[rob_c]

Yeah that article is missing a very major point that immigration in the UK hasn't meant assimilation or a coherent mixing of cultures as people want or may have observed at times.

The problems in the UK are actually focused around sticky blobbyness caused by a) lack of integration, b) left vs right flavor of the moment causing further segregation and c) long term socioeconomic factors leading to govt(councils) fixing the problem in the cheapest way possible which is unfortunately high profile in the British high street by the public.

A lot of British are moving out of the city centers themselves (or already have) and into suburbs which leaves the cities hollowed out. Lack of footfall means lack of investment means decay and cheap housing/buildings.

All of this is a predicable recipe for friction but very short term British politics combined with a "not my problem" attitude prevalent in the nhs and public sectors means people doubled down in short term solutions for over a generation.

That combined with more hardship causes people to look at the biggest broken problem which is our immigration system needed reforming over 20yr+ ago and unfortunately this was locked into place by EU laws and policy (such ironically we pushed for, for other political reasons).

It's less of a grand conspiracy and more of the dominoes we're set to fall this way after dragging us out of the 80s without fixing anything and then the post recession being used to fuel boom and growth vs fixing underlying issues at a national level.

[kjkjadksj]

British people miss the fact that assimilation happens in the generation after the immigrant generation. Italian immigrants were looked down on in the US too. Too catholic, not speaking the language and not engaging in american culture practices. The next generation speaks fluent english and is scarcely different than any other american out of the school system.

[_DeadFred_]

I wonder if we (the countries experiencing mass immigration numbers) are also missing that between 1908 and 1923 35% to 40% of all immigrants who arrived in the U.S. eventually returned to their home countries. I wonder if those were people who were unable to assimilate and if those numbers are true today or if with access to media from home, etc, it no longer occurs as much and the dynamics today are incomparable to historical immigration/assimilation patterns.

[graemep]

Most immigrants in UK do assimilate. Seen the stories about the high proportion of births where at least one parent is foreign born? In most cases the other parent is British born.