to aak UKIP supporters if you would have voted for the Nazis too?

[wigglylines]

The brilliant Michael Rosen on UKIP.

l“I sometimes fear that people might think that fascism arrives in fancy dress worn by grotesques and monsters as played out in endless re-runs of the Nazis. Fascism arrives as your friend. It will restore your honour, make you feel proud, protect your house, give you a job, clean up the neighbourhood, remind you of how great you once were, clear out the venal and the corrupt, remove anything you feel is unlike you…It doesn’t walk in saying, “Our programme means militias, mass imprisonments, transportations, war and persecution.”

There is of course the theory that if the job you do can be done by a non english speaking, recent immigrant to this country with no contacts and little education then the problem is you.

I wonder...
Obviously this argument isn't about race or religion so i assume it is simply about numbers. Is there an ideal population size for this country of ours? There must be a defined perfect number of citizens (subjects?) to suit our land mass, potential economic output, arable land etc otherwise how do we know we have enough or too many?

Anyone?

The UK jobs for UK people argument makes me mad. It is so badly thought out and blatantly untrue. Grr.

There are lots of UK people I'd gladly kick out of the country before the hard working Eastern Europeans I know - including UKIP and all that support them.

I think what is quite scary Is that, now UKIP is becoming a bit if a contender, Farage has scrapped the 2010 manifesto, which was really extreme. Why would they have made those policies in the first place if it wasn't what they truly believed? It's like that manifesto is their true colours and they have just become more moderate to rein in these disillusioned voters, before creeping the policies they really want back in?

I would not want to vote for a party that ever thought that scrapping maternity pay or bringing corporal punishment back in schools was a good idea.

Between that, and all these apparently singular 'rogue' members who have disgusting views (who Farage seems to be having to deal with every 5 minutes), do people really think that UKIP is the answer?

There are lots of UK people I'd gladly kick out of the country before the hard working Eastern Europeans I know - including UKIP and all that support them.

Have a

Mm yummy. Cheers caruthers

Jewk. I think that our population is about 77 million. Perhaps more considering the Government never has completely accurate figures.
Personally I would say that we definitely have enough population now.
It feels [even if it isnt everywhere] crowded enough to me.

If you think that only 30 years ago our population was only 50 million thats an enormous jump. Of course thats not all immigration, it's people living longer but wherever it comes from the system is absolutely buckling. Schools, hospitals, roads, railways.

People might not stop coming if there's no jobs but if they're coming from somewhere with little welfare state England is always going to be more appealing.

Mooncup,I read that story and it made me weep. I AM one of those horrid EU immigrants.People often don't realise,as my spoken English is good enough to not have an obvious accent.
When the subject of immigration and/or UKIP comes up (quite often lately) I let people have their rant and then tell them I feel hurt and unwelcome because of what they have just said.Once they realise they are talking to one of those dreaded immigrants furious backpedaling follows ...... "ofcourse,we don't mean YOU". Why not ME,what makes me so special,or is it just the fact that you now realise what you've just said and to who....
My own PIL are avid Daily Fail readers and often start a conversation with "I'm not being racist but....." followed by a racist rant.
Worst one from my MIL,bemoaning the scandalous high percentage of "children born to foreign mothers". "Bet we'll end up paying for those brats too". When I pointed out that my DC (HER DGC) fell into that category she sneered "now you're just being petty,you know full well we don't mean you or DGC" ..... Needless to say I visit as little as possible and have taught my DC that their Grandparents are entitled to their opinions,but that's not how we feel in our household.
PIL will be voting UKIP.................

There is nothing in the UKIP manifesto about kicking out people who are legally here though.

oh Nelson that sounds horrible

Thank you NigellasDealer they're nice people though apart from that..... They're of a certain age,all their friends seem to share their views. Must add that in the 20 years I have lived here,I have on the whole been made to feel very welcome. It's a very recent development,it makes me sad as I love England/Britain.

Which of those rights did people in this country not have prior to the HRA being introduced? Sorry but I believe that there are too many people that are happy to break the law all their lives but then expect the law to protect them when it suits them. The rights of the law-abiding have to take precedence over the rights of criminals where there is a conflict between the two.

Actually, we had all of them, because we had subscribed to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the British Parliament decided that it wanted to enact the HRA under domestic legislation so that we ourselves can control the way in which the rights are interpreted rather than leaving it up to Strasbourg. This seems to have worked well - for example, the recent case in which Liberty intervened to stop a paedophile from taking home nude (but not pornographic) photos of his victim which were on his computer, citing Article 8 - the little girl's right to privacy.

The rights of the law abiding DO take precedence. There are only three articles which are "absolute" - right to life, freedom from torture and right to a fair trial. These apply to everybody, all the time, and quite right too. This is a civilised country and we do not employ extrajudicial executions, torture or show trials no matter how criminal the person might be.

The rest of them are "limited" rights. The government can interfere with them, but only if it is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others. (That is from Article 8 but the others are broadly similar.)

So for example, criminals can be put in prison, which is a breach of Article 5 (right to liberty) but this is necessary in the interests of public safety etc. Freedom of expression is guaranteed but not the right to shout fire in a crowded theatre or racial abuse at minorities, because that interference is necessary for protection of others.

People who clamour to repeal the HRA usually don't understand what it is.

Oh, and for those who are interested in the Bolivian cat case,

a) he wasn't being deported
b) the question was whether he should benefit from the old policy which said that where a couple had been cohabiting for 2 years then the non-Brit should be allowed to stay (this policy was repealed ages ago)
c) the cat was one item in a mountain of evidence showing that they were in a genuine relationship for over 2 years
d) the judgment is at the bottom of this page for anyone who wants to read it
e) on final appeal, the Home Office conceded (gave in) so they can hardly argue that this was some sort of travesty.

If you think that only 30 years ago our population was only 50 million thats an enormous jump. Of course thats not all immigration, it's people living longer but wherever it comes from the system is absolutely buckling. Schools, hospitals, roads, railways.

no, it's not a big jump. there aren't 77 million people here (as someone above thinks). Many countries have had population rises much bigger than that.

But if schools and railways are buckling, by all means we should invest in them.

People might not stop coming if there's no jobs but if they're coming from somewhere with little welfare state England is always going to be more appealing.

this suggests that the UK has a welfare problem, not an immigration problem.

The supply of jobs is not fixed, you know (in technical terms, this is known as the 'lump of labour fallacy'). Hardworking immigrants who come over here are actually increasing the overall supply of jobs.

it's comical how many people don't know this. if the UK population ballooned to 120 million, we wouldn't have the same number of jobs we have now.

My own PIL are avid Daily Fail readers and often start a conversation with "I'm not being racist but....." followed by a racist rant

I think you will find after today they may not be ukip supporters anymore. There was an article saying that actually not as many Romanians have come...

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2627976/The-influx-not-happened-Number-Romanians-Bulgarians-jobs-Britain-FALLS-work-curbs-lifted.html

Worst one from my MIL,bemoaning the scandalous high percentage of "children born to foreign mothers". "Bet we'll end up paying for those brats too

She has not spoken very nicely there but 1 in 4 babies was born to someone a non British national, thats quite a lot of babies when the promise to deliver more MW by labour was never for filled and MW are still short now.

Why was not any provision put into place to protect these services before Labour allowed EU to join us?

nelson its hard to not take things personally when the whole country is whipped into a frenzy at the moment. But its NOT personal.

..

"Labour allowed the EU to join us?"

We were brought into the EEA by the Conservative government in 1973 and signed up to the EU in 1994 also under a Conservative government (which destroyed them). I'm not sure you can blame Labour for that one!

"1 in 4 babies was born to someone a non British national" - no, it's to a mother born outside the UK - that could be someone who is still a non-British national, was a non-Brit but is now a British national, a British national who was born to British parents abroad (v common in army children many of whom were born for example in Germany), a British Overseas Citizen, or any number of combinations.

"it's comical how many people don't know this. if the UK population ballooned to 120 million, we wouldn't have the same number of jobs we have now."
Would you want to live in this country with the population at 120 million? I wouldn't. Regardless of how many jobs there was. The population is already too high at "77 million".

We've been moaning that the population is too high and our island is too crowded since Elizabethan times.

I can strongly recommend Robert Winder's book "Bloody Foreigners" for an extremely interesting look at immigration through the ages (and how we're not all swimming in rivers of blood yet). I was particularly interested in how the Elizabethans went through all the foreigners and chucked out those who were there "onlie to seeke worke" whilst trying to establish who was genuinely a persecuted Hugenot - the earliest example of dividing the economic migrants from the genuine asylum seekers…

That may well be but at some point, the population WILL become too high, and I think that is the case now and has been for some time. Or are you of the opinion that there is no such thing as too many people living side by side on a small island?

Where are you getting a figure of 120 million? Can you link to some prediction analysis to that please. The population at the moment is under 63 million, not 77 million.

I don't think the population is 120 million but the official figure of 63 million is woefully inaccurate. This Independent article from 2007 estimates at least 77 million.

What a ridiculous article Tucson! Estimating population based on food consumption - if we were all only eating one lunch and one dinner we wouldn't all be getting obese, would we?! Give me strength...