["IMMIGRATION: AN UNPARALLELED CRISIS WHICH ONLY THE BNP CAN SOLVE. \n\n- At current immigration and birth rates, indigenous British people are set to become a minority well within 50 years.\n \n- This will result in the extinction of the British people, culture, heritage and identity.\n\n- The BNP will take all steps necessary to halt and reverse this process. \n\n- These steps will include a halt to all further immigration, the deportation of all illegal immigrants, a halt to the \"asylum\" swindle and the promotion of the already existing voluntary repatriation scheme.\n\n- The BNP recognises the right of legally settled and law-abiding minorities to remain in the UK and enjoy the full protection of the law, on the understanding that the indigenous population of Britain has the right to remain the majority population of our nation.\n\n- The BNP will deport all foreigners convicted of crimes in Britain, regardless of their immigration status.\n\n- The BNP will review all citizenship grants awarded since Labour entered government in 1997, based on that party's admission that they orchestrated mass immigration to change forcibly Britain's demographics and to gerrymander elections.\n\n- The BNP will repeal the Race Relations Act and all other far leftist social engineering projects, such as the Equalities and Human Rights Commission aimed at enforcing multiculturalism.\n\n- The BNP will regain sovereign control of our borders by increasing funding to the UK Border Agency.\n\nThe Scale of the Crisis\n\nBritain's existence is in grave peril, threatened by immigration and multiculturalism. In the absence of urgent action, we, the indigenous British people, will be reduced to minority status in our own ancestral homeland within two generations.\n\nWe, alone of all the political parties, have a decades-long record of truthfully articulating our concerns, often with foresight, and long before many of the problems associated with multiculturalism entered the public consciousness.\n\nBritish People Set to be a Minority within 30 - 50 Years: The Official Figures\n\n- According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), legal Third World immigrants made up 14.7 percent (7.5 million) of the population of England in 2004 (\"Population review of 2004 and 2005: England and Wales\", Karen Gask, Office for National Statistics).\n\n- According to the ONS, 10.9 percent (or 6.7 million) of the currently resident population of Britain was not born in this country (\"One in 10 of population born abroad\", Telegraph, 09 Dec 2009).\n\n- In 2005, the ONS issued a separate report which said that 36 percent of all births in England and Wales were not \"white British\" (\"Birthweight and gestational age by ethnic group, England and Wales 2005: introducing new data on births\", Kath Moser, Office for National Statistics).\n\n- This 2005 birth rate figure does not include births to second and third generation immigrant mothers. Figures released by the ONS in January 2009 revealed that the Muslim population in Britain has grown by more than 500,000 to 2.4 million in just four years. Their population multiplied 10 times faster than the rest of society (\"Muslim population 'rising 10 times faster than rest of society'\", the Times, 30 January 2009).\n\n- An August 2008 ONS population report stated that, on average, 'foreign' women have 2.5 children each, rising to 3.9 for those from Bangladesh and almost five for Pakistani women (\"Most children of British mothers born out of wedlock\", Telegraph, 11 July 2008). When these figures are added in, the immigrant birth rate is estimated to be around 50 percent of all live births in England and Wales.\n\n- The majority of the 'new immigrants' are not from Eastern Europe, as is often widely claimed. According to the ONS figures, immigrants from Eastern Europe had 25,000 children in Britain last year - an absolute minority of the just over 700,000 live births (\"Number of foreigners in UK hits record 6.7m\", BBC, 8 December 2009).\n\n- According to the Birmingham City Council, 61 percent of all primary school children in greater Birmingham are of Third World origin (\"Asian pupils outnumber white children in Birmingham primary schools for the first time\", Birmingham Mail, 26 Jan 2010).\n\n- Over 300 languages are currently spoken in London schools. Some of the most established of these are Bengali, Gujarati, Punjabi, Cantonese, Mandarin and Hokkien (\"Languages across Europe\", BBC).\n\n- Some 150 languages are spoken in schools in Reading, an indication of the extent of the invasion in Berkshire (\"150 different languages spoken in Reading schools\", Reading Post, 8 February 2010).\n\nAll these statistics taken together show that the non-British ethnic population is increasing in number exponentially, and given current immigration and birth rates, will utterly overwhelm the indigenous population of Britain well within the next 50 years, and more likely within 30 years.\n\nThe Disastrous Effect of Mass Immigration on British Society\n\nThere is no escaping the fact that the admission into this country of large numbers of foreigners has, inter alia, created a poorer, more violent, uncertain, disorientated, confused, politically correct, ill-educated, dependent, fractured society.\n\nWe do not share the Orwellian knee-jerk response familiar to the opinion formers within the BBC and elsewhere that it is 'racist' to discuss immigration and population density.\n\nThe word 'racist', which is of loose definition, was invented by the arch Marxist Leon Trotsky in order to suppress any debate on this important subject.\n\nBecause of this, the ongoing arrival into the UK of between 300,000-500,000 Third World immigrants each year is an issue that all three of the old gang parties have refused to discuss.\n\nThere are many difficulties typical within multicultural societies. Quite apart from the enormous costs (estimated at ?13 billion per year), problems in Britain include social breakdown, the deterioration of community spirit and neighbourliness, the erosion of our Christian heritage, the dilution of our history and culture, the promulgation of totalitarian legislation alien to these islands, congestion on roads and railways, the erosion of the countryside, pressures on social services, and so on.\n\nA Case Study: Crime and Immigration\n\nImmigration has had a dramatic effect on Britain's rising crime rate.\n\n- According to official figures, over 77 percent of adult black males between the ages of 18 and 35 are on the police's DNA database (\"Debate on DNA database continues to rage\", Computing.co.uk, 12 January 2010).\nA person's DNA is only added to that database when in police custody for a recordable offence.\n\n- According to official figures, black people accounted for at least 15 percent of the sentenced population in prison, 13 percent of the remand population and 21 percent of fine defaulters. The ethnic grouping of the female British prison population follows roughly similar proportions (\"UK Numbers by Crime\", Economic and Social Research Council, 2009, and \"Prison population of British nationals: by ethnic group: Social Trends 34\", Office for National Statistics).\n\n- According to official figures, Muslims account for 12 percent of the prison population and an even higher proportion in high security jails (\"Growing fears over Muslim prison 'gangs'\", BBC, 12 March 2010).\n\n- Black people, who according to government statistics make up 2 percent of the population, are the principal suspects in 11.7 percent of homicides (\"Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System\", UK Home Office, 2004).\n\n- A study has confirmed that whites are overwhelmingly the victims of racially motivated crime, and not the perpetrators, as often portrayed by the controlled media.\nThe study, titled \"Interracial Violence\", produced by well known researcher Tony Shell, has shown that white victims of racist murders are over-represented by a factor of 32 for the time period 2004 to 2007.\nUK figures for unemployment, as well as welfare dependency, educational failure, and other social pathologies tell a similar story, each disproportionately involving ethnic groups.\n\nImmigration Has Harmed British Jobs\n\nThe concept of \"British jobs for British workers\" has been terminally undermined by employment figures released by the Office for National Statistics which show that within the private sector, there were 288,000 fewer Britons working in the third quarter of 2009, compared to 1997.\n\nIf those working beyond pension age are removed from the equation, then it transpires that there are currently 637,000 fewer Britons working than in 1997.\n\nOverall, immigrants have taken up more than 1.64 million of the 1.67 million jobs created since 1997.\n\nThe Labour Party Deliberately Engineered Mass Immigration\n\nRecent revelations from Labour Party officials have confirmed what we always knew: that immigration has been deceitfully and deliberately employed to dilute British identity and to gerrymander the UK electoral system.\n\nFormer Labour advisor Andrew Neather admitted that the social objective of Labour's immigration policy was to \"rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date.\"\n\nLabour's deliberate policy of undermining British identity in this manner forms the rationale behind the BNP's plan to implement an urgent review of all citizenship grants made since 1997.\n\nThe BNP will ensure that the honour and benefit of British citizenship has gone to people who are contributing to society.\n\nThose who have been brought in under false pretences by Labour and who are a burden on Britain and British society will be politely but firmly shown the door.\n\nThe BNP's Programme to Save Britain\n\nAs trustees for future generations, it is our task to ensure that we do not become a dispossessed minority in our own homeland.\n\nIt is our responsibility to past and future generations of Britons to ensure that we retain our culture and identity.\n\nThe BNP's programme to save the British people is as follows:\n\n1. Declare Britain a Non-Immigration Country\n\nBritain is already the most densely populated nation in Europe and a BNP government would officially declare it to be a non-immigration country.\n\nWork permits will only be issued in exceptional circumstances, for example, when the Government determines there is a need to rebuild British industry or when there is a genuine shortage of skills.\n\nWe shall permit genuine students, so long as they possess health insurance. This latter concession will also assist with our long-term policy of re-building Third World economies in order to facilitate the voluntary return of their nationals or descendants, under our long-term resettlement programme.\n\n2. Deport all illegal immigrants\n\nWe shall deport all illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers, including their dependents. We note that even under the current unacceptably lax deportation policies, thousands of people are deported from the UK annually without incident.\n\nIt is estimated that there are well in excess of one million illegal immigrants in Britain today.\n\nIllegal immigration must be considered to be an aspect of national security, not merely an issue of social policy. Arrests of Islamic terrorists in Britain, plotting mass murder, and second-generation 'Britons' engaged in the 2005 bombing campaign illustrate the link between illegal immigration and terrorism.\n\nThe link between illegal immigration and crime in our communities - including the ruthless exploitation of the immigrants themselves - is also well documented.\n\n3. Halt the \"Asylum\" Swindle\n\nWe recognise (under the UN Convention on Refugees) the existence of legitimate international refugees from persecution and war. This convention provides that such persons must seek refuge in the nearest safe country bordering the one they are fleeing.\n\nWe consider that such refugees are, for the most part, the responsibility of the nations within the global region concerned.\n\nAn 'asylum seeker' who has crossed dozens of safe countries to reach soft-touch Britain has lost the claim of asylum once they move out of that first safe country.\n\nBecause every 'asylum seeker' in Britain has crossed dozens of safe countries to enter the UK, the BNP's attitude is that there are currently no legal asylum seekers in Britain today.\n\nIt must be stated that the problems of the world are neither Britain's fault nor our responsibility - nor do they fall within our capacity to solve.\n\n* We shall ensure, in the context of illegal immigrants and bogus asylum seekers, that there are no amnesties to reward law-breakers and no extensive appeal against legal decisions.\n\nThe BNP is convinced that once the benefits system for these bogus asylum seekers is removed, the flood of applicants will halt by itself.\n\n4. Encourage Voluntary Resettlement\n\nThe BNP will introduce a system of voluntary resettlement whereby immigrants and their descendants are afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin, assisted by generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question.\n\nWe note that the 1971 Immigration Act introduced the measure of voluntary repatriation but the relevant section of the Act has been deliberately disguised and underused by successive governments.\n\nWe shall employ the UK's current foreign aid budget to finance the resettlement programme and provide such additional funding as we deem necessary.\n\n5. The Recognition of the Rights of Settled and Law-Abiding Minorities\n\nWe shall recognise the right of law-abiding minorities to remain in the UK and enjoy the full protection of the law.\n\nWe shall also emphasise the importance of the prior status of the indigenous people. There will be a national extension of the 'Sons and Daughters' policy in terms of priority for housing and school places, which BNP councils will seek to implement at local level.\n\n6. Fund the Border Protection Services\n\nWe shall regain sovereign control of our borders by raising the funding of existing border controls. This will allow for an expansion in infrastructure and an increase in personnel which will secure our borders against intrusion.\n\n7. Permanent Bans for Immigration Law Violators\n\nWe shall impose a permanent lifetime ban on re-entry into Britain, enforced by instant deportation, for anyone found guilty of having violated British immigration laws.\n\n8. Deportation of all Foreign Criminals\n\nWe shall deport all criminal entrants, regardless of their residential status. This includes the deportation of all Muslim extremists, regardless of their length of residence in the UK or citizenship.\n\n9. The Abolition of all Leftist Social Engineering Projects\n\nThe BNP will repeal and abolish the following leftist social engineering projects which lie at the heart of the failed multicultural experiment which has brought Britain to the edge of disaster:\n\n- We shall repeal the Race Relations Act and all other artificial restrictions on free speech or employment.\n\n- We shall abolish all targets and quotas for ethnic representation in all areas of employment, public and private.\n\n- We shall abolish politically correct indoctrination of the police, teachers, and employees in the public sector.\n\n- We shall abolish government-sponsored ethnicity-specific professional bodies, housing associations and other organisations.\n\n- We shall abolish all departments, agencies or other agencies of government whose sole and specific function is to attend to the interests of ethnic minorities. The law shall be enforced equally, free of politicisation in respect of ethnic origin.\n\n- We shall legislate to ensure the only languages permitted in local and national governmental documents and papers will be English, Welsh, Cornish, Manx and Gaelic, where applicable. The employment of native languages on the part of ethnic minorities in their own homes, schools and institutions will be encouraged.\n\n- A Clause 28-style proscription against the promotion of racial integration in schools and the media will be introduced.\n\n- We shall abolish 'positive discrimination' schemes that have made native Britons second-class citizens.\n\nAbolishing Multiculturalism and Preserving Britain\n\nThe present regime and its collaborators are engaged in an undeclared cultural war against the British people and have employed Orwellian methods of intellectual terrorism to suppress opposition.\n\nIn pursuit of Labour's globalist ideals, the white working class has been abandoned, replaced and displaced by a new ethnic electoral power base.\n\nWe believe that the ability to create and sustain social and political structures in which individual freedom, equality before the law, private property and popular participation in decision-making are features, is an expression of innate genetic nature.\n\nIt follows that the demographic changes being wrought in our islands will create adverse affects upon our traditional democracy and the institutions that support it.\n\nTo preserve the continued existence of our traditional democracy, we must therefore take the necessary measures to safeguard the existence of the native peoples of these islands and ensure they are the dominant ethnic, cultural and political group.\n\nIn this context we refer to the English, Scots, Irish and Welsh along with the limited numbers of peoples of European descent, who have arrived centuries or decades ago and who have fully integrated into our society.\n\nMulticulturalism: The Wrecker of Nationhood\n\nWe know of no great civilisation that was created or sustained by a multicultural population. Indeed, many have collapsed because they became multicultural, with Rome and Ancient Egypt being well known examples of this process.\n\nThe experience of recent history has demonstrated that multicultural societies become fractured and balkanised, losing their unity and purpose. The Balkans, Rwanda, Indonesia, Ulster, Fiji, Sri Lanka and Iraq are all examples of such societies.\n\nGroup identity, belonging, loyalty and allegiance, in other words, are not products of 'false consciousness', economics, imperialism or sociological processes; they are an essential part of elementary human nature.\n\nBritish people may take pride from knowing that the blood of a magnificent heritage of nation-building, civilisation-creating heroes and heroines runs through their veins.\n\nBeing British is more than merely possessing a modern document known as a passport. It runs far deeper than that: it is to belong to a special chain of unique people who have the natural law right to remain a majority in their ancestral homeland.\n","IMMIGRATION. \n\nThe Government believes that immigration has enriched our culture and strengthened our economy, but that it must be controlled so that people have confidence in the system. We also recognise that to ensure cohesion and protect our public services, we need to introduce a cap on immigration and reduce the number of non-EU immigrants.\n\n- We will introduce an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work.\n\n- We will consider jointly the mechanism for implementing the limit.\n\n- We will end the detention of children for immigration purposes.\n\n- We will create a dedicated Border Police Force, as part of a refocused Serious Organised Crime Agency, to enhance national security, improve immigration controls and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs. We will work with police forces to strengthen arrangements to deal with serious crime and other cross-boundary policing challenges, and extend collaboration between forces to deliver better value for money.\n\n- We support E-borders and will reintroduce exit checks.\n\n- We will apply transitional controls as a matter of course in the future for all new EU Member States.\n\n- We will introduce new measures to minimise abuse of the immigration system, for example via student routes, and will tackle human trafficking as a priority.\n\n- We will explore new ways to improve the current asylum system to speed up the processing of applications.","Attract the brightest and best to our country.\n\nImmigration has enriched our nation over the years and we want to attract the brightest and the best people who can make a real difference to our economic growth. But immigration today is too high and needs to be reduced. We do not need to attract people to do jobs that could be carried out by British citizens, given the right training and support. So we will take steps to take net migration back to the levels of the 1990s - tens of thousands a year, not hundreds of thousands.\n\nTo help achieve this goal, we will introduce a number of measures, such as:\n\n- Setting an annual limit on the number of non-EU economic migrants admitted into the UK to live and work; \n\n- Limiting access only to those who will bring the most value to the British economy; and, \n\n- Applying transitional controls as a matter of course in the future for all new EU member States. \n\nIn addition, we will promote integration into British society, as we believe that everyone coming to this country must be ready to embrace our core values and become a part of their local community. So there will be an English language test for anyone coming here to get married. \n\nWe want to encourage students to come to our universities and colleges, but our student visa system has become the biggest weakness in our border controls. A Conservative government will strengthen the system of granting student visas so that it is less open to abuse. We want to make it easier for reputable universities and colleges to accept applications, while putting extra scrutiny on new institutions looking to accept foreign students or existing institutions not registered with Companies house. In addition, we will:\n\n- Insist foreign students at new or unregistered institutions pay a bond in order to study in this country, to be repaid after the student has left the country at the end of their studies; \n\n- Ensure foreign students can prove that they have the financial means to support themselves in the UK; and, \n\n- Require that students must usually leave the country and reapply if they want to switch to another course or apply for a work permit. \n\nExtremists, serious criminals and others find our borders far too easy to penetrate. That is why we will create a dedicated border Police force, as part of a refocused Serious Organised Crime agency, to enhance national security, improve immigration controls, and crack down on the trafficking of people, weapons and drugs. We will work with police forces to strengthen arrangements to deal with serious crime and other cross-boundary policing challenges, and extend collaboration between forces to deliver better value for money.\n","Immigration.\n\nMigration is a fact of life.  People have always moved from one country to another, and as a practical matter the ability to control borders without oppressive measures is more limited than most politicians like to pretend. Much of our language, culture and way of life have been enriched by successive new arrivals over two thousand years. It is not just a matter of immigration: over 5 million British Citizens benefit from other countries' liberal immigration policies by living abroad.\n\nThe causes of a person moving to the UK are complex. For the person concerned, there may be escape from persecution and improved economic prospects, but also separation from home, friends and family. For the country of origin, there may be the loss of skilled workers, especially health professionals, but also the receipt of remittances from the immigrant, and many migrants return with improved skills. For the community that receives the immigrant there may be the benefits of getting done jobs that no one in that community wants to or can do, more taxes being paid and the creation of a more cosmopolitan atmosphere. But there may also be costs in terms of unwelcome competition for jobs, pressure on housing and other resources and longer-term pressures on overall population.\n\nIn deciding policy on immigration it is important that all these points are considered and balanced against each other. We must accept too our legal and moral obligations to give sanctuary to those fleeing persecution, and the principle of free movement throughout the European Union. Against this background our policy is as follows: \n\n- Where we are limiting numbers, our priority must be to meet our obligations to refugees and those seeking sanctuary, including the increasing numbers of people displaced by environmental change, above the needs of our economy.\n\n- Our immigration policies must be fair and non-discriminatory, respect the integrity of families and be applied promptly and effectively.\n\n- Our international policies should every- where seek to reduce the economic, political and environmental factors that force people to migrate. Emigration should be a positive choice, not the outcome of desperation. In particular, free movement within the EU is a fact. We should press for EU policies that make all parts of the EU an attractive place to live.\n\n- We reject the use of immigration as a political issue to mask problems such as a lack of high-quality social housing. The proper solution is to provide enough social housing, as we propose elsewhere in this manifesto.\n\n- We should not tolerate the long-term presence of large numbers of people whose immigration status is not defined. Such immigrants are vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous employers and others, under- mining national terms and conditions of employment. We would open up ways for existing illegal migrants who have been here for three years to become legal. In particular, a legal status must be provided for people who have not succeeded in their claim for humanitarian protection but who cannot be returned to their country of origin due to the political situation there.\n\n- We would review the asylum procedures to ensure that destitution plays no role in the asylum process by allowing those seeking sanctuary to work.\n\n- We would review the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002, particularly with regard to issues of access to legal advice, childcare and levels of subsistence allowance.\n\n- Those who have been trafficked should not be subject to summary deportation. They should receive a temporary right to stay and have the same right to apply to remain as others seeking to migrate.\n\n- Those seeking sanctuary should not be detained, and in particular the administrative detention of children is unacceptable and should cease immediately.\n","Crime and immigration\n\nThe challenge for Britain\n\nWe will control immigration with our new Australian-style points-based system - unlike the arbitrary Tory quota, which would damage business and growth.\n\nThe next stage of national renewal\n\n- Control immigration through our Australian-style points-based system, ensuring that as growth returns we see rising levels of employment and wages, not rising immigration, and requiring newcomers to earn citizenship and the entitlements it brings. \n\nWe understand people's concerns about immigration - about whether it will undermine their wages or job prospects, or put pressure on public services or housing - and we have acted. Asylum claims are down to the levels of the early 1990s and?net inward migration has fallen. We will use our new Australian- style points-based system to ensure that as growth returns we see rising employment and wages, not rising immigration - but we reject the arbitrary and unworkable Tory quota.\n\nStrong borders and immigration controls\n\nWe are committed to an immigration system that promotes and protects British values. People need to know that immigration is controlled, that the rules are firm and fair, and that there is support for communities in dealing with change.\n\nOur borders are stronger than ever. A new Border Agency has police-level powers and thousands more immigration officers, 100 per cent of visas are now biometric, and new electronic border controls will be counting people in and out by the end of the year. Asylum claims are back down to early 1990s levels, and the cost of asylum support to the taxpayer has been cut by half in the last six years. Genuine refugees will continue to receive protection.\nOur new Australian-style points-based system is ensuring we?get the migrants our economy needs, but no more. We will gradually tighten the criteria\nin line with the needs of the British economy and the values of British citizenship, and step up our action against illegal immigration. There will be?no unskilled migration from outside the EU. Skilled jobs are now advertised here first for four weeks with more vacancies going to local workers, and public procurement will in future give priority to local people. The points-based system will be used to control migration with limits for high- skilled workers and university students. As growth returns?we want to see rising levels of employment and wages, not rising immigration.\n\nWe recognise that immigration can place pressures on housing and public services in some communities so we will expand the Migration Impact Fund, paid for by contributions from migrants, to help local areas.\n\nWe know that migrants who are fluent in English are more likely to work and find it easier to integrate. So as well as making our English test harder, we will ensure it is taken by all applicants before they arrive. Local councils and other public services should keep funding for translation services to a minimum. Many public-sector workers are already required to meet minimum standards of English; we will build on this to ensure that all employees who have contact with the public possess an appropriate level of English language competence.\n\nBecause we believe coming to Britain is a privilege and not a right, we will break the automatic link between staying here for a set period and being able to settle or gain citizenship. In future, staying will be dependent on the points- based system, and access to benefits and social housing will increasingly be reserved for British citizens and permanent residents - saving the taxpayer hundreds of millions of pounds each year. We will continue to emphasise the value we place on citizenship, and the responsibilities as well as rights it brings, through the citizenship pledge and ceremony, and by strengthening the test of British values and traditions.","firm but fair immigration system\n\nBritain has always been an open, welcoming country, and thousands of businesses, schools and hospitals in many parts of the country rely on people who've come to live here from overseas. It would be wrong to try and end immigration completely but we have to manage migration so that it benefits Britain and is fair for everyone.\n\nThe immigration system is in chaos after decades of incompetent management. The Government has failed to plan properly for new migrants, making it harder for people to integrate. No-one has any idea how many people are here illegally, and there aren't even exit checks at all ports and airports to ensure that people here on temporary visas go home on time.\n\nWe will create a fair system that works and promotes integration. We will:\n\n- Immediately reintroduce exit checks at all ports and airports.\n\n- Secure Britain's borders by giving a National Border Force police powers.\n\n- Introduce a regional points-based system to ensure that migrants can work only where they are needed. We need to enforce any immigration system through rigorous checks on businesses and a crackdown on rogue employers who profit from illegal labour.\n\n- Prioritise deportation efforts on criminals, people-traffickers and other high-priority cases. We will let law-abiding families earn citizenship. We will allow people who have been in Britain without the correct papers for ten years, but speak English, have a clean record and want to live here long-term to earn their citizenship. This route to citizenship will not apply to people arriving after 2010.\n\na safe haven for those fleeing persecution\n\nBritain has a responsibility to welcome refugees fleeing wars and persecution around the world. Liberal Democrats will abide by Britain's international obligations and restore confidence in the asylum system by making it firm and fair.\n\nWe will:\n\n- Take responsibility for asylum away from the Home Office and give it to a wholly independent agency, as has been successful in Canada.\n\n- Push for a co-ordinated EU-wide asylum system to ensure that the responsibility is fairly shared between member states.\n\n- Allow asylum seekers to work, saving taxpayers' money and allowing them the dignity of earning their living instead of having to depend on handouts.\n\n- End the detention of children in immigration detention centres. Alternative systems such as electronic tagging, stringent reporting requirements and residence restrictions can be used for adults in families considered high flight risks.\n\n- End deportations of refugees to countries where they face persecution, imprisonment, torture or execution and end the detention of individuals for whom removal is not possible or imminent, except where there is a significant risk of absconding.\n","As a welcoming nation, Plaid Cymru recognises the invaluable contribution that migrants have made to Wales. Our civic nationalism celebrates tolerance, mutual understanding and difference. We condemn the point-scoring used by other parties and the pandering to unfounded xenophobic prejudices in the debate on immigration. Plaid Cymru also supports the right of asylum seekers to work in the UK while they wait for status decisions to be made and we call for the speeding up of the unnecessarily complicated asylum system. We condemn the practice of housing recently-arrived asylum seekers, especially children, in \"detention\" or \"removal\" centres as punitive and cruel.","And we will argue for Scotland to take responsibility for immigration so that we can develop a system here at home that more closely meets our needs. An 'earned citizenship' system, similar to those in Canada or Australia, would allow Scotland to attract high-skill immigrants who can add to the strength of our economy and help deliver growing prosperity for the whole nation. \nWe will oppose plans to repeal the Human Rights act. Our MPs will continue to support the efforts of organisations like the equality and Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Human Rights Commission, and stand up for what is right, arguing for example for the Home Office to end the practice of holding the children of asylum seekers in detention centres. \n\n","Immigration & Asylum.\n\nAs a member of the EU, Britain has lost control of her borders. Some 2.5 million immigrants have arrived since 1997 and up to one million economic migrants live here illegally. Former New Labour staff maintain that this policy has been a deliberate attempt to water down the British identity and buy votes. EU and human rights legislation means we cannot even expel foreign criminals if they come from another EU country. This is why immigration control is so essential and overdue. UKIP will: \n\n- End mass, uncontrolled immigration. UKIP calls for an immediate five-year freeze on immigration for permanent settlement. We aspire to ensuring any future immigration does not exceed 50,000 people p.a. \n\n- Regain control of UK borders. This can only be done by leaving the European Union. Entry for work will be on a time-limited work permit only. Entry for non-work related purposes (e.g. holiday or study) will be on a temporary visa. Overstaying will be a criminal offence.\n\n- Ensure all EU citizens who came to Britain after 1 January 2004 are treated in the same way as citizens from other countries (unless entitled to 'Permanent Leave to Remain'). Non- UK citizens travelling to or from the UK will have their entry and exit recorded. To enforce this, the number of UK Borders Agency staff engaged in controlling immigration will be tripled to 30,000.\n\n- Ensure that after the five-year freeze, any future immigration for permanent settlement will be on a strictly controlled, points-based system similar to Australia, Canada and New Zealand.\n\n- Return people found to be living illegally in the UK to their country of origin. There can be no question of an amnesty for illegal immigrants. Such amnesties merely encourage further illegal immigration.\n\n- Require those living in the UK under 'Permanent Leave to Remain' to abide by a legally binding 'Undertaking of Residence' ensuring they respect our laws or face deportation. Such citizens will not be eligible for benefits. People applying for British citizenship will have to have completed a period of not less then five years as a resident on 'Permanent Leave to Remain'. New citizens should pass a citizenship test and sign a 'Declaration of British Citizenship' promising to uphold Britain's democratic and tolerant way of life.\n\n- Enforce the existing terms of the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees until Britain replaces it with an Asylum Act. To avoid disappearances, asylum seekers will be held in secure and humane centres until applications are processed, with limited right to appeal. Those seeking asylum must do so in the first 'designated safe country' they enter. Existing asylum seekers who have had their application refused will be required to leave the country, along with any dependants. \n\n- Require all travellers to the UK to obtain a visa from a British Embassy or High Commission, except where visa waivers have been agreed with other countries. All non-work permit visa entrants to the UK will be required to take out adequate health insurance (except where reciprocal arrangements exist). Those without insurance will be refused entry. Certain visas, such as student visas, will require face-to-face interviews, and UKIP will crack down on bogus educational establishments.\n\n- Repeal the 1998 Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. In future the British courts will not be allowed to appeal to any international treaty or convention that overrides or sets aside the provisions of any statue passed by the UK Parliament.\n\n- Reintroduce The 'Primary Purpose Rule' (abolished by the Labour Government), whereby those marrying or seeking to marry a British citizen will have to convince the admitting officer that marriage, not residence, is their primary purpose in seeking to enter the UK. \n\n- End the active promotion of the doctrine of multiculturalism by local and national government and all publicly funded bodies. "]