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.

Well you could knock me down with a wet haddock Crabbit!
I could only be more surprised if you'd said Dundee tbh.

Alas it sounds as though you're an affluent Bremainer, benefitting from cheap, imported labour while branding those who care about the effects of unfettered immigration on the less advantaged 'xenophobic'.

One of the most outrageous of the many ways Tony Blair stitched up the people he was supposed to be representing was to flood the country with imported labour that undercut UK working-class wages, and then accused working-class people who objected to having their wages undercut of being racist.

Yes. And Gordon Brown infamously branding the woman who asked him about immigration 'racist'.

Cheap labour? That certainly isn't the case. I don't employ the cheapest labourer for a job. That's such an assumption. You don't pick the cheapest person to perform plumbing or electrics for example. I value my life and those of my children thank you very much.

Surely you can see that the influx of non-British builders depresses the wages across the board, making it so that you're choosing between let's say, £10-12 an hour rather than £18-20 an hour?

I said you're typical of an affluent Bremainer. Which you've nicely proven by calling me xenophobic.

There are reasons for those percentages, John. Look at a relief map of Scotland for a start.

Then there is an undersupply of jobs due to lack industries/ jobs in most of the UK outside the SE. We could do a Middlesbrough many times over and fill empty houses ( and new houses funded from taxpayers presumably) with asylum seekers but what future will they have? Some jobs will be created by the government in education and health for the new population but not that many.

Know many recent immigrants who are now so concerned about their young children's future here,that they are actually considering dusting off the old dangerous continent's passports again.

I feel so sorry for the current younger generation having worked hard in apprenticeships to learn a trade, only to see better-skilled people turn up from another country, taking work without even speaking the language.

Oh - hang on - I've just remembered. They don't exist.

Know many recent immigrants who are now so concerned about their young children's future here,that they are actually considering dusting off the old dangerous continent's passports again.

Sounds like a swinging pendulum ....

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 last time I looked, there was unemployment in Britain. Are we really saying that we should import workers because being born British should exempt you from doing unpleasant jobs? How long would the imported workers have to live in Britain before they became sufficiently British to not have to do farm labouring jobs?

Similarly with NHS: it makes no sense to say we "have" to import people, we are a big and educated enough country to train our own. If foreign workers are taking British jobs either we're not training enough, or (I suspect in the case of nurses) not paying enough to retain trained people.

Hilda
"There are reasons for those percentages, John. Look at a relief map of Scotland for a start."
When viewing the map in the link I mentioned, there were huge swathes of land outside of mountainous areas (even in the South East). Even if you just take England, 1% of the population equates to 500,000 people and I think that a 1% increase in building land would house much more than 1% of the population. Also, by adopting a house building programme, the economy of the area with the new housing and infrastructure would improve (even Middlesborough!).

Healthy competition in a market place is basic economics. But don't worry when we leave the EU we will all be paying through the nose for basics and skills while our salaries and pensions remain the same. It's worrying. Very worrying.

Extremely noble. I can see why you think I'm xenophobic.

Do you knowthe northeast or Scotland ?

I agree with a house building programme as put by previous poster, not on farmland. It would help the economy somewhat.

All in all your posts seem unrealistic John and don't sell me on the let's build homes for the world in the UK idea.

Surely you can see that the influx of non-British builders depresses the wages across the board, making it so that you're choosing between let's say, £10-12 an hour rather than £18-20 an hour?

Question: How exactly will an increase of wages for builders make building of houses more affordable and attractive to investors?

Another question: How exactly will the job market get a boost from throwing out immigrants? On a higher pay scale, will Britain be able to cover all positions from their own graduates?
On a low pay scale, how many unemployed British youngsters will line up to get jobs at cleaning, supermarkets, making sandwiches, chicken meat processing factories? I believe it's the low pay scale that's the major problem to many people in Britain.
In terms of security - from my understanding Britain is already extremely efficient at supplying ISIS with their own homegrown youngsters, all having British passports. Considering that, wouldn't it be time to look at the reasons behind it and try to solve them? Or is blaming immigration the easier measure because it makes for better headlines in the Daily Mail and The Sun?

("taking British jobs" could sound bad out of context. I am an immigrant in the UK and in an ideal world believe anyone should be able to emigrate to anywhere. My beef in that post is with (a) thinking it's OK for foreigners to do jobs that British won't do, which implies they are lesser beings (b) thinking we have to import healthcare workers, which is a leftie bodge to cover up/fix a problem of their own making, a failure of supply to match demand because of state control of healthcare.)

I feel so sorry for the current younger generation having worked hard in apprenticeships to learn a trade, only to see better-skilled people turn up from another country, taking work without even speaking the language.

Oh - hang on - I've just remembered. They don't exist.

Not sure who that's addressed to. I certainly don't suggest they exist. Rather, I suggest that the wages are so low that a substantial thread of the British work force refuses to work and has become accustomed to doing so, or do work and claim tax credits.

Shovetheholly' s posts above are the ones I was referring to: agree with them wholeheartedly.

Apple I think lurking sees posts that aren't there!

Unfortunately a lot of people will vote on self-interest and guesswork, i.e. whether they think they'll have a little bit more or less money themselves in the next few years.

That approach ignores the bigger picture entirely.

I was not being delusional. Just pointing out that the reason a Polish plumber can get a job in the UK is because of the lack of UK plumbers. A quick gander within 50 miles of where I live reveals less than 100 apprenticeships

(or none jobs.monster.co.uk/q-plumbing-apprenticeships-jobs-l-birmingham,-midlands.aspx)

Part of our problem is the ludicrous (or lucrative) insistence that everyone needed to get a degree in the nineties and noughties.

I agree with you, Muriel about Shovetheholly's post. I also do not want to see development of species-rich ecosystems or high-grade farmland. I just think that there are millions of aces of land in the UK that do not fall into that category. The obstacles to housebuilding are NIMBYism and the desire of landowners to keep land prices high.

2) According to the UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA), the urban landscape accounts for 10.6% of England, 1.9% of Scotland, 3.6% of Northern Ireland and 4.1% of Wales. (www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18623096), which suggests that lack of building land or over crowding is not the reason for restricting house building. The only impediment is the political will to invest in a massive house building programme that would benefit us all.

I would like to see the population stable, and green land not built on. However if the population has to increase, I would rather see the more down-market terraces of London demolished and replaced with nice high-rises than see green land built on. This would be better for the increased population. I live in an area where everything you need (schools, supermarket, doctors, even a large hospital with an A&E) is within walking distance. I think more people living like that would be an improvement to the countries infrastructure.

By nice high-rises, I mean like the many being built near me, where two bedroom flats are selling for in the region of a million pounds. If the same quality of flats where being built in even more massive numbers in zones 3, 4 and 5, they'd presumably be a lot cheaper.

I was not being delusional. Just pointing out that the reason a Polish plumber can get a job in the UK is because of the lack of UK plumbers. A quick gander within 50 miles of where I live reveals less than 100 apprenticeships

But you're couching this as some kind of defense of immigration, when in fact I'd say that's the logical result of immigration.

You've seen in this very thread a person accuse Brexiters of being racist, and in the very next post muse about the spike in goods i.e. higher wages that will result as 'worrying'. You Guardian readers (since someone saw fit to call me a Daily Mail reader) can't have it both ways - complain about low wages, then complain about high wages.

The influx of cheap labour has stripped the working classes of all their bargaining power in the UK. I care about this. I care about conditions in other countries too, but it's not reasonable for us to host the planet's downtrodden. Better that we invest in their infrastructures and call it what it is - foreign aid.

But you're couching this as some kind of defense of immigration, when in fact I'd say that's the logical result of immigration.

I was just commenting. Chickens and eggs spring to mind ...