to finally be able to say there has been too much immigration

[moogy1a]

Now that UKIP have made massive gains in local elections,conservatives stating that major changes need to be made and labour admit that they made a big mistake in having an almost open door policy can I finally say this in public without the hysterical accusations of being racist?

"seeker he is an immigrant (albeit an illegal one) and he has defied British Law not just by coming here in the first place, but by still being here when the the Government have repeatedly tried to remove him for having being found guilty of a criminal offence, but are constantly thwarted by the European Courts.
I'd say that was a case of insisting on his rights in defiance of British Law.

I might be wrong- but I don't think that makes sense.

Actually I agree that job creation is possible.

However there is no doubt that low-paid work is massively affected by immigration, since immigrants coming from a country like Poland will quadruple their back-home wages on UK NMW.

I don't think it's true that immigrants are necessarily underskilled, but what you will find is that with no UK work history you are going to struggle to get well-paid work, at least for a few years. Also foreign professional qualifications are not necessarily useful in the UK labour market.

For me the more fundamental problem is that we have a housing market that functions only with no net zero population growth, yet have absorbed several million foreign immigrants into the UK.

There are certainly employment areas directly impacted by immigration in terms of wages, studies have shown that immigration benefits the wealthy, but depresses wages at the low end.

"Over the period considered, estimates suggest that immigration held wages back by 0.7p per hour at the 10th percentile, contributed about 1.5p per hour to wage growth at the median and slightly more than 2p per hour at the 90th percentile."

Basically immigration makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer.

When you consider that the rich will tend to own their homes, and that over the course of the largest net migration in UK history, after 1997, that real house prices doubled, you can see that those who had, are much better off, since they owned their homes, which are now worth twice as much relative to their real wages (which have also increased), whereas those at the bottom, who don't own homes are worse off, with lower real wages, and housing affordability which, in real terms, is half what it was in 1997.

Hullygully, I have ancestors - we all share a common ancestor if it comes to that, but it's a very weak argument to say that because some rich British person did something in say India several centuries ago, that is somehow correlated with the arrival of people from say Poland today.

Thanks PatPig for posting that explanation. Do you know what impact immigration has on social mobility?

Immigration does indeed cause wealth creation, but not among the poor. They just become poorer and already depleted resources are stretched ever thinner.

It is shameful that the Labour party who profess to be the party of ordinary working people have not tackled this issue due tio their airy fairy, primrose hill, middle class intelligensia take on the world!

www.amazon.co.uk/Immigrants-Your-Country-Needs-Them/dp/0349119740

This is an excellent read if you're looking for some facts, as opposed to hype and propaganda.

wibbly there is no doubt that immigration benefits those us who are wealthy and living in the south east. It has made my life more pleasant and interesting in a thousand ways.

But we have to accept I think that these benefits have ben to the detriment to many working class areas.

That's not what I meant wordfactory (if your comment was directed at me) One of the reasons I loathe UKIP (apart from their dismissal of my contribution to the UK economy) is their policy on maternity and sick pay.

The 'jobsworth' comment was bout a variety of British workers who I have encountered who seem to think that they deserve a job and all the pay and benefits that come with it without actually needing to do any actual work. I've worked in a few countries in my time and it's a particular British phenomenon as far as I can see. Perversely, it's these people who seem to be the ones who are always complaining about the foreigners taking British jobs.

'Do you not have any antecedents Patpig, or any sense of the sweep of history and interconnectedness of past and present?'

Yes Patpig. Do you not realise that you and your children have to pay for all of your ancestors' behaviour and all the sins of this entire country over the past several hundred years? And stop complaining about it aswell. And be grateful.

Interconnectedness is much more important.

wordfactory - you might accept that, I certainly don't! (And I grew up in a small Yorkshire market town, the kind of area I imagine you're referring to, and so far as I could see, the immigrants who made this particular area their home during the 1950s and later have only benefitted the local community.)

I've looked at the description of that book and the first few reviews. It doesn't seem to address the issues of the UK. If there is a strong argument for or against current levels of immigration, it should be possible to make them here, or link to sensible and concise arguments.

The current situation of children in my own family (some of whom are the children of recent immigrants and some of whom are not, some of whom are white English and some of whom are not) is that even with the required grades and experience, they're going to struggle to find low paid jobs while young, are going to struggle to enter the professions they want to enter when older and then even if they do, are going to struggle to afford to buy a two bedroom house at an age when they are still fertile.

Are the current levels of immigration going to make things better or worse for millions of young people like them? It is largely irrelevant if the economy grows if all the wealth is concentrated at the top and many ordinary people held back by class and ethnic prejudice still can't access things like a decent job they've worked towards or a house.

It's simple bloody maths. If people could ignore the race related aspect and focus on x resources, y people, this would never have been the problem it is now. And, yeah, too much immigration.

I realised I'm way behind on the thread lol

That was a bit of satire for those who may not get it.

The colonial argument seems highly dubious because we are going to continue to want to take in people based on compassion when they are seeking asylum. Hopefully we feel as much compassion for people of all countries in avoiding torture and persecution and don't somehow think we should feel less compassion to those who aren't from former colonies.

wibbly if you go back to Yorkshire now and look at the factories that are left you will find they are now employing foreign workers on short term contracts.

Workers who are prepared to work without sick pay, maternity leave etc.

Local people can no longer afford to work there.

I'm not racist.

I just hate all these foreign folk working in the shops these days.

Bleddy foreigners.

I hate people who act like arseholes regardless of their skin colour, race, nationality or religion.

There are too many arseholes around, for sure. But I wouldn't have thought there was any sort of weighting in terms of the above attributes.

We have an Indian neighbour who can be a bit of a git. But his wife is amazing. We also have a white, British neighbour who pisses me off something rotten, and others who are brilliant. And we have some Polish neighbours who I think are fantastic.

I don't give a shit where they come from, only how they behave. There may be some cultural factors that contribute to these things - but equally, in terms of where these people are from. 'Our' cultural issues are no better than those of someone from Asia or Eastern Europe.

I mean God preserve us from white people like Ricky Gervais. And Farage. And Cameron.

morebeta but that is what the UK does, for non-EU immigrants. The barriers are quite high. The visa alone costs more than £1,000.

The UK is not allowed to impose such barriers for EU immigrants, but there's no real way around that short of leaving the EU, which would be a pretty dramatic thing to do.

Actually the UK chose to let in all the new Eastern European countries while other countries refused.

I'm not sure which bit doesn't makes sense seeker - my post or the situation?
I was merely playing devil's advocate in response to your original question. I gave an example of a case which, in my opinion, answered that question - Abu Qatada is an immigrant insisting on his rights in defiance of British Law and getting what he wants, which is to stay in the UK despite the fact that he should not be here.

Actually the recent immigration since 1997 is historically unprecedented, certainly not in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s or 090s.

There has never been such an influx of immigrants as in the last 10 - 20 years.