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.

That's fine Southall, it's definitely not my blog though.

DoinItFine The siege of Aleppo, as I understand it, is Assad's military trying to hold back the IS and Al Quaeda. If syria falls as Iraq and Libya did, a vacuum will be created and by far, far worst people than Assad.

You think that Syrians fighting for their city are not worthy to be refugees!?

My Iraqi friends tell me that however bad Assad is (and the West tends to big this up a lot), the alternative is hell on earth with beheadings and Wahhabism.

correction .... created and will be filled by far, far worst ..."

I believe there was a case in Holland where one group of refugees realised at a refugee centre that there were resident another refugees who had in fact perpetrated some atrocities on them back in Syria. Not sure how it all worked out but I imagine they were not pleased to see them.

There are none in the Calais camp. The reason so many people set up a camp is because they knew they were not eligible for entry into UK.

I met many many Iraqis in the camp. I currently befriending 3 Syrian couples in the local area that came "the back way" as they put it. So your statement is not true. I'm well aware that the majority of people in the camp were from Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, etc. But that is where our agreement ends, as I firmly believe people from the countries above should be considered for asylum.

Garden Geek
I completely disagree- we have had a civilised discussion from most of us, despite our respective positions .I agree it is not simple but no one is stopping the discussion.

I really wish the discussions about migrants was a lot more friendlier in tone towards them. The overwhelming evidence is that as a country as a whole we have benefitted from migration and if and when some UK people lost out, that is the fault of our various Govts, not the migrants themselves.

I don't blame migrants as individuals, many are our friends, one is my DH. They come to work in most cases. My DH came on holiday and ended up staying. But it is to do with government and big business as well. How we make it all work and take it forward. Now that is the miliion dollar question, and it needs to be fair for both sides.

The internal migration issue is interesting.

Why won't people move?

I think the housing crisis has a lot to do with it.

There are a lot of jobs and opportunities in London, but it is very, very expensive to move there with a family. For many families it is pretty much impossible to manage. Opportunities are foregone because of the costs of accommodation where the jobs are.

Many people have one shot at London - once they leave and cash out their London property, there is no way back.

Unless we adopt European-style tenancy laws we can just keep on hand wringing about how people are happy to rent on the continent.

It may have been true a few years ago but the hauliers are not attracting the qualified migrant drivers either because they can make more in Germany and Scandinavia.

But if a few years ago hauliers were not taking on Brits because it was cheaper to hire already trained migrant drivers, then it is not true to say immigrants don't take our jobs.

They both can and do. Here is an example of British workers losing out because firms preferred not to pay to train them.

Now their migrant workforce has gone where the money is. Unsurprisingly.

So they will need to either pay more or start training drivers. Or both.

But it's pretty hard to argue that the availability of migrant labour hasn't affected Britush workers in this example - it has meant they missed out on work and training and has created a skills shortage.

Immigration contributes to a healthy economy when it is managed.
If not managed there is the obvious imbalance - cheap labour, housing issues, education places and so on.
It seems to still be a contentious issue if raised. We need to get over this and be able to address issues without accusations of racism. Other countries seem to be able to manage to do this, but it seems we can't.
The obvious concern with many, is that immigration (in many cases) provides cheap, unskilled labour. This outsources many young people in inner cities who are unacedemic and rely on manual work.
It is a conversation that many people don't want to have but it is an obvious issue.
I am not talking about medical professionals from overseas and tech savvy types, who can out skill others and are in high demand. The issue is unskilled labour and those who are unable to work.

Welcoming refugees from war is another issue all together - we need to do our share as humanitarians. We still need to recognise that we are a tiny country still living in austerity, but of course we need to welcome refugees and take care of them.
It's about balance. We have many homeless people and families depending on food banks - pensioners struggling at home without basic care.

Rich (very rich) countries in the Middle East appear to be doing very little (in some cases nothing) for refugees in war torn areas. Until we can discuss this without accusations of racism I can't see much progress.
Help for those in need must be global, it cannot work if only the more liberal countries are able to help.

sporting.............check out the report that was on itv news tonight in their 6.30 slot. Its about an 89 year old man who has found a job. If you listen or watch the whole report right the way through they use a certain rhetoric right at the end.

I've just had a look at what countries in the Middle East are doing. Lebanon, with a very small population compared to Europe, has taken 1 million Syrians. Jordan has taken over a million Syrians, although the official figure is around 638,000. Egypt has taken around 250,000. Turkey has also taken a lot of Syrians, possibly as many as 3 million.

Rich (very rich) countries in the Middle East appear to be doing very little (in some cases nothing) for refugees in war torn areas

Yes, as Blue has pointed out, that is utter utter bollocks. They have taken so many refugees. Many EU countries have also taken a very generous number. The country that has done more or less fuck all is the UK. Yet bleat on about 'generosity' and have a hissy fit when we think that one of the very very few refugees we took might be 19 instead of 17.

I am married to a non-EU foreigner, and we came here to live around 8 months ago. It is extremely difficult for a British citizen to bring their foreign spouse to the UK and we had to go through many hoops to get here - the only reason being that he was born outside of the EU.

He works 50+ hours most weeks to support our family in a job that most British people would not consider. Most non-EU immigrants that I know work hard to do the best that they can without being on benefits. Also, having gone through a DBS check myself I had to provide police checks from the countries I had lived in previously.

I am tired of immigrants being blamed for everything. My husband hasn't even enrolled with the local GP yet, let alone being a drain on the health system.

Great Britain is tiny compared to many middle eastern countries - how many can we take?
How many are Dubai and Saudi Arabia and the richer ME countries taking? They have the resources to take many more than poorer countries in Middle East and Europe.

Britain hasn't done "fuck all" for Syrian refugees.

I wouldn't call Germany's cynical "welcome" for the richest and fittest Syrians to get there by any means possible generous.

Free movement of EU citizens has basically meant that it is much harder for non-EU citizens to come to the UK. Government has no control over EU numbers and so has to compensate somehow.

Yet... apparently if you disagree with freedom of movement you are a racist

I'm not against immigration. I'm against uncontrolled immigration.

I'd say the whole thing is beyond fixing. The UK can't single handedly take on the problems of the whole world. The burden is now far too great on the UK. What is Australia and New Zealand doing. And these mega rich middle eastern countries. Not to mention some of those members of the EU. It's all take take take. And give nothing back.

So what do we do? Realistically?
How many more refugees do we take and how can we house and take care of them?
How does the NHS cope?
Do we take people and then just leave them to cope without support?
We are borrowing beyond our means now and our education systems, housing resources and the NHS is crumbling.
Many immigrants are not refugees - do we minimise by need?

Highly qualified, educated people from outside the EU cannot gain entry to the UK, because of the hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers arriving here from the EU to work as shop assistants and waiters... It's a ridiculous system.

I haven't seen anyone in this discussion getting called a racist.

How many more refugees do we take and how can we house and take care of them?

Number of refugees is miniscule compared to the numbers of EU citizens who've come here.

Britain hasn't done "fuck all" for Syrian refugees

Don't make me laugh.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/03/uk-unlikely-to-reach-target-of-resettling-20000-syrian-refugees-by-2020

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34131911

Check out the table on the numbers per 100,000 citizens. EU average is 260. Sweden took 1,667 and Germany 587. UK took 60. Pathetic, truly pathetic.

How many more refugees do we take and how can we house and take care of them?

Well seeing as we have taken very few and don't intend to take many more, I don't think it's a huge concern really.

Also, should clarify in the table, that was number of APPLICATIONS. The Home Office turns down most of them and puts vulnerable people on planes back to a certain death, so we certainly have not taken 60 per 100k capita in case anyone was worried.