Welcome to the MRN staff blog, where we regularly update our visitors on news in the world of immigration, including perspectives on latest policy developments, events and reports, and updates from our office. Join in the discussion and post your comment.

Organisations across Italy launched a ‘virtual strike’ in solidarity with migrants on 1st March, symbolically entitled ‘One Day Without Us’.

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On the 22nd of February the Mayor of London hosted the fourth ‘Integrating Cities Conference’ in City Hall. The conference brought together mayors, European Commission representatives, members of migrant organisations and public officials from several European cities to share experiences and approaches to migrant integration and to sign the Eurocities Charter on Integrating Cities. The charter is a commitment by city authorities towards the integration of migrants. The charter was signed by London together with other cities such as Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, Helsinki Rom, and Utrecht.

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Strangely charming documentary on BBC1 last night - “The Day the Immigrants Left” - which I flagged up on the MRN Facebook wall a week or so ago. I thought it made a good case that the new economy that has come into existence in places like Wisbech - a small town in rural Cambridgeshire - hasn’t treated the local working class well and there is a whole category of people who have been sealed out of the jobs market.

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Phil Woolas’ latest comments last weekend have set tongues wagging again about the necessary benchmarks for migrants to meet in order to become ‘proper Brits’. Ministers are fond of talking in broad terms about the need for migrants to ‘earn their citizenship’ by demonstrating ‘British values’. But little attempt has been made by the Home Office to define ‘Britishness’.

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This piece in the FT (”Immigration pushes councils to limit“) shows how murky the immigration debate is likely to get in the period ahead. Council leaders in the three areas surveyed – Boston, Peterborough and Slough – all agree that immigration has boosted their local economies and they generally feel good about it. But, they also say that it is placing a strain on local services for which they do not receive adequate compensation from central government distributed taxes.

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The Points Based System (PBS) for immigration is meant to ensure that the government can make swift changes to the criteria for work and study in the UK, in order to respond to ‘changing needs’. But I wonder if anyone else was surprised to hear the news on the radio last Sunday afternoon that a whole host of new rules were being brought in, with immediate effect, to control the entry of people on student visas to the UK. This was a swift change indeed.

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Too many migrants are getting a lousy service from the UK Border Agency, according to a report that has just come out today by the Parliamentary Ombudsman. Yet bet, and if the office of something as mainstream as this outfit is prepared to be vocal on the issue, then things must be very grim indeed for tens of thousands of regular men and women. Have a look yourself in this pdf of the full report.

The more politicians proclaim the need for ‘honest conversations’ about immigration policy, the more likely that what follows will be spurious nonsense.

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Does anyone else find it frustrating when prominent politicians moan about the lack of a ‘proper debate’ on immigration, especially in the lead-up to a general election when soundbites are the order of the day?

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The opening shots for GE2010 seem to have come from the Balanced Migration Group – the cross party parliamentary set-up formed to advance the position of MigrationWatch UK. Its “Declaration on Population” proclaims that “70 million is too many”, thereby setting the parameters for a discussion destined to generate more heat than light.

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