Anyone reading the news or media in the UK today would think that there was a by-election coming up soon that UKIP might win.
Oh, they'd be right.
All the papers, even PMQ's the entire media today is an immigration froth-fest. Yet the one winner is Mr Farage, who I have not even seen interviewed. The more the discussion is about Europe and Immigration, the more people will vote for the only party able to discuss it honestly.
What amazes me most about the media and politicians in that even now the whole debate is utterly partisan, with meaningless statistics thrown around. Only the Migration Watch article in the Telegraph manages to avoid hysteria.
And again, to me, makes most sense. There is no way a couple coming the UK for minimum wage jobs in the fields (which the locals don't do, so we are told) pay any meaningful taxes. Maybe at best between them £1000 a year. Nowhere close to enough to pay for the Schoolznhospitals so dear the people and politicians.
Yes, in the City there are plenty of educated immigrants earning a fortune and paying tax, but where are the studies which show which is which? Where is the plan to encourage and allow the immigrants we need rather than the immigrants we get.
Also, from the otherside, where is the understanding that the massive global population growth being driven in Pakistan, Nigeria and the Middle East is also causing a huge push factor - whether we like it or not. One day soon a moral choice will have to be made, sad to see today with the end of Mare Nostrum that already this is starting to happen.
17 comments:
I thought that the point of being in the EU was so that countries could share the pain of Mare Nostrum (I feel for Italy on this and the EU should have stepped in some time ago) rather than leave it to one country.
The thing is i expected more from the EU.
The Italians have spent a lot on helping desparate people. Good for them.
The EU will effectively leave a lot of people to die in open water.
Gassing them would be quicker/ kinder.
We are rich and supposedly better.
This lack of moral strength / imagination makes me want to not be part of europe.
Where is the sense of collective moral responsibility in the EU?
Perhaps it is so diffuse no one person cares enough.
I'm amazed no one has thought of changing the income tax system so only the first 5k is tax free, and then UK citizens get a rebate of up to 10k.
Takes the low paid out of income tax without stopping low paid immigrants from paying their dues, and the rebate could be doled out when tax receipts will be lowest boosting the economy at that point.
As a political wheeze it ticks a lot of boxes, and is more affordable than simply upping the tax free level like what is currently planned.
Andrew said: "The EU will effectively leave a lot of people to die in open water."
And the more who are accepted the more who will try to come, risking their lives. The only real humanitarian solution is to set up a free ferry service. This would be unacceptable to the people of the EU. We have to be cruel to be kind.
Anon - The problem is that we are not being selective about to whom we issue passports. EU citizens cannot be discriminated against either.
At the very least mass immigration is too large a subject to be left to the politicians. It must be put to the people in the form of a referendum.
EK but what would be the question?
As you know, I am a UKIP voter and have been for a few years. Without the burden of the EU we could have more control - but even with all the controls we could only keep ourselves at less than say 100k per annum with some very strict, harsh border controls, a la Australia.
With the world population booming in its worst ghettos, mankind is priming the world to become a darker place.
With two million unemployed we cannot afford immigration. I am not surprised that the establishment prefers degree/A level Poles to the proles disgorged by our own sink schools.
But the remedy is to close the sink schools, sack the lefty child-centred-learning non-teachers and teach (yes, actually teach) our primary age children to read, write and chant their times tables. Then we wouldn't "need" those immigrants.
Without the burden of the EU we could at least withdraw welfare and repeal the Human Rights Act.
A real points system is required.
What would be the question ?
"What should be the yearly limit on immigration ?" Followed by several options.
No-one should be coming here without proper skills and asylum seekers who have crossed European countries should not be accepted.
PS I didn't know you are a UKIP voter.
Let me spell it out to the dipshits for once and for all:
http://www.gov.uk/government/news/historic-uk-ireland-visa-deal-signed
Irish visa holders can now come straight to the UK without appearing in the 'UK immigration' figures.
The govt system will never give up unlimited, unmonitored immigration because to do so would be to take responsibility for immigration. They cannot do this because to do so would increase the power of the incumbent population. The locals would go mad and vote against it. The only thing to protect against this is to have more and more immigration.
This allows a twofold strengthening of their position - 1: services are failing because of immigration, not because of malinvestment or their incompetence and
2: asset prices (housing) are increasing not because of their self-interested, I'm-alright-jack policies but because of 'immigration'.
This is not a resident/immigrant issue. This is not a Conservative/(Lib)/Labour issue.
This is not a Europe/UK issue or an Us/Them issue.
This is a financial and demographic issue. Old people own assets, young people do not.
CU posters are broadly young fogeys, William-Hague-at-Tory conference-types.
You all know its true and you all know the solution: asset taxation, incomes (largely) tax free. Anyone saying otherwise is just a self-serving cunt.
People will want to come to the UK for as long as it is v.v. attractive.
One thing that the UK govt is trying to do is spend 1% of GDP on poor countries in an effort to make things better there.
Laudable.
Whether the money is well spent is a question for another day.
If i could pose a question it would be :-
Why is France so unattractive to anyone from a country south of France?
One article that is sort of germane is Worstalls posting on outsourcing on el reg.
When will the ROTW catch up with UK living standards?
He reckons about 2090.
12:32 am
Or when the UK goes down to the ROTW's living standards, Andrew.
MFFSM (12.23) assumes that a nation of workers with depressed earnings can sustain property prices.
High population does not = high house prices.
Unaffordable house prices yes. 'High' house prices no.
The indigenous people are priced out of the housing market - yet foreign investors find UK housing cheap, so are buying it up. There is much to read between those lines.
In short: our people are getting poorer because of mass immigration, not richer.
Finite resources shared among more people who are earning less, relatively.
Reports of home owning pensioners about to cash in their pensions to help struggling children and grandchildren.
It has the ring of truth about it.
EVERYONE is going to get poorer.
The problem about the "debate" about immigration is that lots of things are ignored.
For example if we didn't have Muslim immigration our costs fighting against Islamic terrorism would be zero - but when people calculate the costs/benefits of immigration that is never included.
MFFSN - Sort of, yes it is a demographic issue in part, but that is not the only reason.
There has been large scale immigration since before WWII. But we only really lost control in 2003 - look at the numbers it is clear.
The free movement of EU people pushes us to 250,000 a year net, not 100,000.
At 100,000 net, the country would cope. But as EK rightly points out. Current levels are rapdily making the country poorer. I will do a post on this.
I was born here, from an immigrant family. My wife is an immigrant.
We live in a working class town and _know_ that immigration is far too high. When one hears more Russian spoken in the local Tesco than English it's a sign.
Note that the Russians are all from Lithuania, and would rather be second class foreigners in the UK than second class foreigners in Lithuania.
Can't blame any of them, but sympathy isn't the same as approval. Up with the ladder, I'm all right Jack, and I don't see any reason to apologise for that view. Any immigration is welcome if it will make the country better, otherwise no, so Australia is the model to follow.
The only solution is that which occurs in Australia ie to apply strict quotas which can be reviewed every so often if necessary. We should just do it and defy the EU. What are they going to do about it? Meanwhile we should work on the backlog of applications and the backlog of people who have been refused asylum and then disappeared, especially those who are dangerous criminals and deport them home asap.
Evenin’ all
Where's BQ? The Caribbean at half term AGAIN.
BBCQT:
1. Drugs in every corner shop but will we be able to afford them?
2. ‘Immigration Immigration’ as C@W put it so succinctly this week.
3. Recall your MP. What is his name?
4. Flood defence funding – the beleagued DEFRA. Plant more ..what are they cal?… tall with green bits.
5. Will the lights go out? Energy, which the Greens will love. Lucas is impressive and was the only MP to send George Galloway a get well card. Whatever you think, Go her! Looney policies but she is a team player.
Dimbletie: Somerset purple. A geometric pattern as he doesn’t really like flowers.
Measured - Too late to post. but saw the show - really dead pool stuff.
You would have won easily - 3.5 right questions there. i'll add you to the winners list for next week.
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