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.

Sorry Blue, but where I live everything is getting built on, there's not a postage stamp if green space worth in the new developments. Even the empty spaces are paved over which is sheet lunacy.

We are in for flooding and climate warming and all we do is build.

Yanbu

I don't know why none do anything to fix it. But they don't.

Because their voters are the ones who benefit from ever rising house prices.

Plus the issue of pollution from cars and congestion.

We are not all fruit pickers and cleaners you know. Thousands of EU migrants are highly skilled. EU immigrants make up 10% of registered doctors and 4% of registered nurses in the UK. And how about the banking sector? I used to work for a large management consultancy firm, employing thousands of people, and loads of employees were from other EU countries. Why do people assume that we are the cash in hand type anyway? Where do those prejudices come from?

We are not all fruit pickers and cleaners you know. Thousands of EU migrants are highly skilled. EU immigrants make up 10% of registered doctors and 4% of registered nurses in the UK. And how about the banking sector? I used to work for a large management consultancy firm, employing thousands of people, and loads of employees were from other EU countries. Why do people assume that we are the cash in hand type anyway? Where do those prejudices come from?

True, which is why I'd like a controlled system whereby we can choose who we take based on what our economy needs. Of course some are highly qualified, skilled people. If you let over 3 million people arrive unchecked, the law of averages says that some will be.

we have chosen not to have enough homes.

True, but that's a separate issue, as is the question of how we go about rectifying the housing shortage.

The simple fact is that there is an acute housing shortage in this country and we are literally unable to home the people who need homes now.

Everything is getting built on because land is unavailable. But it's available for other purposes. Promise I'll stop banging on about golf courses and grouse moors, these are just things that spring to mind. Near where I live, there are stretches of land where people hatch and rear birds so other people can pay lots of money to come and shoot them. The landowner gets a big pile of cash from the EU every year. If some of that land could be released for housing, there might be space for a few parks or public gardens as well.

I used to live in a suburb that was part of a big development in the 1930s. There were endless houses, the only place in easy walking distance for a stroll was a Victorian cemetery. So the problem's not new, but it could be solved, and isn't caused by immigration.

Thousands are highly skilled, but hundreds of thousands aren't.
The same as with British people, or any people, there are fewer highly skilled workers, otherwise they would not be called "highly" skilled.
That's not unusual, it's the way the things are.

Our national infrastructure is crumbling because of deliberate underinvestment in education, health and social care and local government. It is not crumbling because of immigration.

It worries me how mainstream this thinking has become.

"If we want to trade with anywhere in the world, we and they will HAVE to accept migration to and from those countries"

???

Prize for the silliest response on this thread so far.

First of all, trade and migration policies are not necessarily linked.
Secondly, I doubt many people here are in favor of zero migration. They are perhaps concerned about the amount---which is certainly high, by historical standards.

The Gov can get away with underinvesting, or doing what it likes if there is no opposition, otherwise the opposition would get voted in by promising to do what people want.

Until opposition sorts itself out not much will happen (Brexit excepted). And I do think that now that the have nots have flexed their muscles the Gov will be held to account more. If they try to get out of Brexit expectations such as reduced immigration I don't think it will go down at all well.

I think the standard of living is due to fall from what it was in the past decades anyway. In the past we had our own coal and gas and oil. Once we have to buy from abroad I don't see how we can expect to be as wealthy. We don't have rare earth minerals, or anything to trade with. We have an educated workforce but India/China are catching up and taking over from us there. I can't see how our standards won't fall.

Interesting thread, takes me back to those heady days of late June.

We need to control the numbers. It's the uncontrolled aspect that, by definition, makes any planning nigh on impossible. Young, educated professionals migrating to fill existing vacancies - fine. Unskilled workers and their entire extended families - no thanks. Remember the Romanian family awarded the council house? That's why Leave won.

And the areas of the country that aren't built on aren't spare. Those green fields are producing grain for your bread, grazing for the cows producing your milk, etc. Even woodland and moors given over to grouse rearing are also supporting a huge ecosystem. Wild and empty spaces matter - once they're gone, they're gone for ever.

Standards of living have fallen, and will continue to fall, while we allow any form of uncontrolled immigration. We need to stop fuelling economic growth by population increase, and start to attempt to stabilise and then reduce the population.

when we think that one of the very very few refugees we took might be 19 instead of 17

Those who lie about their age are not refugees, because refugees have no reason to lie - they are immediately eligible for entry. If anyone does lie abput their age, it means they are from other countries other than the two primary war zones at the moment. And it wasnt a case of 2 years difference in age - more like 10. Some of the so-called refugees with no ID were late 20s.

No one is against the movement of skilled workers that our country needs, these are people who are self-supporting. (Some of us may be talking at cross-purposes). It is unfair to allow in hundreds of thousands of barely skilled persons because it has a knock-on effect on so many factors, the country gains Zero and British-born unskilled workers' lives take a dive. The unskilled migrants improve their lot, but we do not.

Everyone has the right to a home

Everyone? This is a loaded statement. I would suggest only those who (i) are refugees (from the public purse), and (ii) economic migrants who are self-supporting without recourse to the public purse.

I think it's unsustainable. I want to see more green spaces, parks, гrecreation grounds, not just endless blocks of flats

Me too!

I voted to Remain but I agree that immigration needs to be debated properly without everyone shouting racism all the time. I also think that people shoudl be looking at how many children they have. Someone said on another thread that one of the rudest things that was said to them was that they could not understand environmental sustainability because they did not have kids. The riposte to that is that not having kids is the most environmentally friendly thing you can do. So if people were encouraged to have no more than 2 kids, population replacement value, that would be a good thing in my view.

Secondly there are too many people rattling about in houses too big for them. There should be incentives for people to free up 3/4 bed houses and move to smaller houses and flats if they live alone. That would help the housing crisis. So would sorting out all the empty houses and getting them lived in again. So would making employers embrace more flexible and remote working possibilities, clearly not for everyone, but it does work for a lot of jobs.

And then we come back to immigration itself. The EU is being a bit silly about freedom of movement. I agree with it to an extent. But it should be freedom of movement of LABOUR - not just "because you feel like it". That said, I suspect that very few of the EU citizens living in the UK are not working (or supported by a spouse or pension) so it would not really help much with the overall figures.

If people want to come here we should be flattered by that. We should use their extra taxes to invest in infrastructure.

Existing EU citizens who were here on 23 June should be able to remain in the UK no questions asked. Those who came afterwards - well there is a debate to be had there but to be honest if they came after the Brexit vote they obviously really want to be here and contribute.

The Australian model seems to work quite well - you either need a skill they want, or lots of money. I don't really see why we can't do that.

Sorry just to be clear - if employers embraced remote working options, people would not all have to live near their employer and could eg live further away from their company HQ in London rather than in the overcrowded south-east.

It is true that there are nearby Middle Eastern countries that choose to take no refugees. But I don't think lowering our humanitarian standards to those of Saudi Arabia is the direction we should take

Actually Saudi has taken in about half million Syrian refugees, but I do remember last year reading a comment from a representative from one of the Gulf States who stated they would not take ME refugees because they are "different" to us, have a different culture and would not fit in. This is from a fellow Arab nation!

Our national infrastructure is crumbling because of deliberate underinvestment in education, health and social care and local government. It is not crumbling because of immigration

Do you think mass immigration helps though? If councils are desperately short of money, is it helping the situation to have un limited numbers of people flooding in all the time needing these services?

If people want to come here we should be flattered by that. We should use their extra taxes to invest in infrastructure

Yes if hundreds of thousands of cash in hand workers are paying their taxes but they are not, they are working cash in hand, living in lodgings on ad hoc basis, moving on when they want, and living on shoe string budget.
If this was true of a few hundred people, I have no issue with that but its not a few hundred people, up and down the country people talk of small houses, packed to the rafters with Eastern Europeans, many to a room. We have rough ideas that its hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people, but we will never know how many.

How this is acceptable for them, to live in such a way, who is happy with all the social implications of this I simply do not understand. I find the EU attitude to such people is de humanizing! Shunt them around like chattals to make money for big business!

They still contribute to our economy through spending

Very little actually. People purchase food and other items from greengrocers/supermarket run by people of the same ethnicity. Those stores import as much as possible from their own countries of origin. I see this with the Polish and Romanian supermarkets and to some degree the ME greengrocers especially. Most of the money stays in a loop.

Excellent points Southall and myfavourite

It's crazy to allow anyone and everyone from the EU to move here (as myfavourite says, making a mockery of the "free movement of labour"). I know a few E European families who have moved here. They wanted the best for their families, like we all do. They work hard, but in NMW jobs, so with children they qualify for in-work benefits. Their children are now getting a British education, which they consider a huge advantage. Some have also moved their elderly parents here to gain free NHS access. And in the meantime, the local workers who could have taken those same NMW jobs are sitting idle on JSA. Yes, there are plenty of workshy Brits - but if wages were higher, it'd be worth their while to take NMW jobs. Wages will never increase if there's a massive oversupply of cheap labour from the EU.

The uncontrolled immigration situation is a ridiculous Ponzi scheme.

Ultimately, a country that employs a non contributory benefit scheme and unlimited low skilled, low paid immigration will go bankrupt

Said better than I could. Spot on.