So explain to me how you & I benefit from the rise in immigration

[contentiouscat]

Please explain to me who except the already rich employers (and translators) are benefitting - im not trying to be contentious I would just like to understand.

They are cheap labour therefore why should a british employer pay a decent wage i.e enough for you and I to pay our mortgage when they can get an immigrant willing to live 20 to a house in substandard conditions. So wages will go down.

They dont pay much tax because they are on minimum wage plus are sending a lot of their wages out of the country.

They are entitled to healthcare and as this report says are costing the police money.
news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6167846

I also read yesterday that european immigrants are entitled to tax credits for their children who still live abroad (wtf), hospitals, police, school have to employ translators - of course this is all coming out of the piggy bank you and I have paid into for years and will continue to.

I just dont get it - SORRY!

/Vacktobasics your p[ost really is quite stunningly ignorant.

'most' immigrants can't support themselves???!
what crap. Immigrants from the new EU countries have to be able to support themselves before they come here as they are not allowed any recourse to public funds until they have been here for 6 months. So no benefits, no council houses, no nothing. Work. And still they come, because shock horror they are not coming here to ponce our benefits, they are coming to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Same with people who come over on work permits - these are applied for by infividual employers, so the people who come on those have a guaranteed job and are , again, allowed no recourse to public funds. They lose their job, they go home.

We, in BRitain, have the lowest levels of fluency in a second language in western europe. we are one of the richest countries and one of the less well versed in our neighbours languages.

So many immigrants come here with some English already, or start learning the minute they get here. Protests about cuts in english language courses, plus queues around the block in September time when the wiating lists open for those courses are evidence that not only are immigrants not reluctant to leanr english, they are positvely driven to do so.

And no, people are not racist just for dsicussing immigration, and I don't think anyone on here objecting to the OP has asserted as much.

But it is racist to want to treat people who are of a different nationality to yourself, in a way that is not as good as the way you would like to be treated, or the way you would like other people born here to be treated, when that lesser treatment is ONLY becasue they are from a different country. That is discriminating against people on the basis of what country they are from. That is the very definition of racism. Maybe you are ok with 2nd generation immigrants?? SO maybe you can get out of being called racist that way, maybe you are simply prejudiced against immigrants.

Either waym your post is offensive, ignorant, and uttterly ill informed. check your facts out, and then form your opinion. Not form your opinion, then make up some facts to support it.

anyone know the figures for the number of people emigrating out of britain, and the number of people coming in? am pretty sure it balances out

immigration is such an easy target isn;t it.. blaming everything that is wrong on 'foreigners'

plenty of people born and bred here abuse the system, they need tackling urgently

Backtobasics
I'm not most people then - I for one have no problems with immigration.
And as for people not learning English, I worked in the Middle East for 2 years and I only met one other British expat who bothered to learn any Arabic.
Pot Kettle

lulumam i can't be arsed to look, but they are somewhere down this thread, i think it amounts to net in to britain about 300o people a year! tho i could be talking utter shite

will try to wade through it then

Backtobasics - do you read The Sun?

I meant that I find the OP racist. I think it's important to discuss immigration. I just don't think it should be used as an excuse to set up 'us' versus 'them'. Not sure who 'us' is anyway - I wonder what percentage of the British population is genuinely Anglo-Saxon British any more?

Lulamama - "The UK has a growing population. It grew by 349,000 people in the year to mid-2006 (0.6 per cent)." Office of National Statistics.

I think there is a genuine need for concern over the fact that many (most?) people leaving the UK are those with skills. That does not have anything to do with immigration however.

agree with Q of Q plus I fid the OP offensive n assuming we should stand to gain something fromimmigrants? Why? Where's your humanity? What about refugees from Iran, Iraq, Sudan etc.who end up in Britain? Imagine what they've had to endure to get this far, only to be made to feel not welcome - because, apparently we don't benefit from them being here? What a load of tosh, count yourself lucky to be born in a country where you can raise your kids in peace and always have food/clean water etc. for them. it's not the immigrants fault that a lot of them are born in countries where torture and famine are the norm. I don't often get on my soap box on MN but this one really has me rattled!

Well let's face it, thirtysomething, we live like royalty compared to most of the world's population. You'd think we could spare a bit of it to go round, wouldn't you?

people get mixed up with immigration,refugees, ilegal immigration.

if course we don't want people who come to the country illegally and claim things illegally and dodge the system

these peopel are a minority.

housing isn't saved for immigrants

housing is given out on a system that is supposed to accomodate the most needy.

and most council housing is nothing to be envious of - esp in london IME. - neverthe less - its bullshit to suggest that british people go to the back of some list

thanks difers

but of that 0.6 % , how many were immigrants? or is that statistic just for immigrants

reading about women in Darfur today in Sunday Times and what they are going through.Routine regular rape, even when they've lost their children and homes. i wish we could offer them a safe place to be, but they haven't got much hope of reaching here.

"Well let's face it, thirtysomething, we live like royalty compared to most of the world's population. You'd think we could spare a bit of it to go round, wouldn't you?"

Trouble is it seems to be those who are already established, with a home of their own and dcs in a good school, who are keen to encourage more immigration. And they benefit the most too, from cheap services provided by immigrants who do not compete for their jobs.

If everyone who wanted to come here came our standard of living would drop drastically as limited resources of available* land and the space that allows are divided amoung more and more people.

*Obviously the land owned by the rich does not necessarily get further divided.

well actually we live in a two bedroom flat and can only dream about buying a house, but i don't blame that on immigrants.

I don't blame immigrants either but would love to see the arguments in my last post addressed. I fear that current conditions will allow the BNP to do well should we have the recession that is perhaps overdue.

because it is a bit speculative Upwind. It is like saying, if everyone from the UK who wanted to leave left to live in Spain they would suddenly be struggling with huge numbers of drunks on the streets.

Not huge numbers of drunks, Ruty, just huge numbers desperately seeking homes and work. That would change Spain in ways we cannot even imagine.

Upwind's got a point. Mass immigration definitely helps the well-off by providing cheap labour. And is a threat to the less well off wrt competing for work/lowering the rate for the job.

lulumama - in answer to your question:

page from Difers' link
www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=950

It says that in the year to mid '06 the increase in UK population was 349,000 and 55% of it was net immigration. So the difference between those emigrating from the UK and those coming into the UK in that year was 55% of 349,000 = 191,950 extra people coming into the UK. It was higher in the previous few years.

I notice that Gordon Brown evaded Andrew Marr's questions about immigration this morning.

Well if British resorts abroad are anything to go by they would get loads of drunk people on their streets. And the point is not everyone who wants to go to Spain can go. Not everyone who lives abroad can come here either. And edam as has already been mentioned immigrants often do jobs that UK people see as beneath them, even if they are over qualified for the job. I know a man who used to be a history professor now working as a labourer. It is not simply a case of immigrants being a thread to the less well off because they take low paid jobs. Yes, I agree there should not be such low wages for some jobs. but you've still got to face the fact that a lot of British people simply do not want to do mundane, unattractive low status work.

thread? threat.

Ruty - few people want to do mundane jobs for minimum wage, especially when that wage is not sufficient to allow them to afford decent accomodation. A lot of people in this country really are better off living on social welfare.

Many immigrants come here intending to stay for only a few years and the crappy wages that would barely allow you to rent a bedroom of your own in the UK can allow a good quality of life in less developed countries.

agree Upwind. I know lots of people [immigrants] who live in very cramped shared conditions and send money home to their families. I'm not sure how long they want to stay but they all pay taxes and live on virtually nothing so that their families can have a chance of a better life. I said already wages should be improved. but then I'm not an economist and I don't know how raising wages in for example, small farm businesses or care homes would effect things. And I am still not sure that raising some wages a bit would attract British young people to certain jobs.Some jobs are mundane, can't get away from that.