Well your user name would suggest you were there, perhaps!

Yes Viking is a bit of a "catch-all" term, but Angles, Jutes, Saxons, Danes, Norsemen etc. all arrived in numbers that were sufficient to take over large swathes of the country, and the Celtic populations(who themselves originated from central Europe and arrived much earlier) were often pushed to the "fringes".

I don't see any point in having a historical discussion, but it is clear that both before and after the invaders who settled, Britain has had many, many peoples from all over the Europe and further afield who have settled and intermingled with those who were here already. It has often taken generations for the newcomers to be accepted, usually until the next wave arrives, so they can unite and pick on the next newcomers!

Edited by crystal balls (24 Feb 2016 4.55pm)

The BBC were in a community hall type place in Manchester at the weekend where Polish and British people were asked about the EU and mainly immigration. A few said most come to work, only very very came to claim and they were not wanted or respected.

A couple of POLES said immigration was getting out of control. Yes, 2 Polish people here for 5 years or maybe a few more said it was out of control. Not 'many generation's it has perhaps taken for some to get over racial prejudice of black and asian people but 5 years or maybe a few more, and they're not British and talking about immigrants from their own country.

We need migration, but we don't need uncontrolled. If they thinks it's out of control now, wait a few more years when more countries join the EU and we've already had our one and only referendum and voted in.

Edited by Rudi Hedman (24 Feb 2016 5.08pm)

No he has a good point, you tend to see it in rental and property prices. The difference between 3 and four bedroomed and more properties tends more to be based on the location, than on the additional room - Where as two and three bedroomed properties generally dominate the market.

The most common cause of 'larger sibling families' is through second marriages of couples, rather than people wanting to have four or five kids - Difference is that in many of these cases, there is a big age disparity among children.

The population has increased by 10m over the last 50 years, but quite a lot of this was caused by an increase in the birthrate between the early 60s and the mid 70s. The number of immigrants is little more than half of that figure, though most of this has occurred since 2004, admittedly.

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And not all of these stay indefinitely. Of 1.1m Poles who have arrived in the UK some 300,000 have returned.

What?

Without immigration the population would have started to fall. The birth rate was at an all time low.