As the vast majority of posts on 'News & Politics' deviate from the thread topic to immigration, I thought why don't we have a thread devoted to precisely that, immigration.

So here it is, good posting.

Enjoying your new thread already, I knew you would like it.

Good to see you are at home with the new thread, I started it especially with you and Hrolf in mind...............

All right I will bite.

What I find depressing is that those of us who want immigration controls are painted as being against immigration. This is not a binary question and there is not an absolute right answer.

I want workers with skills we lack to come (NHS for example). What I don't want is corporations bringing in cheap labour to exploit at the disadvantage of our own people. Additionally because these folk are entitled to benefits the taxpayer is subsidising this ponzi scheme.

Now I don't blame these folk for coming who wouldn't want a better life for their families.

There is not a one size fits all solution. I do believe that newcomers should not be entitled to any benefits until they have paid tax for a number of years (refugees not included in this). I also believe that if business really needs these people then they should pay a decent salary that will allow them to live without taxpayer support. My guess is that faced with this business would suddenly start making a big effort to recruit, train and retain more local people.

However I can see that in some circumstances we would still need some unskilled labour. Well as long as that is controlled fair enough.

I don't have a specific immigration solution and I would hope that the government would have a policy that is flexible and can adjust to the needs of the market.

Any way those are my thoughts.

One more point

Been giving this some more thought. When we talk about net migration we forget that the actual numbers are higher and I don't think they are like for like.

Emigration
As of Sept 2017 this was 334,000. But how does this break down:
- What parts of the country did they live in? Was it an even spread or mainly from the south?
- What type of people left? Was it families were they well educated, skilled, young or old?

Immigration
This was 578,000 were did they settle? Mainly in the south?
- What type of people are they? Young men, families, skilled or unskilled?

In short I have not heard a discussion in the media that included this level of detail. Are we exporting young skilled families and importing unskilled single men? That is probably an exaggeration but hopefully you see my point it is not just about numbers.

One more point

I'm reading 'the strange death of Europe' and truly it is staggering the incompetence and short termism that the politicians have inflicted upon Europe.

At no time did we have a figure strong enough to stand up and say, what is happening is madness. No Viktor Orbán for England unfortunately.

The English will become a minority in their own country by 2060 according to estimates. It already happened in London a long time ago.

At some point, no doubt, the name of the country will be changed because those who refer to themselves as English will not really remain the dominant demographic.

Edited by Stirlingsays (26 May 2018 8.40pm)

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