In a typing sense I’m just thinking aloud here, rather than expressing some rigid gut-deep opinion (if pressed I’m not sure I can really boast to have any of those), but I look at a problem like immigration and I see the only problems being overcrowding, and potential (sometimes only percieved) misallocation of welfare resources. The latter looks like a big cause of resentment for both citizens and immigrants, depending on who one asks.

The former of those two immigration problems can be solved by expanding major urban centres vertically more than is done at present, and any potential food shortage can be made up by the provision of hydroponic farms within skyscrapers in urban areas. Might not look pretty, but it might make the UK a somewhat longer lasting entity than it currently is.

I voted Yes to the poll.

The reason I voted Yes isn’t because I think that UK is specifically a Country of Immigration but because I think all countries should be countries of immigration. I think that people moving around in the world is a wonderful idea. I don’t know if I will still be living in the UK 10 or 15 years from now. I may go somewhere else to taste a different kind of life. I may decide to go back to Pakistan. I may stay here.

I think if more countries opened up about people moving around, it will allow more interaction between people of differing or even opposing views and skills would gravitate towards those countries where those skills are in demand.

That is a pretty powerful notion in my opinion. Your point about population density has some merit, but I think that in itself isn’t that big of a problem as it seems to be on the face of it. For example, most of Europe has a pretty low birth-rate and potentially a lot of British folks might like to go live in Italy or Poland or Slovakia. There’s a lot of Europeans living and working in the Gulf (where I lived for a year back in 2000). Similarly, there is a huge influx of people from the West going to work in China.

I think in future, more and more countries should and will open up their borders, much like Europe has within itself. That is the only way we can realistically, and non-confrontationally, increase engagement with each other and make this world more peaceful.

More Star Trek than Star Wars.

In answer to the poster above who asks how being a Country of Immigration is better than being a Country of Emigration, the latter suffers from many problems. The most significant of them is brain drain. Another one results from the fact that the “desirable” leave, leaving behind the less-skilled and that has a detrimental impact not only economically, but also socially and politically. All of which worsens the core reasons why people are leaving the country in the first place.

Interesting – How so?