Immigration

Discussion in 'Politics 2.0' started by UEA_Hornet, Nov 29, 2024.

  1. UEA_Hornet

    UEA_Hornet First Team Captain

    Couldn't find a thread on this topic - though admittedly didn't look too hard, so apologies if there is one. Also didn't see it mentioned on another thread.

    Would be interested in the views of my fellow travellers on this though:

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3degx4029ko

    If they're right these numbers are eye-watering. While it's clearly a by-product of Brexit being half-baked and ill thought out, and general Tory ineptitude, it presents a massive risk to the whole political establishment unless they collectively get to grips with it soon. I just can't see how it can be justifiable or necessary to allow so many people in, when we clearly don't have a functioning state apparatus to serve everyone currently here. 1.6m people added in two years? That's bonkers.

    Labour need to tackle this one head on in my view. It can't be kicked into the long grass or subject of fussing round the edges out of some concern about causing offence. And because the numbers in recent years have been so high I don't think simply shutting the stable door now is enough. They're going to have to start removing or encouraging people to leave in quite significant numbers I think.
     
  2. Arakel

    Arakel First Team

    I do find it grimly amusing that a certain percentage of people voted Leave to curb immigration, and instead Brexit has made those numbers skyrocket.

    This isn't the Brexit I voted for!
     
  3. sydney_horn

    sydney_horn Squad Player

    The problem is that any debate ends up focusing on "non regular" arrivals, especially refugees by boat.

    This only accounts for around 3% if the overall net immigration number.

    We (the government) are choosing to invite the vast majority of immigrants to come here via visas.

    The debate should be around why we "need" these people for the country to "work". Brexit has certainly meant that individual, short term (often seasonal) migrants are being replaced by migrants from further afield that are more likely to bring family with them.

    Can we, as an ageing population, survive with mass immigration?

    In addition, the other side of the net migration is why are so many talented and well trained people leaving this country to work elsewhere?

    But anytime there is any attempt to have a grown up conversation about this the debate seems to be drowned out by the almost irrelevant "illegal immigration" issue.
     
  4. With A Smile

    With A Smile First Team

    I don't think any government or party is ever going to get on top of illegal immigration or realistically want to put the resource in to tackle it.

    We now have web sites telling us how many boats have been intercepted and the number of people registered. 3 or 4 years ago we would see videos of boats landing on beaches and migrants getting off and wondering into local towns unchallenged. That figure is still unknown and those migrants are still unregistered.

    It only seems a few years ago that the news was all about the number of migrants who would climb aboard lorries in Calais to try to get across. If you go to the freight terminal it still happens, a lot less and they have got better at detecting the stowaways, but the fact that they still see this as an option suggests that its still has a level of success.

    There are so many who are now claiming asylum, but have no paper work or trace of which country they have come from, its almost impossible to identify if they are really in need of safety or not.

    Of course part of the issue is every country en route, us when we happily let them leave us to go to Ireland, the French are happy for them to move on, the Germans into France, Spanish into France, Greeks into Albania or to Italy. Every country is happy to move the problem on to someone else rather than deal with it themselves.

    We need legal immigration though. Everyone points to the NHS, but we also have a falling population and we were more than happy to welcome the Indian and West Indian population over to do "the jobs others wouldn't do" so called cheap and dirty manual labour jobs. We can't have it both ways.
     
    dynamo380 likes this.
  5. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    You are aware that the figures discussed by @UEA_Hornet refer in the main to legal immigration?
     
  6. With A Smile

    With A Smile First Team

    I'm guessing that you didn't read my last paragraph then.

    As you know many of those now registered as legal immigrants are those who have come through both the legal pathways and illegal and been successful in their application to stay.
     
  7. Since63

    Since63 Squad Player

    I did, but I didn’t think it outweighed the emphasis of the rest of your post. If it was meant to, then I apologise. I’m also unsure how many of the ‘now legal’ immigrants you think initially arrived via non-legal routes, and why they have now been granted legal status.
    What doesn’t change is the fact that the majority of immigrants are legal and have arrived via legal process. Why and how necessary are they? is the crux of the point originally made.
     
  8. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    We need to grant access based on need, not based on arbitrary targets.
    Those that really need to come should be granted asylum, those that offer skills that the country needs should be granted visas.
    Immigrants are net contributors, immigration is not a bad thing as long as it's controlled.

    We need to invest in ensuring asylum applications are efficiently and correctly processed wherever possible before entry. We can't morally deny applicants who arrive illegally if the system isn't there to process and admit them effectively legally.

    The country has plenty of space, we need to work harder to not concentrate everything into the south east and we need to ensure that decent living conditions, work and services are provided where we do have the space.
     
  9. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    Why do we want to fill all available space with towns and cities? I’d rather keep some areas of natural beauty. The UK is tiny in terms of landmass and our services are all falling apart due to excess demand already!
     
  10. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Well said.
     
  11. lm_wfc

    lm_wfc First Team

    Where are these areas of natural beauty you're referring to? The idea that we have "towns" and then "nature" is very far from reality

    90% of the UK is:
    • rectangular shaped farmland growing rows of identical crops, or grass for sheep to eat before we eat them
    • Victorian railways
    • canals where humans cut channels in the ground or diverted rivers, or reservoirs
    • barron moorland - the peak district, lake district and much of Scotland treeless deserts after we cut them all down to graze animals, and eliminated wolves/lynx so that deer roam around eating all our tree saplings, then burned any remaining shrubbery so rich people can shoot grouse easily after several whiskeys
     
  12. Davy Crockett

    Davy Crockett Reservist

    He's right you know .
    We need more people .
    Preferably rich people to overheat the housing market so young people
    can blame boomers for their inability to get on the housing ladder but ignore the system that allowed
    the over heating .
    And when everything crashes and the rich from Lithugaria et al take their money and run
    everyone says how did this happen ?
     
  13. Del Payne's Left Sock

    Del Payne's Left Sock Academy Graduate

    Say you haven't been to Bradford without saying you haven't been to Bradford.
     
  14. Keighley

    Keighley First Team

    Yes, humans have had a significant impact upon most of the British ‘countryside’. It’s largely not ‘untamed wilderness’ in the manner that might be true in Australia, Canada or the US. Doesn’t stop those places being beautiful, though; and it doesn’t mean we want millions more soulless houses built there.

    Barren.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2024
  15. With A Smile

    With A Smile First Team

    Sort of agree. Only 6% of the UK is built on, but we have many areas where we simply can't build because of the land it's self.
    We do have some pretty decent places in terms of areas of natural beauty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_of_Outstanding_Natural_Beauty
     
  16. wfcmoog

    wfcmoog Tinpot

    It's cos the woke remainers didn't back brexit and ruined it.
     
  17. bash

    bash Academy Graduate

    But to go back to the original mentioned "non built" bits, you need more of some of this stuff to support a bigger population, not less - so more reservoirs, more farmland and more railways (infrastructure) - just knowing that we've got plenty of space for more shoeboxes to house more people is too simplistic in my view.

    It's such a difficult subject this. The temptation is to take the long view and say that with regard to immigration in general, that the country (perhaps the wider western world) simply can't sustain itself without net immigration - we are an aging country as we all know. Is immigration the solution, or might there be ways to encourage the existing people here to have more children, and would that be preferable? People tend to feel uncomfortable citing factors like cultural differences, social cohesion etc., but is it right to overlook these factors because they are uncomfortable to talk about?

    Then there's the sense of a moral obligation to "let" people in to share the prosperity / stability we in the UK are fortunate to have (thinking more specifically about asylum seekers here). But is that a sustainable option, in the face of the grinding poverty that much of the world lives in (relative to ourselves)? Are the only people to benefit from our generosity those with the ability to make it to our shores, and who get to stay here just because it is too much hard work to turn them away, or are we able to create a world in which there aren't only a vanishingly small numbers of countries which people are able to live happily and successfully in?

    To me it feels like we are almost at a crossroads as a civilization. We have made dizzying progress in so many areas and will no doubt continue to do so (unless it all dissolves in chaos), but at the same time most of us live in pretty poor conditions (on a global scale), and conflicts, which are basically always about access to precious resources (as basic as land, food and water) are on the rise again. Where is this going in the next few years?
     
    watto1 and sydney_horn like this.
  18. hornmeister

    hornmeister Tired

    We don't need more numbers unless there are jobs that can't be filled.
    We need to live within our means and save to support our future. Relying on an increasing population to maintain living standards is not sustainable.

    That being said, failing services are a fault of successive government, not immigration numbers. Immigrants on the whole are net contributors so should lead to a rise in service standards if their contributions are spent effectively.
     
    lm_wfc likes this.
  19. Jumbolina

    Jumbolina First Team

    I quite like going round Norfolk, Lake District, Scotland. It sure seems a lot nicer than London to me.

    But if you want to make it all like Milton Keynes then that is your perogative I guess.
     
  20. AndrewH63

    AndrewH63 Reservist

    In England alone the total area covered by housing (including the gardens ) is less than the area devoted to golf courses. So we can keep the countryside and double the number of houses just by building on the golf courses. But I would not want them to. With a huge increase in housing the impact on the value of my home will be a disaster.
     
    lm_wfc likes this.

Share This Page