to wonder how the country will cope with hundreds of thousands more people each year?

[evilcherub]

If the UK is going to continue to have immigration of hundreds of thousands every year (which is more likely if we don't leave the EU) and the Tories apparently having no real interest in building more genuinely affordable homes (because lower house prices do not bring in votes for the Tories), then where are the millions of extra people and families going to live (when there is already a massive housing crisis and homelessness is going through the roof)? Also, what about all the extra schools needed, the extra hospitals (when at the moment they cannot cope and the Tories want to privatise them anyway), the jobs etc? Unless you are well off/bought your home years ago and have a well-established, well paying job, then immigration means extreme and expensive competition for housing, school places, healthcare, jobs etc. I just don't see it ending well.

[Itinerary]

After a Brexit, the UK may decide to allow less or more immigration, but it will be our choice not the EU's. It will also be easier to include migrants from outside the EU.

[SalmonMaki]

angelos02 when you say
"Why we can't have a points system I don't know. And make it retrospective too."

Just how far back do you want to take it? Vikings and Normans perhaps?

[scarednoob]

I don't know why the EU can't just accept that things have changed since the 1970's and that free movement of people isn't working any more - it was so fucking obvious that everyone was going to want to end up in the wealthier countries.

Give each country the right to control immigration and keep the rest it - a lot of people voting Brexit would probably rethink, I suspect.

If they let turkey in, that's 70,000,000 people from just one poorer country who could all come here. I am pro immigration but not on the current scale, never mind if they let 5 new countries in, one of which is huge!

[angelos02]

The 'they bring in tax/can help bring deficit down' argument is bollocks unless they are high earners which IME is not usually the case.

[SpareCrust]

MartinaJ

We are part of a global market place. In order to be competitive, we need cheap labour. Ask any farmer in the fens; they cannot get British workers to pick their crops for love nor money. And the NHS depends, to a very large extent, on immigrant workers.

The problem here is domestic policy not migrants. The UK doesn't have to have housing, healthcare, education, and transport systems that are all creaking under the strain. Other European countries manage perfectly well without being in a continuing state of crisis! It is the policies of successive governments that have lead to these (I agree very real) problems. Most notably, the favouring of the service/financial sectors over manufacturing which has led to a massive rise in house prices and property shortage and population concentration in the SE.

And I keep saying on these threads until I am blue in the face that it is a matter of fact (contrary to everything that one reads in the papers) that immigration (from outside the EU) falls under the competence of national governments; it is not governed by the EU institutions.

The Brexiters complain that pro-Europeans are continually "scare-mongering" but honestly the fear stoked up by the Daily Fail and the right wing press and UKippers towards immigrants is outrageous and frankly immoral!

[angelos02]

Salmon just about 10 years.

[GibbousHologram]

laconnerie, I didn't say any of them were any good...

Well, this thread got the measure of me. I am a recent immigrant working for the Guardian whose DC are privately educated and privately medicated who has never known economic hardship or had to compete for jobs or school places or wait for NHS appointments. That's right.

Or else I know that migrants with jobs pay taxes, same as everyone else with jobs. And those taxes should/could be used to provide services. If they're not, it's not the fault of us immigrants.

I think house prices are one of the most toxic social/economic issues of our time. But it's not the fault of immigrants.

[mountaintoclimb]

sorry paulanka I thought you were responding to my question asking how stop voting tory would help.

I have no axe to grind about who is an immigrant or not on mn. I could have just as easily asked whether they voted tory or labour or Ukip etc or whether they were privately or state educated or whether they lived in private, owner occupied or social housing., or whether they are male, female or transgender..I could go on.
Why are you so touchy?

[OnlyLovers]

70,000,000 people from just one poorer country who could all come here.

They're not all going to come here, though, are they? Why do people catastrophise like this?

[bagpusss]

Immigration will continue into all wealthy countries as long as people in poorer countries see a better future for themselves abroad than at home. Leaving the EU won't change that a jot.
Short term: build more homes, schools hospitals etc
Long term: work to achieve stability in countries whose populations are migrating.
Any other solution is likely to be a red herring.

[PaulAnkaTheDog]

Because I think your comment was unacceptable. Not because I'm an immigrant. Don't worry.

[SalmonMaki]

Thank you SpareCrust for your very cogent points, well put. Now if only we could have it as some sort of continuous relay broadcast across the nation...

[mountaintoclimb]

Paulanka tell me why it was unacceptable. I'm all ears.

[thecatfromjapan]

I think you have a slight disconnect going on if you object to immigration and then moan about people/children having to emigrate for economic reasons.

Immigration and emigration are both migration.

I would point out that your migrating child has amassed the invisible capital and economic advantages acquired by having the luck to have been born here and is now choosing to migrate, taking that capital with her, to some place she can trade it to get higher returns.
Lucky her.
Yet you want to stop other people a. Doing the same thing or b. Migrating here to take advantage of things your child doesn't value/need any more. And the migrant is prepared to put up with things your child isn't prepared to put up with, and is migrating away from.

[GibbousHologram]

Yes, I also am applauding sparecrust

[angelos02]

Short term: build more homes, schools hospitals etc

Our infrastructure struggles to cope as it is. We are a small island. Where do you propose to put everyone?

[PaulAnkaTheDog]

You don't think it's inappropriate to question whether someone is an immigrant, purely because they disagree with you? Especially given your feelings on immigration. That was not an innocent comment from you, it was a fully loaded one.

[thecatfromjapan]

Great post, Sparecrust.

[shovetheholly]

lurkinghusband - in personal terms, I actually agree with skepticism about growth (but from the opposite end of the political spectrum to Farage, the far left). I simply cannot see how we can maintain unrelenting and constant growth for all eternity, particularly in light of the fact that we are fast reaching resource and environmental limits. I am not anti-immigration, however - partly because I see it as so negligible a factor in light of this wider picture that it comes way down the list and partly because I believe there are duties of humanity that simply outweigh economics.

However, most people on here are arguing from a perspective of mainstream economics which assumes that the status quo (economically, politically, socially) will more or less continue for the next 100 years. If you accept that set of assumptions, and with it the notion that growth is desirable, it seems to me that the only logical thing you can be is pro-remain and pro-immigration. I do not understand those who are capitalist and anti-immigration. It makes no sense to me as a position.

[NoItsAVegetable]

Other European countries manage perfectly well without being in a continuing state of crisis! It is the policies of successive governments that have lead to these (I agree very real) problems.

Exactly this ^^

[GibbousHologram]

angelos
Have you left whichever big city you live in recently? There's a shit ton of space.

[Mrsmorton]

How can we manage the migration crisis if we're not in Europe? Surely other countries will happily pass the problem on to us?

[mountaintoclimb]

Excuse me thecat. Where have I objected to immigration? Read my posts. I have said my dd cannot afford to live in this country and so is thinking of moving abroad. That is not the same as objecting to immigration in any shape or form.

[ThroughThickAndThin01]

Short term: build more homes, schools hospitals etc Where?

We are a hugely populated Island. Our space is finite. We accommodate all the extra millions of immigrants and their future generations - there'll eventually be little farmland left to feed everyone.

Not my problem though. I won't be around at that stage. That's our children's future to face.

[scarednoob]

onlylovers no, but out of 70,000,000, a fair few will. Who wouldn't want to, if life here seems more appealing? But there just isn't room for mass immigration at the moment, not until we build more infrastructure. And that ain't happening any time soon!

Wonder if we could swap on a one in, one out basis. They can have almost all our current politicians for a start...