To think 335,000 extra people coming to the UK in a year is too high

[jdoe8]

Where will they all live? What jobs will they all do? I know it may help GDP, but that is irrelevant as GDP per head is the important thing.

It does seem to be race to the bottom with more part time work , uber type work and the country is borrowing more and more and the national debt is 35k per head now.

They've earned it, sweetheart, 45 years of toil and paying into the system

Can you link to your information about the long working life of UK immigrants in Spain?

Many of them are highly educated but will still take a menial job which pays more than in their home country

They may be earning more than back home, but they cannot be self-supporting. Accommodation of any kind plus utilities is expensive. They are supported from the public purse.

That is what you want? My parents were refugees to this country years ago, genuine stateless refugees. Too many of the people coming in now imo have no right to even be here or expect housing to be built specially for them, because they have not contributed a penny and yet expect everything to be laid on for them.

For the descendant of a refugee you seem to have pretty clipped views. You don't really seem aware of different world issues either. I recall you insisting I am a Muslim based on my ethnic group, which became embarrassing after I corrected you for a third time.

How can you be so anti-immigration if your parents are migrants? Your views towards the camp in Calais are abhorrent.

Yes there might not be as many but there are some and it would be a fallacy to say there are none and no one I have heard has ever suggested that they should be turfed out. I don't think I heard any of the European leaders suggest all British academics anywhere on the continent should be turfed out either.

Do people hate the British people so much that they want to think that there are none who go on to be academic or professors at all? Or we are all so lazy we just sit around on benefits watching Jeremy Kyle until it's bedtime? That absolutely not one of us works hard as anybody from abroad. Clearly I imagined when I got up at 4.30 this morning to sit down and work, clearly I imagine it every day...

It certainly seems to be taken as a fact by many that the British working class are lazy and workshy and the country would come to a standstill if it wasn't for the industrious Poles.

How come my DH works with some very industrious Brits? Are they an anomaly? Some of them have been there doing it 25 years. They wanted to feed their families etc. Not sure how they would feel if they thought people just thought they didn't exist.

I don't think most people object to the highly skilled academics as they tend to pay high rates of tax.

I'm not sure how much you think the average academic earns! (Sorry, thread derail - will go back and read the rest of it now.)

DoinItFine - Link to what?

People now in their mid-60s and mid-70s are retired. Those generations worked from age 16 when work was plentiful until retirement. The woman took a few years off to look after the kids, then returned to part time or full time work. In order to be eligible for a full State Pension they had to have completed minimum 39 yrs of service. Many worked closer to 50 yrs.

Availability of stable work will not come again. Govt knows this and has reduced the number of eligible years for State Pension, but even that will not help because there will be numerous gaps of little or no work.

SouthallGirl you overestimate the in-work benefits available to any worker; whether UK citizen or EEA migrant. Many single migrants or couples without children will not be entitled to any tax credits (single person earning £14000 pa would get nothing and if under 25 years old, not entitled regardless of income unless disabled or have children)

They might not all be higher rate tax payers, but they would certainly likely be on a better wage than many. Also they are filling a skilled need. I imagine that some because they may be experts in some aspect even of their country are prized because they do something which is not something a person from here could do very easily.

Hard working and industrious Brits are not an anomaly.

But that hasn't prevented an accepted narrative that the British working classes are basically lazy, thick racists.

It means we can ignore them when they say high levels of immigration make life harder for them.

FruitCider - Firstly, my parents were NOT migrants - they were Stateless Refugees, a Home Office definition which means they can never return to their country of birth.

Secondly, I find your Open Borders philosophy re Calais not only unworkable but absolutely abhorrent. To persuade people to stay in the awfulness of that camp, and encourage them to force themselves into a lorry is beyond the pale.

So to hell with the driver of the lorry, he'll get fined £2,000 but so what, he can afford it. Your ideology is very suspect.

I know lots of EU migrants - they go to London to get great jobs in good companies. They are also your doctors, your teachers, your policemen. They work in ad agencies, in banks, in the BBC, in hospitality. Many spend their twenties and early thirties in London, paying taxes and using few public services and then return home or move somewhere with a better quality of life to bring up their children. It's easy to get a job in London when you're young, educated and willing to work hard. I don't hear these EU migrants mentioned much on Mumsnet.

I also know lots of tax dodging EU migrants who still can't cobble together a sentence in the local language and whose kids make up the majority in local schools. Or live in other EU countries and take advantage of their generous dole rates. But they're British "Expats" living in Europe . Anecdotes don't make good public policies.

What % of the 284k EU migrants are students? What % claim out of work benefit? What % are purely seasonal and have no intention of settling here? What is the actual mix between unskilled, low skilled and highly skilled?

Unless these kind of questions are answered, the debate is meaningless.

I'm not sure how much you think the average academic earns!

Haha, Katherina, I was going to pick up on that too, but it made me a little depressed. Yes, those researchers on 24k are raking it in. Not to mention the loaded graduate teaching assistants on 12 grand. Minted.

For a relatively junior academic, I am on a fairly decent salary and I am very grateful to have a job. However, my salary is definitely not higher rate tax payer territory.

I am an immigrant. I came here as a child with my supposedly 'unskilled' mother. We left a country with a far better standard of living, infrastructure and social support system to come here (it was hardly an 'upgrade' but my mum was fleeing an abusive relationship). I have gained qualifications up to PhD level, qualified as a solicitor (during which time I was a higher rate tax payer), now working as an academic and I have always contributed to the system. I am sure you would say that I would be allowed to stay here, you aren't talking about people like me when you diss immigrants etc etc. No, but you are dissing people like my mum, who had to work MW jobs and claim tax credits to support her kids. Without her being able to do that, you would not have a productive member of society, prepared to teach law to your little darlings. I have four siblings too, who also have degrees and professional qualifications, including one who is a doctor working in A&E.

Ah, I guess it explains me getting weird desires against my will to watch daytime TV and look at onesies in Primark.

Many single migrants or couples without children will not be entitled to any tax credits

Thanks Justice. Many couples come with a child and then have another in England. All my EU acquaintances have done that.

The woman took a few years off to look after the kids, then returned to part time or full time work

Yeah right. Many of the ex-pats in Spain will have been housewives their entire lives.

Ah, I guess it explains me getting weird desires against my will to watch daytime TV

On your flat-screen TV?

Yes but there seem to be those that are saying that Brits do not work hard, only migrants do. My DH is a migrant and yes he does work hard, my DSS his son is doing an engineering degree which hopefully will take him to a well paid job being a contributor to the economy too. He is half British. My DS too although only 7 will also hopefully go onto study in whatever his chosen field is. Many of my lazy British family are in professional fields and some of them too are teachers. What happens when my son overhears some body saying all Brits are lazy? Is he going to think everyone thinks his mother sat on her arse for 30 years?

Yes it is flat screen but it is over 8 years old now and well preserved as we rarely use it, mainly due to me doing the work which I am not doing now, honest!

Your parents are migrants, in the same way I am a migrant, and the refugees that were in calais were migrants. Migrant = someone living in a different country to the one they were born. The country I am from no longer exists either. Just because I am a refugee, does not mean I am not a migrant.

Many of the ex-pats in Spain will have been housewives their entire lives

I am now thinking of all the people in that age group 65-75 that I know, and can tell you no woman stayed at home permanently. After her youngest had completed junior school she took a job. That generation worked bloody hard and earned money whenever she could.

I don't know ..... perhaps you hang out with princesses, but I dont know of such people.

Also I don't have an open borders philosophy. I believe in safe passage for refugees. 2 very different ideologies.

Or fake they could be like my cousin, who never had kids and just ran her own business all her life and cashed in on the sale of that business and savings etc?

One size does not fit all - with migrants and with Brits, we come in all shapes and sizes.

They're pretty much all flat-screen now, aren't they?

We'll have to come with a new indicator of working class fecklessness.

Even I have a flat-screen TV now and my family are so middle class that we didn't even get a TV with a remote control until 1993