Do you feel there will be an increase in illegal immigrants with a Labour government

[DistinguishedSocialCommentator]

What is Labour's plan to stop the boat people? How will this stop those who want to come to England via channel crossings illegally??

What in your opinion is encouraging the boat/channel crossing illeagle immigrants to want to come to England even though they are already is a very safe and generous nation?

IMO, most that come to England now, the vast majority are young men looking for a better financial future. My opinion is based on the basis that if I was in a war-torn country and wanted to escape persecution etc. I would leave the country WITH MY FAMILY and would be grateful once in a safe country and not risk our helth/lift etc crossing the channel in small dingys.

So, do you feel that potential illegal immigrants are just hoping that Labour gets into power as they are seen as a softer touch??

We. ie my parents and siblings came to England in the early 60's from Asia via legal routes as England need workers - parents rented a room and built up their wealth from there.

FYI: If you go abroad, lets say to China/India/Newzealand/etc for a hols, fall in love with someone and want to marry them - just check out the criteria that you have to meet to sponsor a visa and then the massive costs for them to come over and then become a Brtish cotozen after 5 years of good standing - the person coming over is entitled to nothing other than access to NHS and this is allowed as the person/s coming over undergo strict medical tests - therefore very unfair on those wanting to come to England via legal routes

England needs skilled and unskilled workers and those who are coming over legally go through many tests before being allowed here and massive costs. It is very unfair to allow the boat people etc to settle in England when they have already entered a safe nation IMO

IMO, we created the stife in Afhghransatan, Libya, Syria and Iraq along with our boss the good old USA

People, and families do not help in war-torn nations and the very poor nations - most that come over illegally from the poorer, very poorer parts of the world pay thousands to gangs etc - Therefore, these people are not the real poor people who may be earning 50p a day for backbreaking work

I'm all for immigration - we too had considered the USA and Portugal but stayed in the UK. I welcome those who want to come to our country but in my judgement, these people must be scrended just like those people who come to Englland via legal routes

Tories don't take the country close to bankruptcy like Labour does

They did this time.

With some respect, your comments are total BS.

The NHS needs to be managed properly, someone that has guts and not chums of the unions to do this. As you know, the unions prop up Labour, so please try again, if you wish

No person in their correct mind want a bad NHS. Sadly, poor management at the NHS along with poor contracts , especially staff higher up the food chain does no favours to the taxpayers or patients. Until that is addressed, NHS will only become worse

Having said that, there are many mobile ct/Mri scan units in and around London
and people have been pleasantly surprised how quickly they got their scan - getting the results is another thing in some cases

Until that is addressed, NHS will only become worse

So my comment is BS and yet you agree with it? There is no sign of poor management being addressed under this government. And you only have to look at the statistics about how many working people there are compared to retired and do the maths about how much is being put in compared to being taken out to see that it is unsustainable.

With the economy in tatters, government borrowing at an all time high (covid didn't help, but that's only part of the story), Brexit ruining the economy, with Liz Trussterfuck making it worse it is hard to see how any major reform is going to be funded. It will take a massive programme of reform to fix the NHS.

Hence me saying that it is only one part of the equation. There are other factors to consider as well as the NHS.

Will you accept that Labour has been in gov and did not better??

What do you expect a Labour coalition party to do to improve vastly A&E times and general waiting times and over what period and where will they get the money and staff from??

FFS Wales isn't even a separate country, so much of what impacts health, is set by Westminster.

They cannot even call their own elections, the English do it for them.....

FFS -So you are saying the Labour lot that sit in their little palrialiment or whatever its called have no say??? FFS get real

Oh, it's absolutely true that previous Labour governments have not done any better. But then it is also true to say that previous Conservative governments have done better than the current one, so the point is moot. What (I thought) we were discussing was what we thought the next government would do. My point here was that they could hardly do any worse, not necessarily that they would do any better.

As I have said on other threads, the choice at the moment is like choosing between syphilis and gonorrhoea.

For the reasons I stated above, I don't believe it is possible to vastly improve anything, A&E times, or general waiting times. Certainly not in the short term. It will take years to resolve.

The Conservative government have buggered it to the point where it is not fixable in the short term. There is no money to hire people, and no magic people tree to find people even if there were some money.

Basically, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

That I agree with 100%, hence me, us ditching to Tories and going for an independent if suitable one in our area and hoping they can keep in check these self-serving public servants

People tend to forget but thankfully less so these days that the vast majority of politicians are selfish, if not at the outset, they soon will be.

What do you expect a Labour coalition party to do

Oh bless.

Are you still pushing the line that there will need to be a coalition? Read the polls, bud!

Quite. It won't be a coalition. And let's face it, if Labour don't win a majority in this coming election, they might as well pack up and go home.

Oh do fuck off Suella! ;-) 🤣🤣

Will you accept that Labour has been in gov and did not better??

Labour last time -

85,000 more nurses.
32,000 more doctors.
Inpatient waiting lists down by over half a million
Heart disease deaths down by 150,000 and cancer deaths down by 50,000.
Free breast cancer screening for all women aged between 50-70
A million pensioners lifted out of poverty, 600,000 children lifted out of relative poverty, a million social homes improved and increased winter fuel allowance (direct links between poverty, housing, warmth and good health)

eg people going to Ireland

it will save money and lives in the long run

If they are sailing the small boats further to get to Ireland, that's more dangerous than coming here, not less.

the "we have only built on 6% is a lazy irrelevant argument too. What would be a good percentage? 15, 29, 65? Where will we be growing our food? What about all the areas we can't build on if we wanted to? It's a stupid lazy argument.

No I don't. But I am not worried about illegal immigration anyway. It's not really the problem it's presented as. I am much more worried about the increasing wealth inequality between the Uber rich (whoever's taking all the wealth) and the rest of us (who they are taking it from). That's who is making us poor. Not a few illegal immigrants (or benefits fraudsters for that matter). Their impact's a drop in an ocean compared to what wealth inequality is doing. Not if any party is going to try to deal with this but it certainly won't the Tories led by one of the Uber rich themselves!

Do you not work and not noted that many companies cant get the staff inc the hospitality industry?
Shit wages and conditions so they want to import and exploit cheap workers from overseas - and people ask why our wages and productivity are stagnating?

@frankentall it's not a lazy argument at all. It's a counter argument to the argument (which is lazy) that 'there's no room' - which tries to imply that every area of the country is now full, with no space for building more houses.

It's very true to say that we are a denesly populated island. And that a growing population means consideration for how we create the right infrastructure to deal with this. But that's different from the knee-jerk and, let's face it, misanthropic (if not racist) assertion that we can't allow more people to come here.

... and it's a counter argument in the sense that it's a factual one.

I see that in common with everyone who uses the lazy 6%, you have no answer to what percentage you think we should have as a target and where we will plant food.
We aren't full in the sense that we can always accept more people if we want but it isn't racist and/or lazy to ask where we will put all of these schroedinger's immigrants who are all net contributors but miraculously don't take up any space or need any provision of services, any housing, don't make places any more crowded etc.

Incidentally I wasn't aware of any other posters trying to give a specific factual response.

No. I - obviously - don't have the answer to how much is OK. But it's not OK to trot out the line that we're full.

I think the debate about whether the UK is "full" doesn't related to physical space, more the amount of services / housing etc. Since illegal immigration does not have access to those things (legally anyway), that argument is only relevant for legal immigration.

Currently, 70% of the land in the UK is farmed which provides just over half the food we consume. Arable farming has dropped by 20% over the last ten years alone, and is set to reduce further as weather and economic forces make farming more difficult.

Happily, this will make more land available to build houses on. Unhappily there will be no money to pay for said houses to be built.

It's a shit show and it will take multiple terms of governments to unravel. Be it the same party or alternate parties, albeit in the latter instance (which I suppose is likely), the process will be elongated by the whole "not invented here" mindset.

No in answer to your title/question I think the Tories have exceeded expectations on that point

The boat people! Look at the levels of legal migration. That if anything is the “problem”. If we want to cut migration then fine. We accept also lesser levels of service, an ageing population and a smaller economy. I am not thrilled at migration levels. But the idea that this is a new challenge is absurd. It’s been an issue for nearly 30 years in terms of numbers, and the cultural implications probably longer. A few asylum seekers are the least of it.

Even more unhappily, it will make even worse our lack of food security.

We should tax land because the super-rich can't hide that in the Caymans.