Latest immigration stats released & they are gigantic again

[BritBrit]

The final immigration stats from the ONS before the EU referendum have been released with immigration for 2015 at 630,000.

-630,000 immigrants came to the UK
-Net immigration was 333,000 up 20,000
-EU immigration was 270,000
-Romanian & Bulgarian immigration tripled in 2015
-42% of EU immigrants did not have a job when coming to the UK
-EU immigrants took more new British jobs (224,000) than British workers (185,000)

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/migrationstatisticsquarterlyreport/may2016

Good stuff.

There is an undercurrent which is encouraging racism. Going 'Racism, what racism?' is actually part of the dynamic. I shouldn't have to pick people up on it.

I do not think Leave are doing enough to challenge behaviour and attitudes and instead are washing their hands of it and trying to pretend its not there.

Do carry on proving the point Betty...

If I'm brutally honest I think they're at best xenophobic, and at worst in the "I'm not a racist but...." category
They are not phrases I would ever use.

I think that you know you are fighting a losing battle on the theme of racism RedToothBrush

I'm not.

I'm just not biting further.

You can hang yourself by your own rope. It undermines Leave's campaign.

People who are on the fence still are the people that need to be convinced. Remainers and Leavers are unlikely to change their minds.

The thing is undecided are by their very nature in the middle. On the centre ground.

It certainly helped make up my mind.

The more Leave don't challenge xenophobia, the more they leave the centre.

If Leave want to win those votes they need to campaign on issues and use language that does not stray from there and acknowledge if and when its straying into unpleasant ground.

I would personally like to keep debate on that ground as its far more productive and is whether you believe it or not, more likely to find solutions. At some point to get a majority, you need a consensus of opinion. A consensus that is needed for decisions regardless of how the vote goes. A polarisation is not going to help anyone.

You can argue until you are blue in the face about whether its racist or not. It doesn't matter. Its still divisive when others, really do think its offensive. They don't have to 'prove' it. As much as you think they do.

Great post Red

Red, you come across as angry, defensive, unpleasant towards others. To be honest I would vote leave just because I didn't want to be associated with yourself.

I am married to an immigrant and most of our friends our immigrants, but we also have lots of great British born friends. All of us have respect for the values that we feel Britain represents. My husband and mmany of our friends who are migrants get very pissed off when we see those who take the piss and basically drag down the reputation of the migrants who do work hard and play fair and are honest. In fact DH said just this yesterday.

Today I have to persuade one of our friends ( a migrant before you ask) to go to his doctor as he waited 5 hours at A&E without being seen (he had chest pains). Certainly some of our services are under huge pressure and I'm hearning this more and more, mainly from friends who are not British born.

You are on to a non-starter, Red and Pale. My wife is Chilean, her father originally from India, and we met in London when she was doing postgrad research, my grandparents were foreign too - from USSR.

You have not travelled far enough from Britain, a very tolerant country, to have seen racism or xenophobia. You should get out more. But continue with the Britain-is-the-most-racist-country nonsense all you like. People are not voting Leave because they are racist; they are voting out because this country is in peril, the EU is not only non-democratic it is actively anti-democratic. That is its schtick.

If some are saying that they would not recognise a British person (of any ethnicity) across a crowded bar in NYC without hearing accent, then your observational skills are in the toilet.

Why don't we look at these British People who are struggling for jobs.

The reality is most have additional problems - usually through no fault of their own - about why they are struggling to find work in a country which has a low unemployment rate.

These range from education being poor (I include bad and non practical university degrees as well as struggling with basics of education in that), long term health conditions (including mental health, which is made worse by the current employment agency rules and practices), criminal records, living in the wrong area and being trapped by social housing, inability to travel, single parents, lack of opportunity to get experience and having a skillset that is no longer required due to changes in the type of employment available. Amongst loads of others.

Saying that business should be training these people up misses so many problems with that.

Those that are to do with education are firmly grounded in education. They should be addressed by education to stop the problem persisting.

Those to do with criminal records require the government to do more rehabilitation in prison in addition to any business giving the opportunity.

The culture of the long term unemployed into work, is rotten to the core and works against people in many cases, rather than helping them gain confidence or making them more employable.

Etc etc.

Then there is the reality that a huge percentage of British Businesses are small businesses which simply don't have the capacity to turn a profit and divert their man power into training as well.

At a previous job, we needed an extra member of staff but could not afford an experienced person. We tried to train two different people up, but even though they had some skills in the area because they had no concept of customers or deadlines. It took me away from paying work, which still needed to be done. In the end it didn't work, and we found we were better off not employing someone new because this was less work and a drain on the business than having too much work. Money wasn't the issue holding us back from training. In order to be able to do it, we had to have surplus manpower in the first place to stop the business being damaged from not meeting deadlines! It was a real catch 22.

This is true to a certain extent in larger employers too. Its not all large multinationals.

Yet we are seeing ending immigration as the solution to lack of employment and not doing enough about the other issues. Problems that will take a generation to fix, even if we start right now (which we aren't).

The reality is many employers would rather have vacancies rather than take on people they regard as unsuitable staff as they don't have the time and ability to train up people who don't meet the skill set they are looking for (its not always a money issue).

But yes. Immigrants are taking British Jobs.
Repeat Ad nauseam.

Then there is the reality that a huge percentage of British Businesses are small businesses which simply don't have the capacity to turn a profit and divert their man power into training as well.

They'd do a lot better if large corporations weren't lobbying Brussels the whole time to make the rules to suit themselves, instead of British entrepeneurs and small businesses.

You have not travelled far enough from Britain, a very tolerant country, to have seen racism or xenophobia. You should get out more

You know nothing about me or my life experiences, don't be so patronizing.
And don't use the old 'some of my best friends are black...' argument, it's tired.
anti-democratic? please, no more 'anti' than the good old UK. i don't remember voting for any peers in the upper house, or my 'reigning' monarch.

Furthermore, it seems from your posting history that you have specifically registered on MN to post about immigration; agenda much?

I have travelled a lot. I have lived abroad.

Just because other countries are more racist and more xenophobic than the UK, it doesn't mean that we should tolerate any level of it in the UK.

Tbh, my experience of travelling is that exposure to more cultures usually results in lower levels of racism and xenophobia.

This is born out in polling about immigration in the UK.

Go figure.

"And don't use the old 'some of my best friends are black...' argument, it's tired. "

Not friends, but my family, wife and in-laws are from overseas. Can you not read well?

As far as I know, the reason the House of Lords exists is to act as a brake and to allow second thoughts on an issue heard in the Commons. What I do quibble about is the over-generous daily attendance £ and the per diem. But I see no reason why retired MPs with vast amount of knowledge, and those from the landed gentry, should not sit in the Lords. What I do not like is the hypocrisy of someone like John Prescott, now Lord Prescott, who always stated he would never take a peerage.

We have a monarchy just as several other European countries do, and yet so many from all over are flocking to GB to live under the rule of the cruel Queen Elizabeth. Odd that, innit?

Canada still retains her image on their bank notes.

BritBrit I was searching for the EU Referendum thread but saw this one.
Are you saying that 297,000 immigrants last year came to the UK,
630,000 minus 333,000? That's a helluva a lot, and these are just the registered ones.

someone was talking about a t.v. programme about Hounslow council. I know Hounslow very well, used to live there. It is now a high immigrant area - I suppose it is the Newham of the west - that's why Newham in the east was featured in the first series and now Hounslow. There may be something in that episode that was not shown, otherwise council went against its own social housing policy. But a charming family nevertheless.

The 'some of my best friends are black' argument? Well yes, I met with one of my best friends this weekend who is black - Nigerian actually. She has had to jump through hoop after hoop to gain residency in the UK whilst working at a senior level in the NHS for many years. The Romanian family featured on the tv this week were given accommodation, schooling etc after less than a week. I can't see that the Romanian family are better placed to contribute to the UK than my Nigerian friend.

If half the money sent to EU was spent on the underclass in the UK businesses would have a better supply of workers and as a society the lowest socioeconomic groups would see their standard of living rise. It is laughable that we should even consider staying in the EU because businesses need qualified workers in the UK.

As an employer there are plenty of qualified people in the UK. The problem is that businesses don't want to pay proper rates.

OP, am I right in thinking you're an immigrant yourself?

Sorry, wrong thread!

Immigration is one of the few issues Leave have any voter traction on, and though we haven''t got as far as 'Rivers of blood' we aren't too far.

Leave though in actual fact flip-flops massively on Brexit - their chief executive says they want free movement of Western Europeans but not eastern, (but would be hard to stop easterners leapfrogging in) and they also with a few others want to allow freedom of access to some commonwealth countries.

This obviously runs completely counter to the 'taking back control' emotive BS.

There have been many changes made by the EU over the years, so there are plenty of things unrelated to immigration where after Brexit we can take back control.

Immigration is certainly a hot topic, but I'm finding that the longer the campaign is going on, more and more issues are coming to the fore.

I usually ask people who their MEPs are. They usually don't know. That's a good start, they can go away and do a spot of research and find out what their democratically elected EU representatives have been doing, and how much money they've been earning while doing that.

Leave campaigners pledge 'fairer immigration' outside EU

"The UK could have a "fairer, more humane" immigration system that would work better for the economy if it left the EU, Leave campaigners say."

Michael Gove said on TV that the public can write to the Government to suggest how all the money not going to Europe in the event of a Brexit is to be spent. I have no doubt it will be ring fenced and the public will decide exactly how it is spent. What is to doubt?

I then started to wonder if this makes sense if nearly the same amount of money will have to be paid out anyway in the future to access the market. In that case there would be no rebate or reallocations and an acceptance of reg's and free movement of people with no say. I was then reassured and have no doubt whatsoever it will, as it came from M. Gove's very own mouth.

I am positive he was not bu*shi*ing and now am going to get my email started as it will be complete people power over all that money. I am going to get in first as when it is gone, it is gone for that week/year. We should obviously keep the 350million a week figure as Gospel if Gove is amongst those stating that was the sum.

Also, as half the people making up the immigration numbers are admitted by a system under the full control of the Government, I am sure they have already implemented a humane and fair system.

Otherwise, if they not already doing it for migration from outside the EU, which is already in their power, I wonder why is that the case? And based on that, why should we believe they will suddenly implement it in the future?