LONDON, Feb. 23 (UPI) -- Later this week about 20 people will meet in the town hall of a north London borough and become the first "foreigners" to go through something that up to now has been decidedly un-British -- a ceremony to mark their acquisition of British nationality.
Beneath a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II and the flag they will declare their loyalty as new British citizens. According to the plans, a string quartet will play patriotic music, the new citizens will step forward to receive a certificate and a bronze medal from the queen's son, Prince Charles, and they will stand to attention as the national anthem is played.
This will be the first of thousands of such ceremonies to take place across the country from now on as the government finally realizes that becoming British -- and particularly being a good citizen -- requires a bit more effort and thanks than a letter simply dropped through the mailbox from the immigration department.
In a country which has long had a global reputation for its liberal immigration and asylum policies, it has come as a shock to the public that some immigrant families live totally parallel lives to their host nation and have no interest in joining it. That was driven home by the gleeful reactions of some British Muslims to the deaths of 3,000 people in Sept. 11, 2001, and by the alleged involvement of a number of Britons with al-Qaida terrorism.
So far, Tony Blair's government has resisted calls to expel or jail extremists for fear of stirring up racial trouble and because of public sympathy for the nine Britons held without charge by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and of centuries of toleration to residents with different faiths and ideas. But that tolerance is now clearly giving way to negative pragmatism.
The first major sign of that came last Friday when it was leaked that the domestic security organization MI5 would soon begin hiring the first of 1,000 new recruits to boost internal British security vigilance by 33 percent. The agency, according to security sources, needs a variety of generalists and specialists that deal more with Asian and Arab spies and terrorists than Cold War East Europeans and Soviets. MI5's own Web site says it has current vacancies for full-time Arabic linguists with all dialects, including "(North African), Urdu, Persian, Turkish, Punjabi and Russian (with a second language). Ad Hoc/Freelance Kurdish, Bengali, Fujianese and Tamil. Starting salary from £20,100 ($37,788)." The expansion announcement is due to be made by Home Secretary David Blunkett in Parliament on Tuesday.
But Monday he had a more pressing announcement in the second major indication that Britain's tolerance of immigrants is under strain: that the right of European Union members to liberal British welfare benefits will be significantly tightened when 10 new countries join the EU on May 1.
With 75 million new EU members from Central and Eastern Europe due to be able to cross borders and take up jobs and residency without visas on that date, most of the current EU had already put out the unwelcome mat. Britain and Ireland were the last to announce new restrictions. Blunkett told the House of Commons that new arrivals to Britain will be banned from claiming benefits for two years and forced to register if they want to work. Plans to restrict access to public housing will also be drawn up.
Countering charges that the government encourages "benefit tourism" -- the easy granting of welfare support that has made Britain the prime target in Europe for illegal immigration in the last few years -- Blunkett said: "For two years and possibly longer, we will require accession nationals to support themselves. If they fail to do so, they will lose all rights to stay here and must return to their native country. The issue is on what basis people come to our country. Those who wish to find a job will be free to do so."
Assessments of how many immigrants will come to Britain from the new EU countries vary widely. While it is estimated that many Poles, Czechs, Slovakians and others would prefer Germany, that country has strict new immigration laws and, for professionals with English as their second language, Britain is a major attraction. At the other socio-economic level, there are particular fears -- stirred up by some British tabloid newspapers -- that up to 100,000 Romany gypsies from the Czech Republic alone will head for the United Kingdom over the next seven years.
Britain, however, does have some major skill shortages. The state-owned National Health Service, Europe's largest employer, loses 9 percent of its work force each year and needs 100,000 recruits annually. Most of the new nurses, cleaners and doctors are foreign. Last week, two Dutch dentists opening up a new National Health Service dental clinic in Scarborough, Yorkshire, attracted a queue of thousands of prospective clients -- and major embarrassment for the government. Britain is also estimated to be short of 29,000 plumbers and 100,000 construction workers.
Most of the new arrivals are not expected to stay, but those who do settle down in Britain after five years can now expect to be encouraged to take up full citizenship. Unlike America, however, Britain has no "melting pot" culture in which immigrants are indoctrinated to become citizens -- there are still only 4.7 million foreign-born residents in Britain out of a total of 60 million -- and there is still no citizenship test required.
