THe upper middle class favour immigration

There are plenty of left wing parties in Europe against mass immigration for this reason. They don't get called racist for protecting the wages of the working class?

Also xenophobia would be more appropriate than racism surely?

Not a particularly well timed comment or well explained post from the OP though so on that basis, it's unreasonable.

ConsuelaHammock · Today 15:52
I agree with you. A surplus of workers keeps wages low. Basic supply and demand

Except the UK doesn’t have a surplus of workers. Companies in almost every sector have struggled to recruit since the pandemic.

Affluent people do not need a scapegoat for having rubbish lives, do they?

I agree with you. A surplus of workers keeps wages low. Basic supply and demand.

As i said, pre brexit, migrants, generally speaking, did not bring their families with them.
But they do now, often 3 or 4 to 1 worker, which yes of course will put strain on services but whats the alternative? UK workers wont do these jobs, regardless of pay.... this little fact seems to escape many posters.

Look at the criticism Reeves has got by agreeing to pay nurses 5%? the voters in this country do not want to pay the taxes required to pay AHPs/Carers more.

I worked in various sectors over the last 40 years, i have never seen a migrant used to drive down wages, what i have seen is business using any excuse it can to make more profit - Browns pension changes to get rid of FS schemes, yes they wanted that, meant they paid less in!
GFC used to freeze pay packets, whilst board room pay rocketed, helped along by a Govt that froze public sector pay.

Yes too many people arriving in one place too quickly is very bad for services and housing but one of the first things Cameron did was stop the funding for regions hit hardest by migration.

If nearly qualified nurses cannot find work, then i'm amazed, my local trust has vacancies that our 12 18 months old, still unfilled.

oh and i am far from M/C, i just think that the UKs problems lay much closer to home and made far worse by Austerity.

Grew up working class, so not a 'sweeping' statement at all. But thanks anyway.

'For your life's challenges' 😂😂
FYI I consider myself very fortunate actually; I had a very working class upbringing but have since done fairly well for myself and would definitely now consider myself/family to be in the middle class bracket.

However, I know a lot of people who - for a long time - have felt disenfranchised and like second class citizens in their own country. Regrettably we're seeing the impact of that across the country now.

Do I agree with this stance? Of course I bloody don't. Do I understand where it stems from? Absolutely.

So, respectfully, rather than spouting the same old guff that we've heard ad nauseum, you might want to at least empathise a little with where these people are coming from, rather than just eat up the 'far right' narrative the government and mainstream media is feeding you.

I'd appreciate it if you didn't come at me with your aggressive tone again. Thanks.

Very well said, mumedu, you are spot on.

Jumpingthruhoops, 'middle class' covers a very wide range of people, you cannot lump them together. A vast proportion of the middle class will know what goes on and all about working class life: teachers, nurses, doctors, social workers and many others. Please don't make sweeping statements.

Tell that to your immigrant doctor, care worker, teacher or server. Stop scapegoating immigrants for your life's challenges and the failures of this government (Brexit, austerity, spaffing money in Rwanda).

If anything, immigrants create a brain drain when they leave their countries. I'm thinking of the Jamaican teachers that the DoE have recruited to work here (leaving Jamaican schools short) and the UK doctors that are leaving in droves to go to Australia (leaving our hospitals empty). Focus on the corruption and wastage of taxpayer's money (PPE scandal) and the lies told to the average hard working person. Look at the systemic failures here and lies told to you to convince people to bote for Brexit. The Government would much rather u focus on immigration though.

@Jumpingthruhoops you would be suprised how many 'middle class' folk actually come from working class communities originally , still have family there and gave a pretty good idea of how things are- plenty of working class areas in parts of the country aren't exactly wall to wall immigrants either- despite these thugs insistence on dragging immigration into every post they make or phone in they go on. Some are but plenty are not.

It's not all one way traffic either. The 'everyone down south is loaded parade and gets everything' my friend in the north midlands retired in her mid 50's , house paid for coz it cost bugger all compared to 'down south' and us on her 4th holiday this year- she's a nice person so good for her- but it's far removed from many I know in more expensive areas-

This! Truth is, very few middle class/upper middle class know the first thing about how anything impacts the lives of working class people - and they have zero interest in understanding.
It's just easier to regard any white working class people who complain racist!

Immigrants only work in the NHS and Care in roughly the same proportion as they make up the population. And as they are allowed to bring in dependents, they are creating a demand as well as satisfying it.

Immigrants create demands for services, which we then need more immigrants to fulfil. It is never ending. I don't know what illustrates this better than the fact we have had roughly 2.5 million people come into the country in the last two years, a million people left the country, leaving us with 1.5 million extra people.

1.5 million in 2 years! Yet we are still being told we need more immigration!

I certainly don’t blame the immigrants though. I blame the government for allowing big business to dictate our immigration policy. Businesses who can use a constant stream of immigrants to keep wages depressed, avoid having to train their own staff, and who pay none of the costs of immigration.

Nurses and Care Workers should be able to leverage the high demand for their services to lobby for better pay and conditions. This would also help to attract more British workers into this sector.

Instead, many NHS trusts have contracts with countries like Nigeria and the Philippines to employ a guaranteed numbers of nurses each year, which has left some of this year’s newly qualified nurses struggling to find a job.

Ok ... over 100k vacancies in the NHS, 40k of them nurses, skilled and relatively well paid, add in other AHP shortages, why aren't we capable of filling these, pre or post brexit?

As always, blame the immigrant, instead of looking closer to home.

Care work pays several times more than JSA for people without children, even when housing element added in, yet people would rather not work than go into the care sector.

Influx of EU workers held down wages? nope, what held down wages was less than 1% interest rates and inflation, coupled with business using the GFC as an excuse.
Employers aren't going to give above inflation wages as the norm.

Any trade worth his or her salt has done very well over the last 20 years or so.

Do they? my brother works for Aramco, he would say very different, a very different skill set to a brickie or chippie.

This refinery, at best, would have employed a few 100 workers.

I just read a book about statistics written by an Oxford maths professor. Eye opening how unreliable numbers can be.

I think you're mixing up polling and statistics. Polling is done by samples but statistics just means collecting and analysing numerical data. A lot of statistics are absolute numbers. There are lots of ways of analysing if statistics are reliable.

@MeouwCat who are you referring to as upper middle class? And how do you think peolle get to be upper middle clasa? I can tell you majority get there through sacrifice and hard work and yes for some, if will also be natural talent and skill.

What is your personal contribution to tax?

Gosh wouldn't it be dull if we were all the same with the same upbringing and backgrounds and heritage.

@TickTockTickTok

perhaps you could tell us what “British British” means? And being second class in “their own country”

sounds a wee bit racist to me. A bit like you see some British people as more British than other British people.

not nice.

I've reported this. Huge generalisation and very offensive.

Spitting at your daughter and cat calling them, is that all the 'immigrants'?

Ignorant racist

@GrouachMacbeth

"The less affluent are more likely to live in places were asylum seekers and refugees have been dumped as local authorities and housing associations cash in on the opportunities to get grants for housing. The lack of clear explanation, listening to, and treating as adults which the less well off suffer is a good way to attract dissatisfaction."

This is so true. I wonder how many posters on here lived on a deprived council estate like I do. I wonder how their opinions would change if they did.

Immigration confused with refugees confused with asylum seekers.

The more affluent tend to come into contact with immigrants, legal and more in a professional career or at least higher educated than many. These also.imclude people who may have come as refugees or seeking asylum and been granted it, settled and adapted to UK culture.
The less affluent are more likely to live in places were asylum seekers and refugees have been dumped as local authorities and housing associations cash in on the opportunities to get grants for housing. The less affluent native UK people will be told "refugees are being housed here, accept them don't be racist or else... Threats of prosecution, or eviction etc are all sticks used to threaten. I witnessed the his on the isle of Bute in Scotland when a small number of Syrian refugees were housed in Rothesay. Some of the Syrians were not happy and moved away, some have stayed and made a success of things. The local media, council, housing associations and "refugee support groups" made damned sure any displeasure, resentment or questioning was jumped on.
The lack of clear explanation, listening to, and treating as adults which the less well off suffer is a good way to attract dissatisfaction.