Turkish Forum

Category: Non-EU Countries

  • David Cameron says that immigrants should learn English

    David Cameron says that immigrants should learn English

    The prime minister warns in a speech that an unwillingness to integrate has created a disjointed Britain

    David Cameron immigration 007

    Full text of David Cameron’s speech

    Comments (964)

    • Nicholas Watt, chief political correspondent
    • The Guardian, Thursday 14 April 2011
    • Article history
      • David Cameron blames Labour for allowing immigration to become ‘too high’ Link to this videoDavid Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a “kind of discomfort and disjointedness” which has disrupted communities across Britain.

      In his most outspoken speech on immigration since becoming prime minister, Cameron will blame Labour for allowing immigration to become “too high” and for adopting an approach that allowed the British National party to flourish.

      The prime minister will open his speech, in Hampshire, by saying that immigration is a hugely emotive subject that must be handled with sensitivity. But he will then say that Labour presided over the “largest influx” of immigration in British history, which saw 2.2 million more people settling in Britain between 1997 and 2009 than leaving to live abroad.

      Cameron will say this has placed serious pressure on schools, housing and the NHS, and has also created social pressures.

      “Real communities are bound by common experiences forged by friendship and conversation, knitted together by all the rituals of the neighbourhood, from the school run to the chat down the pub. And these bonds can take time,” he will say.

      “So real integration takes time. That’s why, when there have been significant numbers of new people arriving in neighbourhoods, perhaps not able to speak the same language as those living there, on occasions not really wanting or even willing to integrate, that has created a kind of discomfort and disjointedness in some neighbourhoods. This has been the experience for many people in our country – and I believe it is untruthful and unfair not to speak about it and address it.”

      The prime minister will stride into sensitive political territory when he accuses Labour of helping to stoke an uncertain climate over immigration. Cameron believes Labour inflamed the issue by accusing critics of racism while at the same time pandering to the hard right. He will say: “I believe the role of politicians is to cut through the extremes of this debate and approach the subject sensibly and reasonably. The last government, in contrast, actually helped to inflame the debate. On the one hand, there were Labour ministers who closed down discussion, giving the impression that concerns about immigration were somehow racist. On the other, there were ministers hell-bent on burnishing their hardline credentials by talking tough but doing nothing to bring the numbers down.

      “This had damaging consequences in terms of controlling immigration and in terms of public debate. It created the space for extremist parties to flourish, as they could tell people that mainstream politicians weren’t listening to their concerns or doing anything about them.”

      The speech may add to coalition tensions after the Liberal Democrats distanced themselves from the prime minister’s language. Nick Clegg saw the speech which he “noted rather than approved”.

      One Lib Dem source said: “We use different language. But we all work in government to strike a balance to ensure Britain has a system people have confidence in.”

      No 10 insisted that the speech does not mark a return to the era of William Hague as Tory leader when he used the issue as part of a “core votes” strategy. On the eve of the 2001 election, Hague warned that Britain was in danger of turning into a “foreign land” in remarks that technically referred to the EU. Cameron will say that Britain has benefited hugely from immigration. “Go into any hospital and you’ll find people from Uganda, India and Pakistan who are caring for our sick and vulnerable. Go into schools and universities and you’ll find teachers from all over the world, inspiring our young people.”

      But the prime minister will use his speech to challenge those who say:

      • Immigration cannot be controlled because Britain is a member of the EU. Cameron will say that future EU member states will be subject to tougher transitional controls and the UK can address immigration from outside the EU through the cap on non-EU immigration.

      • Immigration can be controlled – but to do so would inflict serious damage on the economy. Cameron will say the government is thinking “incredibly carefully” about which workers should come.

      But the prime minister will make clear that immigration cannot be controlled until Britain’s welfare system is reformed. “Put simply, we will never control immigration properly unless we tackle welfare dependency. That’s another powerful reason why this government is undertaking the biggest shake-up of the welfare system for generations making sure that work will always pay and ending the option of living a life on the dole when a life in work is possible.”

      The prime minister will also condemn forced marriages and those who say they should be tolerated. “There are forced marriages taking place in our country, and overseas as a means of gaining entry to the UK. This is the practice where some young British girls are bullied and threatened into marrying someone they don’t want to.

      “I’ve got no time for those who say this is a culturally relative issue – it is wrong, full stop, and we’ve got to stamp it out. Then there are just the straightforward sham marriages.”In February, the prime minister gave a speech in Munich condemning “state multiculturalism” which had “tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run counter to our values”.

  • Joint article on Libya: The pathway to peace

    Joint article on Libya: The pathway to peace

    Friday 15 April 2011

    number10logo

    Prime Minister David Cameron, President Barack Obama and President Nicolas Sarkozy have written a joint article on Libya underlining their determination that Qadhafi must “go and go for good”.

     

    Read the article

    Together with our NATO allies and coalition partners, the United States, France and Britain have been united at the UN Security Council, as well as the following Paris Conference, in building a broad-based coalition to respond to  the crisis in Libya. We are equally united on what needs to happen in order to end it.

    Even as we continue military operations today to protect civilians in Libya, we are determined to look to the future. We are convinced that better times lie ahead for the people of Libya, and a pathway can be forged to achieve just that.

    We must never forget the reasons why the international community was obliged to act in the first place. As Libya descended into chaos with Colonel Qadhafi attacking his own people, the Arab League called for action. The Libyan opposition called for help. And the people of Libya looked to the world in their hour of need. In an historic Resolution, the United Nations Security Council authorised all necessary measures to protect the people of Libya from the attacks upon them.  By responding immediately, our countries  halted the advance of Qadhafi’s forces. The bloodbath that he had promised to inflict upon the citizens of the besieged city of Benghazi has been prevented.

    Tens of thousands of lives have been protected.  But the people of Libya are suffering terrible horrors at Qadhafi’s hands each and every day. His rockets and his shells rained down on defenceless civilians in Ajdabiya. The city of Misrata is enduring a mediaeval siege, as Qadhafi tries to strangle its population into submission.   The evidence of disappearances and abuses grows daily.

    Our duty and our mandate under UN Security Council Resolution 1973 is to protect civilians, and we are doing that. It is not to remove Qadhafi by force.  But it is impossible to imagine a future for Libya with Qadhafi in power.  The International Criminal Court is rightly investigating the crimes committed against civilians and the grievous violations of international law.  It is unthinkable that someone who has tried to massacre his own people can play a part in their future government. The brave citizens of those towns that have held out against forces that have been mercilessly targeting them would face a fearful vengeance if the world accepted such an arrangement.  It would be an unconscionable betrayal.

    Furthermore, it would condemn Libya to being not only a pariah state, but a failed state too.  Qadhafi has promised to carry out terrorist attacks against civilian ships and airliners.  And because he has lost the consent of his people any deal that leaves him in power would lead to further chaos and lawlessness.  We know from bitter experience what that would mean.  Neither Europe, the region, or the world can afford a new safe haven for extremists.

    There is a pathway to peace that promises new hope for the people of Libya.  A future without Qadhafi that preserves Libya’s integrity and sovereignty, and restores her economy and the prosperity and security of her people.  This needs to begin with a genuine end to violence, marked by deeds not words.  The regime has to pull back from the cities it is besieging, including Ajdabiya, Misrata and Zintan, and their forces return to their barracks. However, so long as Qadhafi is in power, NATO and its coalition partners must maintain their operations so that civilians remain protected and the pressure on the regime builds.  Then a genuine transition from dictatorship to an inclusive constitutional process can really begin, led by a new generation of leaders.  In order for that transition to succeed, Colonel Qadhafi must go and go for good.  At that point, the United Nations and its members should help the Libyan people as they rebuild where Qadhafi has destroyed – to repair homes and hospitals, to restore basic utilities, and to assist Libyans as they develop the institutions to underpin a prosperous and open society.

    This vision for the future of Libya has the support of a broad coalition of countries, including many from the Arab world.  These countries came together in London on 29 March and founded a Contact Group which met this week in Doha to support a solution to the crisis that respects the will of the Libyan people.

    Today, NATO and its coalition partners are acting in the name of the United Nations with an unprecedented international legal mandate.  But it will be the people of Libya, not the UN, that choose their new constitution, elect their new leaders, and write the next chapter in their history.

    Britain, France and the United States will not rest until the United Nations Security Council resolutions have been implemented and the Libyan people can choose their own future.

    The Prime Ministers Office

    Number 10

  • Anger over English lesson funding cuts

    Anger over English lesson funding cuts

    Teachers say government rules mean fewer immigrants will be able to afford ESOL classes they have been told to take

    Jessica Shepherd

    handwriting
    Just over 180,000 students take ESOL classes in England.

    Teachers have reacted with anger to the prime minister’s call for immigrants to take English lessons, arguing that the coalition has cut funds for these classes.

    At a speech on immigration in Hampshire on Thursday, David Cameron will warn that immigrants unable to speak English or unwilling to integrate have created a “kind of discomfort and disjointedness”, which has disrupted communities across Britain.

    But teachers of English said new rules, devised by the coalition government, would mean far fewer immigrants could afford to learn basic English.

    From autumn this year, the government will only fund classes in basic English to immigrants on jobseeker’s allowance and employability skills allowance. Those claiming income support and other benefits will no longer be able to attend classes for free.

    Newcomers to this country who lack basic English skills will have to pay half the cost of their lessons and employers will have to foot the bill for English lessons that take place in the workplace.

    Teachers of basic English classes – known as English for speakers of other languages or ESOL – said the vast majority of their students were housewives whose husbands would not be able to afford for them to study part-time at £400 or £500 a year.

    “We think that this change could mean that about half of all ESOL students in some cities will be shut out from attending lessons,” said Judith Kirsh from the National Association for Teaching English and Community Languages to Adults, the professional association for ESOL teachers.

    Just over 180,000 students take ESOL classes in England. The lessons are the first step to learning English for most immigrants and take place in further education colleges and community centres.

    Kirsh said hundreds of ESOL teachers faced redundancy as a result of the changes.

    Perdy Patterson, an ESOL teacher at Tower Hamlets College in east London, said immigrants wanted to learn and speak English. “There are waiting lists often in the hundreds for these classes. It is disingenuous of Cameron to use this line of argument and then to also be cutting these classes.”

    She said the most vulnerable women in society were being hit. “These are women who are dependent on their husbands’ income. The changes will mean we don’t even know whether there will be an ESOL sector next year.”

    Indi Bains, an ESOL teacher at Hackney Community College in east London, said the changes to the funding of the classes would make it much more difficult for immigrants to integrate into British society.

    The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education said that changes over the last four years had meant the number of ESOL students had dropped from 219,000 to 183,000.

    “Current proposals put up to half of the remaining places at risk,” said Chris Taylor, the institute’s programme manager for ESOL.

    “What the reduction in ESOL places means is fewer chances for a reviving British economy to make use of the skills of migrants. It means that the children of families with poor English have an extra hurdle to overcome in doing well at school and it means that it will take longer for people to share their experiences with others in the ways the prime minister describes.

    “In order to achieve real integration, we ask the government to look again at the evidence and assess what could be done to ensure those individuals most disadvantaged get the English language courses they need.”

    www.guardian.co.uk, 14 April 2011

  • Policeman dies after car-bomb attack

    Policeman dies after car-bomb attack

    Suspected republican hardliners killed a police officer with a car bomb in Omagh on Saturday afternoon.

    No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but police and politicians blamed Irish Republican Army dissidents who are believed to have been planting bombs underneath off-duty Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers’ private cars.

    Until Saturday such booby-trap attacks had badly maimed two PSNI officers but had not killed anyone.

    PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott paid tribute to his colleague, who has been named as Ronan Kerr.

    “We have lost one of our brave and courageous police recruits, someone who joined this fine service simply to do good, joined to serve the community impartially and to be someone I describe as a modern-day hero,” he said.

    Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams TD condemned those responsible for Saturday’s bomb attack and sent his condolences to Mr Kerr’s family.

    Mr Adams said that Sinn Fein was “determined that those responsible will not set back the progress of the peace and political process.”

    Morning Star Online

     

  • Book now: inspiring short break holidays – Telegraph

    Book now: inspiring short break holidays – Telegraph

    Shopping in Istanbul

    The first Istanbul shopping festival is under way and will continue until April 26.

    bazaar alamy620 1862281b

    Events include street shows, concerts and games, which take place everywhere from the Grand Bazaar to backstreet boutiques and upmarket malls.

    There is late shopping for the duration of the festival (until 11pm on many nights).

    Turkish Airlines (020 7471 6666; www.turkishairlines.com) flies from Heathrow, Manchester and Birmingham to Istanbul. BA (0844 493 0787; www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow, and easyJet (0870 600 0000; www.easyjet.com) from Gatwick.

    * More information: www.istanbulshoppingfest.org; www.visitistanbul.org

    via Book now: inspiring short break holidays – Telegraph.

  • Revealed: Gaddafi envoy in Britain for secret talks

    Revealed: Gaddafi envoy in Britain for secret talks

    Exclusive: Contact with senior aide believed to be one of a number between Libyan officials and west amid signs regime may be looking for exit strategy

    Peter Beaumont , Nicholas Watt and Severin Carrell

    Gaddafi supporters stage a rally
    Supporters of the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi stage a rally in Tripoli. Photograph: Zohra Bensemra/Reuters

    Colonel Gaddafi’s regime has sent one of its most trusted envoys to London for confidential talks with British officials, the Guardian can reveal.

    Mohammed Ismail, a senior aide to Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam, visited London in recent days, British government sources familiar with the meeting have confirmed. The contacts with Ismail are believed to have been one of a number between Libyan officials and the west in the last fortnight, amid signs that the regime may be looking for an exit strategy.

    Disclosure of Ismail’s visit comes in the immediate aftermath of the defection to Britain of Moussa Koussa, Libya‘s foreign minister and its former external intelligence head, who has been Britain’s main conduit to the Gaddafi regime since the early 1990s.

    A team led by the British ambassador to Libya, Richard Northern, and MI6 officers embarked on a lengthy debriefing of Koussa at a safe house after he flew into Farnborough airport on Wednesday night from Tunisia. Government sources said the questioning would take time because Koussa’s state of mind was “delicate” after he left his family in Libya.

    The Foreign Office has declined “to provide a running commentary” on contacts with Ismail or other regime officials. But news of the meeting comes amid mounting speculation that Gaddafi’s sons, foremost among them Saif al-Islam, Saadi and Mutassim, are anxious to talk. “There has been increasing evidence recently that the sons want a way out,” said a western diplomatic source.

    Although he has little public profile in Libya or internationally, Ismail is recognised by diplomats as being a key fixer and representative for Saif al-Islam. According to cables published by WikiLeaks, Ismail represented Libya’s government in arms purchase negotiations and as an interlocutor on military and political issues.

    “The message that was delivered to him is that Gaddafi has to go, and that there will be accountability for crimes committed at the international criminal court,” a Foreign Office spokesman told the Guardian , declining to elaborate on what else may have been discussed.

    Some aides working for Gaddafi’s sons, however, have made it clear that it may be necessary to sideline their father and explore exit strategies to prevent the country descending into anarchy.

    One idea the sons have reportedly suggested – which the Guardian has been unable to corroborate – is that Gaddafi give up real power. Mutassim, presently the country’s national security adviser, would become president of an interim national unity government which would include the opposition. It is an idea, however, unlikely to find support among the rebels or the international community who are demanding Gaddafi’s removal.

    The revelation that contacts between Britain and a key Gaddafi loyalist had taken place came as David Cameron hailed the defection of Koussa as a sign the regime was crumbling. “It tells a compelling story of the desperation and the fear right at the very top of the crumbling and rotten Gaddafi regime,” he said.

    Ministers regard Koussa’s move to abandon his family as a sign of the magnitude of his decision. “Moussa Koussa is very worried about his family,” one source said. “But he did this because he felt it was the best way of bringing down Gaddafi.”

    Britain learned that Koussa wanted to defect when he made contact from Tunisia. He had made his way out of Libya in a convoy of cars after announcing he was going on a diplomatic mission to visit the new government in Tunis.

    It was also reported that Ali Abdussalam Treki, a senior Libyan diplomat, declined to take up his appointment by Gaddafi as UN ambassador, condemning the “spilling of blood”. Officials were checking reports that Tarek Khalid Ibrahim, the deputy head of mission in London, is also defecting.

    The prime minister insisted that no deal had been struck with Koussa and that he would not be offered immunity from prosecution. “Let me be clear, Moussa Koussa is not being granted immunity. There is no deal of that kind,” Cameron said. Within hours of his arrival in Britain, Scottish prosecutors asked to interview Koussa about the 1988 Lockerbie bombing. The Crown Office in Edinburgh has said that it is formally asking for its prosecutors and police detectives to question him.

    But government sources indicated that Britain does not believe Koussa was involved. He was at the heart of Britain’s rapprochement with Libya, which started when Tripoli abandoned its support for the IRA in the early 1990s.

    He was instrumental in persuading Gaddafi to abandon his weapons of mass destruction programme in 2003. One source said: “Nobody is saying this guy was a saint, because he was a key Gaddafi lieutenant who was kicked out of Britain in 1980 for making threats to kill Libyan dissidents. But this is the guy who persuaded Gaddafi to abandon his WMD programme. He no doubt has useful and interesting things to say about Lockerbie, but it doesn’t seem he said ‘go and do it’.”

    However there is unease among Tories about Britain’s involvement in Libya. Underlining those concerns, Boris Johnson, the London mayor, told BBC Question Time that a continued stalemate in Libya could “have terrible consequences”. Johnson said; “I do worry that if we get into a stalemate; and if, frankly, the rebels don’t seem to be making the progress that we would like, we have to be brave, to say to ourselves that our policy is not working, and encourage the Arabs themselves to take leadership in all of this.”

    William Hague, the foreign secretary, said he had a sense that Koussa was deeply unhappy with Gaddafi when they spoke last Friday. “One of the things I gathered between the lines in my telephone calls with him, although he of course had to read out the scripts of the regime, was that he was very distressed and dissatisfied by the situation there,” Hague said.

    www.guardian.co.uk, 1 April 2011