To think UKIP are wrong

[pauline6703]

People come to the UK because they are suffering abuse and disadvantage in their own countries.
I think we should offer then a safe place but UKIP seems to want to let them suffer abuse and pain. I think UKIP are wrong.
What do you all thing.

I agree it is important to understand immigration. Nearly 2 million British citizens live in EU countries outside the UK, whilst there are 2.34 million EU citizens living in the UK (FT article below). If this fact was part of any debate on immigration, it is a debate worth having. Scare mongering about perceived 'influx' of immigrants coming one way -- to the UK, is not a debate, it's a misrepresentation of the situation. Should all British citizens be thrown out of the EU countries where they've settled to enjoy leisurely, cheap retirements or gainful employment too?

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5cd640f6-9025-11e3-a776-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Jq7YSrZa

UKIP do have some ideas on how to curb population growth, one of their MP's thought it was a good idea to screen foetuses for disabilities and terminate pregnancies that showed any. Can anyone who supports this position be called humane? Is it 'patronising' to despise this viewpoint?

Well said TtipParty.

The trouble is everyone thinks that their view is the right one. The rise of UKIP is such an emotive issue that proper debate seems impossible. It can't be nonsense that we need to understand immigration or why so many people seem to feel that it affects their lives.

Kat We currently do screen foetuses for abnormalities and terminate many that show any. We also terminate many pregnancies that show no abnormalities at all purely for social reasons.

Forced terminations would be absolutely abhorrent (if that is what was suggested) but society does seem full of double standards.

I think YABU sorry. My DH is from a 3rd world country and, relatively speaking, quite privileged and not the least little bit persecuted there. The government, rightly, have to look at each case and take the claims with a grain of salt. Unscrupulous immigration lawyers will absolutely advise their clients to tell false stories of woe if it is likely to get them more favourable treatment in the immigration queue/access to public funding. Much illegal immigration is economic pure and simple and they are not always characters you want coming to your country - eg in my town one guy on a temporary visa due to pleading asylum stabbed another guy to death in a large shopping center at 10am in the morning due to a fight over a woman (the victim's ex-wife).

OP I think the least we can do is give them your house.

We can put a few thousand in wasabipeanut's house. It will be cramped at first, but as more come in the front door the space in the house will increase.

I'm scared of UKIP. I'm Jewish and if Britain hadn't let Jews in to the UK, my grandparents would have been killed in their village in Lithuania (the ones who didn't leave were all killed) and that would have been the end of our family.

People emigrate for a whole host of reasons. Britain needs to control its borders better, but I want this to remain a country that welcomes those in genuine need and those who want to work.

I am another one that they would want to send "home".... as the wage slave in the family I presume that they will make provision for my husband and children who are classed as British. Or should I take them with me and have them be a drain on another country's resources?

But I am white, non East European so they might "look sympathetically" on my case. I am not sure I would want to stay.

Our current family parlour game is costing out "Policies for People" and rehashed / existing provision bingo. I wish I could post the findings - but as a public sector worker it would be viewed as a career limiting move.

My DH is a British muslim , he came to this country as an asylum seeker. He would have been killed if he didn't and possibly many of his family as well.
He became British as soon as he was able to and has always worked.
I am EU citizen, white, fit in with the general population, studied and worked until I had my DC, now I am a SAHM.
I suppose we should all be sent back then? Or could me kids stay because they were born here?
I'm honest, I would love to live in my home country with my family, my DH did not want to leave his family and country behind without even saying goodbye to anyone...but UK has given us a home, we have a safe life together here. We pay our taxes etc. UKIP scares me, we are a minority and muslim too which seems to be a crime nowadays as well. My DH deals with a lit of racism in his job...2 nights ago a customer called him a terrorist after they found out where he was born. It feels that the relatively accepting atmosphere has well and truly gone now, even if you become British, you are not accepted because you are still 'forrin'.

I'm a non-EEA immigrant, so I've no idea what Mark Reckless wants to do with me.

After I'm sent home, I assume the UKIP supporters will be happy to support my Britudh husband and son financially, as I do now?

Honestly, the 'space' issue is overdone. The UK uses brownfield land, and land in general, quite inefficiently.

What really worries me is how many people vote for UKIP despite the fact they have no worked out, coated policies, as shown last week. They don't even have consensus on their most 'important' policy.

The problem is that a lot of people who come here to fill jobs are paid so badly that they need to have their salaries topped up with tax credits/housing benefit etc. If the reason why we need immigrants to fill jobs that Brits won't do maybe the elephant in the room is that wages are too low and instead of people paying out tax that ends up as benefits because employers won't pay a decent wage it would make more sense to the country to up the minimum wage and reduce benefits spending. And perhaps companies like Amazon and Starbucks can start paying a decent wage or not be allowed to sell in this country. At present it seems like our economy is held hostage to these kind of companies. Seriously, they always threaten to leave but then they would lose out on the UK marketplace.

Also, immigrants get old and will need care/pension too. This is a ponzi scheme (an ever increasing amount of people needed at the bottom of the triangle in order to service the upper levels). It's simply unsustainable as it grows exponentially (plus the fact that we have limited land for housing because half the country doesn't want their house price to go down greenbelt destroyed), we need ever more schools, hospitals etc. What happens when for every worker paying tax there are 10 or 20 people further up the ponzi scheme who need that tax for benefits/pensions? More tax is needed until the worker realises that there is no point in working as they see their wages reduce and their pension prospects move further into the distance.

jaimielannistersfoppishfringe

So what is your solution for the 2:1 ratio of workers:pensioners that will be in the UK by 2040?

Jaimielannistersfoppishfringe

Where is your data to show that so many migrants will saty here in old age and not simply work here, pay tax here and go back to their own country in their old age?

Why are you not reading the stats that have been linked from credible spources on this thread that state that there is Nearly 2 million British citizens live in EU countries outside the UK, whilst there are 2.34 million EU citizens living in the UK (FT article below).

www.ft.com/cms/s/0/5cd640f6-9025-11e3-a776-00144feab7de.html#axzz3Jq7YSrZa

That FT article that has been linked twice is behind a pay wall, so I can't read it.

Net migration to the UK in the year ending March 2014 was 243,000. This is the total figure coming in minus the figure going out, both EU and non-EU. Source: www.migrationwatchuk.org/

jaimie

"The problem is that a lot of people who come here to fill jobs are paid so badly that they need to have their salaries topped up with tax credits/housing benefit etc."

What has this got to do with immigration? There are plenty of migrants earning top salaries, paying higher rate tax and plenty of NON immigrants in Britain are on low salaries topped up by the state.

I said it before, Not all immigrants are low earners, unskilled or asylum seekers.

There will be plenty of the 2 million Brits living in europe doing very low paid bar work paying low levels of tax but have access to the fantastic health services for free in other European countries.

Just as all the Pensioners living in Spain will have access to their health care system for free having never actually worked and paid tax in Spain.

Majestic

If those 243,000 net immigrants have been trained abroad and now working paying tax in this country and plan to go back to their own country in retirement then why is it a problem?

No-one has yet come up with an alternative solution to the pension deficit other than immigration of young working people.

It's appalling that anyone supports UKIP, they are a vile group of people.
Instead of simply believing the figures thrown at them by Farage and co., I wish supporters would check them out. UKIP once claimed that the number of immigrants wanting to come to Britain from two Eastern European countries (I no longer remember which but maybe could find out, with a little digging) was higher than the combined population of said countries...

The hate this party have generated is awful, some people are scared for their futures and it's totally unfair.

goodnessgracious, I am not saying it is necessarily a problem. I'm not a UKIP supporter. And I would never vote for them. I am just throwing some facts in. Net migration is generally on the increase. I personally don't think this is a good thing, unless it is controlled and planned for, so that public services are capable of meeting the needs of the growing population. We don't know if migrants will go back their country of origin for retirement or not. I think that the government needs to have a strategy for immigration that looks at these possible scenarios, and takes into account costs and benefits to the economy and also wider non-economic costs / benefits.

But we need net immigration. The fact that public services have not been invested in to accomodate this net increase is the problem not immigration itself.

Fact 1, Life expectancy has increased
Fact 2 birth rate has not increased in line
Fact 3 We need net increase of young immigrants to service our pensions.

Immigration is NOT the problem, investment in services is!

Cheesecake.
I have worked in education and know of many able young people who are turned down for training in medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, midwifery etc, maybe this is because the government is not providing enough training places for these careers.

Some of our health care professionals are leaving the UK for work in Australia etc. in exactly the same way and for the same reasons as Portuguese, Filipinos etc come to the UK and they can't be blamed for this.

This does not alter the fact that we should and could be training more here and possibly expecting some commitment from them to stay in the UK for a set period after qualifying. This would not be unreasonable as their training has been paid for by the taxpayer.

This is an interesting thread with good points being made on both sides.

Then you get comments like the one made by JackSkellington labelling UKIP supporters as a vile group of people. A sure way of helping to generate hate!

Yes, people are scared for their futures but they don't just consist of immigrants.

"If those 243,000 net immigrants have been trained abroad and now working paying tax in this country and plan to go back to their own country in retirement then why is it a problem?

No-one has yet come up with an alternative solution to the pension deficit other than immigration of young working people."

Look, while some immigrants may live in the UK for a bit and then go home (in which case I would classify them as guest workers, not true immigrants at all), others will not; they will stay, and then they will then age in turn and require even more immigrants to sustain them, and so on and so on. Unless the UK can take an ever-expanding population this really is not viable in the long run. It is a temporary windfall that simply stores up the problems for later.

The only long run solution is: a) improvements in productivity which enable more wealth to be produced even when the workforce is not so large, and b) changes to the pension system. Both these things demand some effort on behalf of society, and from a political point of view it is understandable that politicians prefer to choose the easier option of importing more workers. But it won't work for ever.

The "bring in more immigrants to solve the pensions crisis" makes a reasonable amount of sense in countries where the fertility rate is chronically low, like Singapore or South Korea; it doesn't make a lot of sense in countries like the UK, where the fertility rate is actually fairly OK and the real issue is the design flaws in the pension system.

See here, for example: cep.lse.ac.uk/conference_papers/28_11_2007/TunerImmigrants_Slides.pdf (Adair Turner, LSE)