Shocking immigration hysteria

[alluvial]

Many on here seem to be making exactly the same silly generalisations that they accuse the Daily Mail of making, lauding some useful migrants and suggesting that is an argument in favour of them all. Makes no more sense than having stories of thieves and beggars and suggesting all migrants are like that.

I will make one more attempt to make the relevant points in VERY SIMPLE TERMS and then I will give up on you unthinking, emotion driven, illogical lot. (How some of you succeed in IT I have no idea)

1) Most of us are not against immigration, we simply want proper controls that only let in those who really are useful, as other countries not in the EU do. Can you please explain why we should have open borders for large numbers with no jobs to come to, no major professional skills and few if any checks on their backgrounds.

2) It is sensible policy to take full account of ALL effects on the rest of us, of which shortage of school places is just one example. Please explain why you think ordinary people should have to ignore adverse consequences to them when they see no measurable benefit.

3) How does this quick fix (even assuming it was a fix) of migrants to real problems of an ageing population, welfare mentality etc make any long term sense? Migrants will get old too, migrants handed benefits will get lazy too. How long can you go on expanding the population and never addressing the real problems?

WXS

Xog, you may as well give up. Logical thought and well structured arguements that consider other things beyond limited soundbites seems in short supply on this forum.

[xoggoth]

Oh its gone! Or did I imagine a post about Switzerland having v high migrant numbers even though not in the EU?

True but not a valid comparison as the majority are Western Europeans. Despite the pretence, a very different prospect to those from poor and third world countries. Also, unlike the UK, Switzerland has very strict laws about naturalisation so, unlike us, they at least have the opportunity to remove any who prove unsuitable:

Foreigners with no direct blood ties to Switzerland through either birth or marriage must live in the country for at least 12 years before they can apply for citizenship. (Years spent in the country between age ten and 20 count double). The person must be well integrated, familiar with customs and traditions, law abiding, and pose no threat to internal or external security.
How to become a Swiss citizen depends on age, how long you live in Switzerland, and parental nationality. - swissinfo.ch

[d000hg]

Is now the wrong time to say I'm a UKIP member?

I doubt anyone's really surprised.

[BrilloPad]

3) How does this quick fix (even assuming it was a fix) of migrants to real problems of an ageing population, welfare mentality etc make any long term sense? Migrants will get old too, migrants handed benefits will get lazy too. How long can you go on expanding the population and never addressing the real problems?

Can't we let them in on 5 year visas?

[darmstadt]

Oh its gone! Or did I imagine a post about Switzerland having v high migrant numbers even though not in the EU?

True but not a valid comparison as the majority are Western Europeans. Despite the pretence, a very different prospect to those from poor and third world countries. Also, unlike the UK, Switzerland has very strict laws about naturalisation so, unlike us, they at least have the opportunity to remove any who prove unsuitable:

Foreigners with no direct blood ties to Switzerland through either birth or marriage must live in the country for at least 12 years before they can apply for citizenship. (Years spent in the country between age ten and 20 count double). The person must be well integrated, familiar with customs and traditions, law abiding, and pose no threat to internal or external security.
How to become a Swiss citizen depends on age, how long you live in Switzerland, and parental nationality. - swissinfo.ch

Kind of, but what do you exactly mean by West European? Presumably not Kosovo or Serbia...


Swiss Top Ten foreigners:
-------------------------
Italien / Italie 299‘002 16.0
Deutschland / Allemagne 290‘514 15.6
Portugal 249‘948 13.4
Frankreich / France 107‘221 5.8
Kosovo 90‘274 4.8
Serbien / Serbie 84‘168 4.5
Spanien / Espagne 73‘722 4.0
Türkei / Turquie 69‘307 3.7
Mazedonien / Macédoine 62‘171 3.3
Grossbritannien / Grande-Bretagne 40‘024 2.1
Übrige / Autres 498‘348 26.7

[Wanderer]

Some really good points there xoggoth, but this is a complex and difficult one to deal with.

1) Most of us are not against immigration, we simply want proper controls that only let in those who really are useful, as other countries not in the EU do. Can you please explain why we should have open borders for large numbers with no jobs to come to, no major professional skills and few if any checks on their backgrounds.

The idea behind allowing more people into the country is that there is a lack of people available to do the menial jobs. Much like the way a job lot of West Indians were recruited to work on the buses in London back in the 50s, there is a perception that there aren't enough British workers willing to do work for minimum wage so we need low skilled workers. Alternatively we could increase the minimum wage (drives up inflation and leaves old people worse off) or reducing benefits to get people to work (leaves beneficiaries worse off).

Secondly, allowing a large number of highly skilled migrants would cause difficulties in it's own right. Indeed, there are a lot of people on this forum who complain about Indians coming to the UK and driving wages down. Is allowing skilled migration only really what we want?

2) It is sensible policy to take full account of ALL effects on the rest of us, of which shortage of school places is just one example. Please explain why you think ordinary people should have to ignore adverse consequences to them when they see no measurable benefit.

I agree 100%. Allowing a big influx of migrants is going to put pressure on housing, education and heath care, not to mention social friction. Will the government spend proportionately more on these services based on their increased income? No they won't, so that's a win for the government because effectively they get more tax income with only a modest increase in providing services which are forced to stretch. In a way, it's an alternative to cutting services because stretching them more thinly is less visible than cutting them back.

3) How does this quick fix (even assuming it was a fix) of migrants to real problems of an ageing population, welfare mentality etc make any long term sense? Migrants will get old too, migrants handed benefits will get lazy too. How long can you go on expanding the population and never addressing the real problems?

I've known lots of immigrants who have come to the UK, made a big contribution to the economy and then buggered off home. I guess that the hope is that they won't ALL bring their families here, they may never qualify for a pension in this country and they will bugger off back home before they get old and retire.

I mean, consider a Romanian earning £100/month at home with a job offer in London earning £1000 a month. He could send £200/month back home to the family and although it's a pretty crap existence, at least he is providing a decent living for the family. After a few years they have earned enough to get ahead and they head back home where their modest savings (by UK standards) would set them up quite nicely.

I can see why people don't want mass immigration - it causes tension and social problems. Personally, I think it was a mistake to admit to expand the EU so quickly and the EU needs to moderate the movement of labour from countries with such huge disparities in their GDP.

It's not a simple problem to solve though...

[xoggoth]

Kind of, but what do you exactly mean by West European? Presumably not Kosovo or Serbia...

Erm....? Western as in Germany, Italy France, UK Portugal or Spain who make up 78% of those mentioned in YOUR figures.

Who the other 27% are we don't know.

[darmstadt]

Erm....? Western as in Germany, Italy France, UK Portugal or Spain who make up 78% of those mentioned in YOUR figures.

Who the other 27% are we don't know.

Not my figures, the Bundesamt für Migration (Schweiz) which can be found here: https://www.bfm.admin.ch//bfm/de/hom...statistik.html

But you need to be able to read a foreign language

[vetran]

I think you are missing the point.

Highly skilled migrants fine. I'm happy to see eminent professors from Indian universities and successful business owners.

The issue is the use of ICTs which means mainly grads fresh out of school on slavery terms to force down wages and displace local workers (of all races). That way our remaining tax take stays fairly constant.

Polish Professors and Romanian Radar experts are welcome to be paid the same amount as locals where we have skill shortages.

What we are doing is offering employers Poland's, Romania's etc. educated and experienced middle class willing to work at minimum wages.

We will see a whole generation of young lowly educated and older less employable people that used to do menial labour who will be unable to find a job.

It can't end well.

[suityou01]

Here's another idea. Grant people access to the UK to seek asylum. While processing their application, decide where they actually go.

You could even make a TV gameshow out of it.

Gameshow host : Tonight, you've won an all expenses paid trip to Asylum in Fukushima. Working as a fallout cleanup operative, this 5 bed house, neighbouring streets, in fact whole town are yours, yours, yours.

Then see if the number of asylum applications dwindles a bit.