To think Europen governments need to respond to immigration?

[Finlesswonder]

So the Netherlands is going to have a far right government.
Sweden has moved to the right.
Finland has shut its borders.
Countries that have traditionally been liberal are hardening and irrespective of the many issues listed its to do with immigration.

Ireland has seen violent protests last night following a series of stabbings.
In the UK we obviously had Brexit.

I think governments need to start responding to voters feelings on immigration as if they don't we will continue to see a general slide to the right in Europe, when actually these countries aren't right wing: it feels like a single issue is distorting the entire political landscape?

"Let the old people stay in their big houses"...

In their houses that they own you mean?

So it's only immigrants and asylum seekers where "be kind" applies. If you are old we can confiscate your paid for assets? When you get down to the nitty gritty leftists are sometimes not as kind as they make out are they?

Yes minimum wage - the lowest amount you can earn. If it's so bountiful why are so many families on minimum wage with kids on universal credit?

As a care worker new in your workplace you will usually be expected to be available 24/7 or even on day shifts 7am-10pm for a rolling rota of shifts.

That doesn't exactly lend itself to two people working full time if you have kids. Even if you can afford childcare it is impossible to source for anti-social hours so you are unlikely to get two full timers when care jobs are involved if they have kids.

Retail/hospitality/education are much more likely to give you fixed, family friendly hours. Care needs to pay the premium that the workers deserve for the anti-social working hours and uncertainty of rotas. Or employers could try and be more open to mornings/afternoons/evenings or weekends only fixed rotas - so the pay would still be crap but at least the hours would be more compatible with family life.

You will clearly get enough care workers if you pay a decent rate deserving of the demands of the job but some people would rather say "oh it's impossible to recruit" (paying minimum wage) and get people to come over from abroad who don't have better options.

*If it's so bountiful why are so many families on minimum wage with kids on universal credit?
🤷 No idea but 36k income after tax isn't exactly "peanuts".

I agree about difficult shifts though.

It isn't. But fewer and fewer people live in two working adult households. As long as a woman can have a child and know that she will get priority for housing and extra benefits there's little incentive to find low paid work.

The cycle of children growing up in families with a poor work ethic continues. The resentment against everything and anything grows and we have scenes like the recent one in Dublin.

Let's be clear that the 36K income you are quoting is what you have calculated for 2 people working full time. Not one.

When they just announced the national insurance cut the average wage for one person was quoted as 35,400k

So you need two full time care workers to earn the average British wage. Yet you are trying to tell me that the wages are fine?

36k after tax is peanuts if trying to compete for housing, fund transport costs for antisocial hours, pay childcare costs (if you can find available, affordable childcare), etc. It is extremely expensive to have a job that requires long, antisocial hours with little to no control over shifts and to have unpaid caring responsibilities of your own to juggle.

We are in a low wage economy, it's still beneficial for some to work here as there are more opportunities and due to the conversion rate, but as an example a junior doctor wouldn't qualify for a skilled worker visa as they don't earn enough (it's £40k I believe) which is ludicrous. Skilled jobs lag behind comparable countries even taking into account varying living costs, and having the government subsidise wages of staff of multi million pound companies as they don't pay enough to live off of would rightly be viewed as ludicrous elsewhere.

Edit to add workers should be paid more, not saying they shouldn't be topped up with the system as it currently is!

Another idea for care/hospitals/farming - why don't the government build some lovely housing estates that are subsidised/tied accommodation for those working full time in accredited jobs (and perhaps a year after they leave to find time to move on).

I live in a house built 100 years ago as accommodation for factory workers in the midlands and people walked (yes walked) from Wales for the house/job combo that it allowed them.

But if you do this for the private sector you are choosing to simply subsidise the unrealistic wages they are offering at the expense of the tax payer.

When it was difficult to get truckers in the pandemic they were offered 5k golder hellos and good wages, when programming skills are in high demand jobs are advertised 60k plus. When you can't get carers for 11 quid an hour the attitude is screw them - we'll ship them in from abroad.

Care (and hospitality/ and farming) needs to pay what it costs to find people willing to do the job and afford them a decent standard of living- and yes the days of a 20p cabbage on the back of exploited workers are rightly over.

The issues to do with increased migration are hitting many economies. As events in Dublin show, or politics in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, probably others

I can only see it getting more pronounced as numbers increase

Where I live the local adult education system has been decimated and college funding has been reduced so there just isn't the number of courses/training opportunities that there once was. I've had personal experience of this with my daughter who struggled to find any opportunities to get back to studies. And then when we did find something, they squeezed all the SEND students into one programme at college. They couldn't afford to run another class and there was nowhere else for these students to go. This had implications for the wellbeing of some of those students including my daughter. I've also worked in the sector and have witnessed the decline myself. Meanwhile the big city university has expanded its student accommodation to build deluxe suites for students from abroad and they're also rolling out an expansive redevelopment of their green spaces. It all looks very nice and I don't have an issue with students from abroad but I think it is unfair to not also have opportunities for local people who may not be university level but who could learn and achieve and contribute to society in other ways. In my experience community education brings people together, it has the potential to build bridges and improve wellbeing but sadly this government is too fixated on learning being an economic tool.

Very much agree with you about dangers of learning (university or not) being seen only as an economic tool. That’s highly relevant to immigration issues. Accessible learning is a key part of social cohesiveness, mutual understanding and social mobility and enabling better life chances and innovation. That positive spiral benefits everyone! culturally and financially.

The sneery anti intellectual culture of the Tories (like Michael Gove’s unendingly shocking ‘we’ve heard enough from experts’ over the accurate evidence for Remain over Brexit) keeps the UK locked into hostility, prejudice, lower productivity and lack of innovation. Less hope and joy and more division and poverty. It’s basically a Tory policy pledge now.

When you start reading people suggesting older people give up their hard earn houses and space for immigrants you must be terrified. Remember there would be politicians that would support this idea. Those who are always supporting conflicts in foreign lands like they were of our making. Expropriating has happened in other countries that have now been eroded as civilised places to totalitarianism. Be careful what you wish for.

The growth is a Ponzi scheme anyway, we all get older, presumably we’ll need exponential levels of immigration.

36k after tax is not peanuts. Do people mean gross?

Anyway, I think the problems with universal credit and top up of wages are clear. It's a kind of capitalist social policy that means employers don't pay decent wages and many people who could be properly economic productive aren't.

There are some difficult truths out there. One is future employment at all given AI. The others are the growth of special educational needs and how these children will thrive as adults in a society that is older and sicker with less tax contributions than 25 years ago. All of this speaks of economic decline. It's the reason immigration continues as it does even if the Tory Party does not say it. It does explain the last 13 years better rather than wondering why they haven't done anything. They have; they have greatly expanded immigration because a lot of the UK population are not very productive.

I can't blame people for wanting a better life where they will be housed , educated , have reasonable health care etc for the rest of their life , so much so that they will risk their lives to get it . The reality is that they end up at the mercy of trafficking gangs and end up owing lots of money . They become indentured slaves .

This government can't / won't take care of its own citizens properly who were born here and paid taxes . I'm a believer of take care of your own first then help others . We can't take in everyone who wants to come . We don't have the infrastructure or resources.

Saying that I despise these right wing groups who harass and bully migrants in their accommodation. Yes I understand there are vulnerable people born here living in the street but the right wingers argument is with the Government who has allowed this to happen.

The funding of the country is not looking good. It seems there are many local councils teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. And that is Labour and Conservative, in some nice parts of England where the narrative is not going to be "immigrants got the money". Give it six months.

Who cares for the immigrants and their dependants when they get older - more immigrants - then who cares for them & on & on

I was listening to a large group at a nearby table in the pub last night and they blamed Angela Merkel's open door immigration policy, said it sent a dog whistle to the world to come to Europe and they have no border controls. Anyone can walk from country to country unstopped and end up in France, and does anyone remember the migrant camps. And has anyone been over to Paris lately to see them in the streets.

They were talking about a case where Tunisians snuck into Italy, went to Calais and got a boat to the UK and it took just days, they said it was filmed to show how easy it is and no one stops you as its open borders.

This kind of muttering I imagine happening over in Netherlands, Ireland, France, Sweden. Indigenous folk looking around and then starting to think...hang on...

Someone piped up about EU borders are being manned again to try and stem the tide, but the voice from last night was its too late.

This group were not what I would have called yobs or far right who run the streets to loot. And actually those who do that, like in Dublin, only get the media attention on them and not the real problem which is a man running around their streets with a knife stabbing women and children. That's where the outrage should be.

Of course...it's a massive pyramid scheme.

Lol. Most immigrants get nationalised. They have a right to after living, serving, paying taxes. They are entitled to reproduce, just as you are.

In the same token, maybe the unemployed feral youth who choose not to be productive, or those who permanently stay on benefits shouldn't have children, because right now I as a tax payer are subsidizing them and my children as future tax payers will subsidize their offspring- using your logic!

You're absolutely correct. Woking is 83.6% white, 11.6% Asian descent and 2.4% mixed race. The council is in debt set to hit £2.6 billion. I'm sure with some of the warped thinking on this thread, that's down to funding immigrants. sigh

People mean two full time care workers, not one.

PP didn’t say immigrants shouldn’t reproduce though.
They just asked what will happen when those people who are currently needed because of the demographic shift and the aging population in the UK get older themselves. Who will look after them?
What are the longterm consequences of a country using immigrant workers to prop up the local economy?
Do those immigrants only stay as long as they’re young, fit and ‘useful’, and then leave again to be replaced by the next wave of healthy, young workers?
Some people seem to think that’s the case.
But you say yourself that most immigrants get nationalised. That means they stay. So will more immigrants be needed to look after them when they get older?

Gross or net. 36k after tax is not a bad income.

It's not bad, but potentially not great. After housing and childcare. It all depends really.