Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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

932 replies

jdoe8 · 01/12/2016 10:04

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.

OP posts:
SouthallGirl · 04/12/2016 18:06

Is there a hole in the echo chamber?

Yes, we have hacked our way thru.

SouthallGirl · 04/12/2016 18:08

Everygreen And how are the OAPs a drain on national and local resources? Are they receiving food vouchers, land taxes being paid for them, all utilities free, are their grandchildren enrolled in school and GP, taking the places of citizens?

Evergreen17 · 04/12/2016 18:09

And can I say that the majority of people leaving the UK dont notify anyone about it?
So those numbers are not accurate

malificent7 · 04/12/2016 18:11

Well in answer to the above, the pensioners are more likely to need healthcare! That could ve aeen as a drain on resources. Except i dont see life like that. I believe that resources are there for everyone to use and share.

What a mean thread.

formerbabe · 04/12/2016 18:12

A very sunny place that people from here love but apparently they dont love when we come over here

OK I can guess where you're from! The thing is I believe free movement can work between some countries. So in terms of the UK and western European countries, there is movement both ways. Immigration became much more of an issue when the Eastern European countries joined. Over a million people came to the UK over the course of a decade but how many Brits have headed over to the EE countries for a better life?! Free movement can only work between countries of a similar economic standard.

SouthallGirl · 04/12/2016 18:13

In the main, this thread is not discussing self-supporting migrants in work who rarely need support from the public purse. We are mostly talking about those who arrive here from the EU and immediately put a claim in. It is only since last year that HB will not be paid to them (apparently). However, in practice this is doubtful if there are children.

SouthallGirl · 04/12/2016 18:16

formerbabe I agree. Free movement was NEVER going to be reciprocal. Yes, there are a few Brits with languages working in French-Belgium-Holland-Germany, but people were always going to be move to GB for work. Why didnt the EE move to Germany or Czechland for work, for example?

Evergreen17 · 04/12/2016 18:17

Shouthall how?? Hmm they pay no taxes yet they use local health care, police services, fire brigade services, roads, rubbish services (we dont do council tax)
They increase the price of housing as the minimum wage a month os less than 800 euros so people in Andalucia for example, one of the poorest areas of Spain cant afford to compete with the house prices.

Are you honestly saying that you rather have 200.000 pensioners moving here that 200.000 young workers?! Hmm

Evergreen17 · 04/12/2016 18:19

I am just saying that I am fed up of being a good citizen and having to hear all this every day when for every person from my country that moves here there is another that goes from here to my country.

Leave us alone

user1471439240 · 04/12/2016 18:32

Pensioners moving to Spain are self financing, they pay their own way. Spend money earned in Britain to help out a less able economy.
Unskilled, low paid immigration to Britain is the polar opposite.

Manumission · 04/12/2016 18:58

In the main, this thread is not discussing self-supporting migrants in work who rarely need support from the public purse. We are mostly talking about those who arrive here from the EU and immediately put a claim in. It is only since last year that HB will not be paid to them (apparently). However, in practice this is doubtful if there are children.

Look at the thread title south. The thread is about the whole net immigration figure.

Ever British ex pats are part of the figures that make up the net figure, of course.

I think the thread is supposed to be about demographic phenomena, not an attack on individuals.

user1480182169 · 04/12/2016 19:12

Pensioners moving to Spain are self financing, they pay their own way

Do they fuck.

Matador · 04/12/2016 19:14

Pensioners moving to Spain are self financing, they pay their own way.

What is your source on this?

wasonthelist · 04/12/2016 19:23

I think the thread is supposed to be about demographic phenomena, not an attack on individuals.

I agree.

I am very worried though, that there seems to be a consensus here (only very little challenged) saying that high levels of net immigration (I certainly think 335,000 is high) are an economic necessity.

The justification for this seems to be to pay old people's pensions. Surely anyone can see (and few have even acknowledged) this is a Ponzi scheme.

Rather than be horrified at this idea, people seem to shrug it off.

Ponzi schemes end in spectacular ruin for the participants.

wasonthelist · 04/12/2016 19:26

Evergreen17 This debate isn't intended as a personal attack on you or anyone - the issue here is that politicians needed to address people's legitimate concerns, and they didn't - sadly that leads to a situation where innocent people like you are being treated unfairly. It shouldn't, but it has.

user1480182169 · 04/12/2016 19:41

I think the thread is supposed to be about demographic phenomena, not an attack on individuals

Yes, we heard of lot of that around Brexit: "Its the other foreigners we don't want here, dear, not you" (because I happen to be talking to this particular foreigner and don't want to seem rude.

They are all individuals.

Manumission · 04/12/2016 19:43

It's a very strange state of affairs if nobody can allude to major demographic changes in case someone interprets that as a negative comment on individuals.

I don't believe I've said anything anti-immigration, much less anything that could possibly be construed as anti-immigrant.

Manumission · 04/12/2016 19:48

They are all individuals.

Yes I think I pointed out earlier on in the thread that newcomers are people.

But the notion that social phenomena can't be discussed because they involve large numbers of individuals is frightening. If that principle was adopted by academia, most of the Social Sciences and goodness knows what else would be extinguished at a stroke.

EnormousTiger · 04/12/2016 19:49

It's a difficult issue - have we too many people nor to? Are we better off with more young workers or not?
It is also not surprising that immigrants often want to live with others who share their church, mosque, culture. It usually isn't a problem. The hassidic jews in Stamford Hill keep to themselves and have never caused any trouble even if I don't agree with their sexist views on women and the like. I think the British are happy with having lots of different people within their country but if it gets too much with not enough housing, hard to get jobs, a difficult culture in local schools then it can be difficult. In today's papers a statistic that in some very muslim areas some children in 98% muslim state schools think most people in the UK are muslim. Even in my sons' school one school friend (teenager) thought half the UK were non white presumably because where he's grown up that is the case nad because the school is mostly non white. My son keeps showing him stuff on google which proves the boy is wrong and I hope they are each learning from the other.

WrongTrouser · 04/12/2016 19:53

wasonthelist I agree. It's continually stated that our economy needs high levels of immigration and very infrequently challenged. I think people need to be a bit more questioning of the "facts" they are fed.

Does anyone else remember before and immediately after the referendum, many, many remain posters were telling leave voters they were stupid if they thought leaving the EU would reduce immigration? Posters were piling in on anyone who said they voted leave for that reason and telling them they were deluded, stupid, had been duped. But now it looks like leaving the EU will reduce immigration. So sometimes the accepted wisdom is wrong.

And also what is good for "the economy" may be good for some people and not good for others. I find it hard not to be sarcastic about this but we really don't share it out equally do we? Also, in theory we are better off than we were say 40 years ago. But many working people can't afford to buy a house or have huge mortgages when someone on an equivalent salary 40 years ago would have been able to buy for a small part of their income. The economy might be bigger and people might be, in theory, better off but their lives are worse. So all this talk of "the economy" doing better needs to be looked at a bit more closely.

Sobachka · 04/12/2016 20:08

Don't want to de-rail, but I'd like to clear up some misconceptions as to what constitutes 'social housing.'

The family described up-thread were given private rental accommodation - the Local Authority concerned would have paid full market rent.

The taxpayer's paying (through the nose) so of course it's 'social housing.'

Manumission · 04/12/2016 20:09

No that's really not the definition sob.

user1480182169 · 04/12/2016 20:09

But the notion that social phenomena can't be discussed because they involve large numbers of individuals is frightening

it might be if that were the notion, but it isn't/

woodhill · 04/12/2016 20:12

Yes, it's not like the family we're paying their way, I'm sure this isn't the only case.

Swipe left for the next trending thread