to think it's irresponsible and reckless to accept large numbers of migrants when

[wonderingminds]

All over the country lots of factories are closing down and there is a serious shortage of housing.

Anyone with half a brain can see that we are full to bursting. It needs to be stressed that it is NOT the individual immigrants themselves, I've been an immigrant in another country and was shown nothing but kindness........the problem is the numbers and it's our EU membership and lack of control that needs assessing.

I live in a small market town, there really isn't anything here, certainly no industry of jobs. Most people commute, you can be in London in just over an hour on the train yet there are 6 Eastern Europen food shops within a square mile. Schools are bursting, you can't get a GP appointment. Life has changed that's for sure.

Anyone with half a brain can see that we are full to bursting

In the South East perhaps.

I think it is repulsive for wealthy people to tell people in the lowest income groups they are racists for saying that immigration directly impacts their life in a negative way.

It's a cheap shot.

I live in a small market town, there really isn't anything here, certainly no industry of jobs. Most people commute, you can be in London in just over an hour on the train yet there are 6 Eastern Europen food shops within a square mile**
^^
Ah, are you complaining that they have opened shops? Don't you see that as bringing industry and enterprise to the town?

It is the people on the lowest incomes and most precarious circumstances are most affected by immigration of unskilled migrants.

I am in a socio economic class most likely to benefit from immigration of unskilled migrants.

I strongly believe this issue will tear the EU apart in the end. The rise of the far right is absolutely going to happen and desperate poor people will vote for them because no moderate political movement has any intention of dealing with the issue of migration in a meaningful way.

some good points

and desperate poor people will vote for them because no moderate political movement has any intention of dealing with the issue of migration in a meaningful way.

Desperate poor people fought Moseley's Brownshirts on the streets of the East End in the 1930's. We're not all stupid and brainwashed.

Its has always been the upper classes that embraced and enabled Fascism. It has never been a mainstream movement in the UK because most people despise it.

Their plans are good. Free public transport, cheaper university fees, higher benefits, complete equality for all, a war-free world, these things are all great and I don't think anyone sane would disagree with me that these are wonderful ideas. But you ask any left winger how they're going to do it and they can't answer you. We have a budget which we cannot exceed and if the cost of one thing goes up the cost of another thing must come down, that's not being heartless that's simple reality.

That's because great ideas don't cost anything.
However, putting those ideas into practice takes money.
Lots of money.

It'd hard being young, they are now competing with th worlds highly movivated.

If immigrants are being employed undercutting local workers, blame the people employing them. No the immigrants.

So it's the employers fault and they should employ more expensive locals rather than cheap migrants? I believe that's called racial discrimination and it's illegal.

Its not race discrimination. No one is barred from coming to the UK on grounds of race as long as they meet the relevant immigration conditions.

Beta, I was replying to a poster who said that wage undercutting was the fault of employers for employing migrants who undercut. But if employers chose not to employ cheap and qualified migrants because they preferred to employ more expensive locals that would be out and out clear racial discrimination and illegal.

It's the fault of neither the employer nor the undercutting migrant who are both acting within the law and following the way the market is leading. It's the fault of politicians who flooded the country with so much cheap labour the market went in that direction.

Anyway, I think these are slightly moot points as the new policies re skilled migrants, spouses and earnings deal with a lot of that for non-EU migration.

The question is will we continue to have high levels of migration from the EU? I suspect if the IMF are right and 4 million more arrive this year on the continent we may see the situation there with poor wages and unemployment worsening and more EU migration here.

I suspect that may tip the balance of the referendum to a 'No' and it will become a moot point here too.

Beta, I was replying to a poster who said that wage undercutting was the fault of employers for employing migrants who undercut. But if employers chose not to employ cheap and qualified migrants because they preferred to employ more expensive locals that would be out and out clear racial discrimination and illegal.

The bottom line is we - the Great British Public - simply won't pay than we possibly have to for almost anything. So any employer wanting to keep an indigenous workforce employed, rather than cheaper migrant workers is going to go bust very quickly. With respect to the clamour and outcry about "coming over here" and "taking our jobs" there's more than a touch of cake-and-eating it there.

Nature has a way of balancing things. If, overall, the UK population ends up too poor to pay the premium the fat cats need, then the fat cats will starve. On a similar note, it was a great idea to outsource/offshore all those jobs in the 90s and noughties, but guess what ? Doing so has notched the quality of life and expectation of life up enough that it's becoming too expensive to offshore in some cases.

If all the workers in the world all (the 99%) got together, and said to the bosses (the 1%) "No more - we want what is rightfully ours", it would be impossible to deny them.

Luckily for the bosses, the 99% have found far more important things to fight each over, so they can rest easy.

I think everyone on this thread who has highlighted how overcrowded they think the country is, how over stretched the resources are, should admit how many children they personally have added to the problem and why they thought it was fine to add to the overcrowding at the time.

I think everyone on this thread who has highlighted how overcrowded they think the country is, how over stretched the resources are, should admit how many children they personally have added to the problem and why they thought it was fine to add to the overcrowding at the time.

That's an easy one ... because my rights always trump yours.

There is of course a view - maybe not popular. Maybe not nice. Maybe not fitting in to everyones agenda. (And, of course, maybe not right) that all the troubles in the world are simply nature correcting itself, and whittling the number of human beings on planet earth down to a sensible number the planet can sustain.

Tell you something ... I wouldn't want to stand in the way of Nature.

The phrase about nature red in tooth and claw springs to mind.

lurking well indeed. MY children deserve great healthcare and education and nice jobs...other people...not so much.

Not all the migrants coming into Europe are low skilled - the UK has a skills shortage so we need these people and of the migrants I know who arrived here without speaking English and with limited skills, have worked hard and many are now successfully in their chosen field.

Why should we expect other countries to support this crisis and not the UK?

And for people complaining about overstretched resources ....um... most of our doctors are immigrants. Without them healthcare costs would be a lot higher.

A lot of areas where migrants are being sent to have suffered terrible depopulation in the past. Increasing the population of towns like Middlesbrough will increase demand for services and create jobs. There does need to be planning to make sure there are enough schools, gps etc.

26% of doctors are migrants according to the BMI, which is not 'most'.

In terms of doctors and nurses the UK needs a more coherent strategy on training up UK citizens to take the jobs. It is utterly ridiculous that we cannot find UK citizens to take good jobs with decent prospects.

I have pondered what effect building more houses/ schools/ roads to take more people would have. There has to be a risk that this would lead to more immigration from the EU as the UK would be seen as more attractive. At the present time once people realise the issues with housing costs/ quality and the shite standard of living nmw buys you in London many people move back again.

Our population is rising and that is fact. It is also fact that immigration has brought lots of benefits - we had an aging population and there were worries about this a few years ago. This doesn't mean though that there arent also negatives and my opinion is we are at the point where the population needs to be controlled somehow.

In truth any family in the UK who does not have a total earned income at least equal to one average full time salary is not contributing more in taxes/NI than the resources (e.g. education for their children, family healthcare) they use. Hence the UK cannot accept any more people who will put an even bigger burden on resources

In my view, anybody should be welcome to come here with sufficient skills to earn more than average wage.

My specialist Dr is Iranian. My other specialist is a second generation immigrant. The woman who is the regional business manager of my bank is a first generation immigrant. Throughout my working life I constantly worked with expats and highly paid first and second generation immigrants. Never gave it a second thought. Managed immigration brings skills and capital to the UK and has gone on for centuries. If someone has something to offer and is willing to integrate, contribute and live within UK law that's fine by me.

Uncontrolled immigration is unacceptable.

Using immigration to plug a short-term skill gap is reasonable.

But if a country is relying on large numbers of immigrants to supply its medical staff needs in the long term, then some serious questions have to be asked about why the country is not producing enough medical personnel of its own, and take steps towards remedying whatever the barriers are.

Mining poorer countries for medical staff is actually quite a serious ethical problem and should not be a cause for self-congratulation. Especially when you consider that the country of origin (Ghana, Bulgaria or wherever) may have spent large amounts of state monies on educating and training that very person, only to have them piss off and deploy their skills in a rich country.

I don't know how relevant this is to the current wave of migrants coming from the ME and North Africa, in any case. There are some qualified medical personnel among them, but for the most part the average education level is quite low and I don't think that many are doctors and nurses.

ABeta that's an excellent post. Controlled immigration is exactly what is needed, not the dramatic gestures of Ms Merkel who now hasn't a clue where 600,000 of their refugees have disappeared to. It isn't often --never before - - that I've thought Cameron has got it right by letting only families into the UK, but by doing that, we can hopefully avoid the escalating conflict between refugees and nationals that is becoming a growing problem Germany.

TheNewStatesman - you are right in that taking high skilled people from countries that have few resources does deplete their economy and healthcare system.

The UK offers many attractions nt just higher wages. Sometimes intellectuals are the target of oppressive regimes. We also do export dome of our own higly skilled people. New XZealand very nearly gained me as an immigrant a few years ago.

It isn't perfect but if we do accept immigrants it has to be with some sensible huane criteria better than deciding by survival of the fitesst criteria (i.e usually young men) in dangerous voyages across open sea or long trecks across mountain ranges.

huane = humane