaremongering, i mean for goodness sake, Britain is not the only country in the EU for these people to go if they so choose to; and hasn't it already been suggested than the Romanians have other interests than Britain?

More to the point, should we really be accepting something from a former Labour Home Secretary; someone who is obviously going to take every opportunity he possibly can to attack the current coalition?

Sent from my HTC One X

[-:Undertaker:-]

Of coursrimmigration should be controlled but is no one else fed up of this constant scaremongering, i mean for goodness sake, Britain is not the only country in the EU for these people to go if they so choose to; and hasn't it already been suggested than the Romanians have other interests than Britain?

So you think very poor Roma will go to say, bankrupt Portugal or Spain?

Britain isn't known as treasure island for nothing you know.

More to the point, should we really be accepting something from a former Labour Home Secretary; someone who is obviously going to take every opportunity he possibly can to attack the current coalition?

That would usually be true, however you have to bare in mind that Blunkett was Home Office Secretary when the gates to Poland and Eastern Europe were opened up - back then the Government, including Blunkett, dismissed MigrationWatch, Nigel Farage etc and said that only 13,000 Poles a year would come. Guess how many came over a period of about 5 years? 800,000. It seems to me that Blunkett isn't scaremongering, he's finally telling the truth.

At the end of the day our dilemma is very simple. We do not know how many people are going to come, the Government refuses to release estimates because they will probably be horrifically wrong again - so what do you do? do you take the risk and open the borders or refuse to open the borders in the first place?

The last time I checked youth unemployment in this country was 1m+. We do not NEED anymore low skilled workers.

[Chippiewill]

So you think very poor Roma will go to say, bankrupt Portugal or Spain?

No. Probably France, Germany, the rest of eastern europe.

Britain isn't known as treasure island for nothing you know.

..it's not known as Treasure island at all. Also you said yourself there are already too many low skilled workers..

The last time I checked youth unemployment in this country was 1m+. We do not NEED anymore low skilled workers.

Why go somewhere with no jobs?

[-:Undertaker:-]

No. Probably France, Germany, the rest of eastern europe.

So is that why there are camps in France in the port of Calais waiting to come over here?

Simple reason: our welfare state is the most generous.

..it's not known as Treasure island at all. Also you said yourself there are already too many low skilled workers..

From what i've read it is.

I see you've ticked the borders should open though so i'm interested to know how many you expect to come to Britain next year - I mean your all for opening the borders right, so you must have a summary of the numbers and thus the impact on social services, infrastructure, crime etc otherwise you wouldn't blindly want the borders open would you?

This isn't sarcasm btw, you must genuinely know the estimated figures so i'm really interested to know them.

Why go somewhere with no jobs?

Because many of the companies purposely bypass British unemployed and only advertise in an Eastern European language in Eastern Europe.

[Chippiewill]

So is that why there are camps in France in the port of Calais waiting to come over here?

There'll still be a few wanting to come over here, doesn't mean the rest will.

From what i've read it is.

If you read a bunch of articles and books describing immigration as impending doom then I imagine they'd all say that. However as someone who doesn't go out of their way to read articles focussed on portraying immigration as the devils spawn, no I don't think I or most of the population have heard it described as such.

I see you've ticked the borders should open though so i'm interested to know how many you expect to come to Britain next year - I mean your all for opening the borders right, so you must have a summary of the numbers and thus the impact on social services, infrastructure, crime etc otherwise you wouldn't blindly want the borders open would you?

This isn't sarcasm btw, you must genuinely know the estimated figures so i'm really interested to know them.

100,000 give or take.

Because many of the companies purposely bypass British unemployed and only advertise in an Eastern European language in Eastern Europe.

Then maybe eastern european workers are better. It's a free market after all. You're not against free markets.. are you?

[FlyingJesus]

Extremely misleading article which seems to be purposefully conflating "Roma" with "Romanian" despite the former actually being a culture of mostly Indian descent with more Romani people living in Spain (whoops yep looks like they would go there after all) than Romania or Bulgaria.




As for "treasure island" the only evidence I can find of Britain ever being named as such is to do with car dealerships making a lot of money on imports... also Shakespeare very often alluded to England as a place full of madmen and murderous kings in his plays, guess we all better do a runner before we get executed huh

[Kardan]

So when all the people from Romania and Bulgaria come over, which countries will we moan about next?

[PinkSocks]

Nothing against Romanian and Bulgarian people I just know there will be a lot of immigration and there isnt enough room

[AgnesIO]

Nothing against Romanian and Bulgarian people I just know there will be a lot of immigration and there isnt enough room

"I just know"...

.. been reading the Daily Mail or actually looked into research on the subject?