What do you say to people who blame immigration for the fact school places are in short supply?

[Lottielou7]

Of the few people I know who voted for Brexit, they are adamant that school places are difficult to get because of immigration. The one who says it the most has 6 children! I can't stand this scapegoating. Personally, I think birth rates have risen generally. My friends and I all mostly have 3 children. I'm an only and as a child of the 80s people had mostly one or two.

So what do you say in response when people come out with this old chestnut.

Just5mins I think you need to back down a little. step into the shoes of anyone not born in the UK at the moment and you will understand why people are sensitive.

Threads like this are always difficult. even will intended posts can lead to hurt feelings but you can't understand why if you haven't been in that position.

I don't think the discussion is benefited by telling someone they don't have a right to have hurt feelings

this isn't an academic debate for me, I'm not on a side ffs, and slimy?

the whole mood in this country, if you are not English born is ugly as hell right now. I do feel as though we are seen as an invading horde- taking housing, school places, whatever, that someone else deserves.

i don't want to debate my existence in a bloodless, rational way, I want to just hide, i feel awful

I don't even care if we (we?) are in the eu, ironically enough

I don't know why I posted on this thread, and will withdraw- I don't have anything productive to add, and it is far too personal for me.

Just5mins I think you need to back down a little. step into the shoes of anyone not born in the UK at the moment and you will understand why people are sensitive.

It's perfectly possible to be sensitive without telling inflammatory whoppers. Trust me.

I don't think the discussion is benefited by telling someone they don't have a right to have hurt feelings

I didn't tell her anything of the sort.

What I did say was that alleging Die Sturmer imagery where there was none was irresponsible.

Maybe you should consider being more accurate and less patronising?

You can have double the amount of immigrants for all I care; just as long as you count them & hopefully its a thought out decision based on how pressured things become in the near distant future (controlled).

Immigrants claim less than contribute in tax so the question is why services haven't been in line with tax receipts. If those jobs had been filled with organically born people in the UK there would still be the same problem if not worse as UK people claim more benefits as a group.

Tories I can only think want to control head count in the UK as they dont want to improve/expand services, just give rich people tax breaks in the continued false hope of trickle down economics.

We can't look at school places without looking at the bigger picture.

I would be really interested to know how many immigrant teachers we have? would the shortage be worse if we didn't have them?

How many of those children have parents working in shortage areas such as in medicine or are employing others? we can't bring the skills we need but deny the children school places.

These kind of debate threads are not considering the complexity of the immigration issue and that is exactly how I answer in rl to people complaining that immigration is putting pressure on school places.

And to those who look at the 'worthyness' of one child's family vs another - that's just daft! Its the child's future not the family's that we need to invest in as they will be forming our society a generation down the road.

Totally agree the fault with schools places is planning not immigrants but the whole problem is more complicated than I feel qualified to answer on!

Just5mins I think you are just looking for a rise out of someone and I'm sorry you won't get it from me. but I don't like bullies in rl either - I'm all for debate but be nice.

I can't see why we can take into account BOTH statistics and personal experiences.

Statistics only play A part.
If statistics tell you that the majority where you live is British, and all children get a school place, and all SN children get the provision they need .....

But if where you live, you KNOW that isn't the case...

In south west London and Surrey area, 750,000 children didn't get a school place last year. That figure was released by the council.

If your child didn't get a place. Then THAT matters. Regardless of what certain Statistics tell you.

You are affected by real life. Not always by statistics.

Immigrants claim less than contribute in tax so the question is why services haven't been in line with tax receipts.

Well Theresa's in and she's already said that her absolute priority is to end free movement of people. She implied that this would come higher priorities than access to the single market.

So we're going to start lobbying energetically to keep free movement anyway. We might as well put forward the argument for improved infrastructure and how that would help with real and perceived problems as part of that.

^going to have to start lobbying

Face get lost. If you can't see that what crappy just did was such a low manipulative stunt that it detracts from the pro-immigration position, you're thinking is sloppy. Your type of hand-wring and poor comprehension is exactly what she was relying on to get away with it.

Small keeps pointing out, quite rightly, that the statistics tell the story well enough. People getting hysterical and conveniently 'imagining' nazi-style propaganda on what was a very civilised thread just drags the debate down through the floor into the mire.

I'm sorry if you think naming that is bullying. I think it's calling out nasty tactics.

Your thinking is^

A fundamental and long term cut to education investment, make sure you vote out the tories.

I think a lot of the time it depends on how things affect you directly, doesn't it? I personally live in a very quiet, predominantly white Scottish town. The reason our primary schools are starting to bulge here isn't foreign immigration. It's because of the new 4/5 bed family orientated, affordable housing estates that have been built here over the last 10 years. We've had a baby boom and there's been an influx of Scottish/British families move into the area, which is wonderful, but the council haven't had the common sense/funds/space to build another, much needed school. Migration has impacted the amount of available school places in my town, but it's impacted it because the council have failed to build another school. They seem to be under the impression the population hasn't grown since the schools were initially opened

On the flip side of that, my sister lives quite close to London in an area that has seen heavy immigration and a massive baby boom over the last few years. Children living in her area are being driven left right and center to alternative counties sometimes, because there are not enough school places. It's an absolute joke. She, understandably, gets really angry about it. Not that 'immigrants' have 'stolen' the places, but that the government and local councils have allowed the immigration to happen without putting in place the necessary infrastructures to deal with it.

For us, we don't mind anyone coming to live, work and raise a family here. Come on in - we hope you love it here That's not an issue at all. I think the bad feelings often stem from knowing that your own children are suffering or missing out because the numbers are out of control in proportion to the services that are currently open and available in your area. When people talk about immigration being a problem in this regard, very few mean that in a, 'Those pesky foreigners have snatched up all the school places again!' sense. I think what people mean when they talk about immigration impacting school places is just that - the numbers are too large in an area where the school places are likely too few. That is the fault of the government and councils.

Build what we need, employee who we need - give everybody a fair and equal chance to use the services we all work so hard to keep open and running. Then evict all the horrible little racists, dump them on an island and let them eat each other. Problems solved!

'There isn't actually anything wrong with the word 'foreigners'. It's a perfectly serviceable word.'

I disagree, I think it's pretty disingenuous for us not to admit that referring to anyone as 'foreign' or 'foreigner' sounds hostile and reinforces a notion of 'us' and 'them'.

I think impersonal nouns do that generally. 'Citizen' makes me shudder a bit.

think it's pretty disingenuous for us not to admit that referring to anyone as 'foreign' or 'foreigner' sounds hostile and reinforces a notion of 'us' and 'them'.

And actually, broadly speaking, 'foreigner' has very positive vibrations to me. It sounds interesting, well travelled, sophisticated etc. So I'm really not being disingenuous.

I think we all have to set our own semantic associations to one side and accept that words have a plain meaning.

You are wrong that the associations a word has are purely subjective. This argument doesn't stand up to scrutiny in cases where a word is used in a racist way. Since it has been ruled that calling someone a 'bloody foreigner' is racist abuse then the word has perjorative associations.

"750,000 children didn't get a school place last year"

Strange that figure, is nearly 10% of the entire school population of UK schools.

Far larger than the Mail reported for the number that missed out on their first choice secondary school which was 100,000 country wide.

Its also not verifiable anywhere, it turns out that 641 children in Kent were not offered any of their 4 choices, on further research.

Now, as we all know the silly way people behave about primary school places, putting the same place down 4 times, none of their choice actually being likely etc, we'd probably have to consider that a considerable number of these are because of poor parent decisions.

But yeah, believe what you like, I'm sure you will.