I said the Welfare System needs a complete overhaul that would include British claimants as well as EU and Non-EU claimants. Why do you think thousands of ´Asylum seekers´ are marching north through a multitude of EU member states, I tell you why, to get to Britain where if they are lucky they get into the country get lost into the underworld and after 5 years get a British passport. If Labour hadn´t made life on the dole so cushy for lazy people then maybe more British people would be forced to work for a living instead of watching their wide screen TV´s drinking Stella, courtesy of the out of control welfare system. Skilled immigrants from whereever are huge benefit but for every one of these how many are just on their way to the UK to drain the collapsing system?. I would guess a majority of the 300,000 who left the UK where people of retirement age who wanted a better life - I don´t know do you?, do they publish every profession of people leaving the UK??? and how many entered the UK last year as legal and Illegal immigrants?? absolutely no idea but more tha 300,000 I´d guess. Would I come back to the UK? - non of your business
As a 15 second Google search would have shown you the majority (184,000) emigrants left for work related reasons (****ing hell, not scared of the language barrier). Another 80,000 left to join relatives already abroad or to study. So your 'majority' of retirees is at most 40, 000, or 15% of the total. But why bother to make an effort when you can share your ignorance with us all so easily?
Because I can´t be arsed, and I´m happy to share my ignorance with you. I´ll let the likes of you trawl through google and wikipedia so that you can have some sort of self-gratifing sense of political and statistics superiority.
I took your advice: SIX KEY FACTS Net migration nearly quadrupled from 48,000 in 1997 to 185,000 in 2003. Once the East Europeans had been granted free movement in 2004 it peaked at 320,000 in the year ending June 2005. Net foreign migration under Labour was 3.6 million, two thirds coming from outside the EU. In 2013 over half a million migrants arrived in Britain, more than the total population of Bradford. In the same year 314,000 migrants left so net migration was 212,000. We must build a new home every seven minutes for new migrants for the next 20 years or so. England (not the UK) is the second most crowded country in Europe, after the Netherlands, excluding island and city states. The UK population is projected to grow by over 9 million (9.4m) in just 25 years’ time, increasing from 64 million in 2013 to 73 million by 2039. Of this increase, about two thirds is projected to be due to future migrants and their children - the equivalent of the current populations of Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Bristol, Cardiff, Newcastle, Belfast and Aberdeen. To keep the population of the UK below 70 million, net migration must be reduced to around 40,000 a year. It would then peak in mid-century at just under 70 million (about 69.7 million). From and independant source Some shocking stats for you there Statto
There's been a problem with the welfare system generally - a lifestyle without working paid off at low levels of income. The Tory government say they are addressing it. We'll see. Most EU immigrants into the UK seem to be of good quality, hard working, service orientated etc I've always been impressed with them when I encounter them serving in shops, restaurants, hotels etc. I exclude Roma from this, since their lifestyle philosophy seems to be not to work but beg, steal, live on the streets etc and this has been a problem for Romania, France has big issues and now we are beginning to. A parasitic lifestyle is not acceptable. The huge issue for this country is not the character of individuals however, its simply numbers. A city the size of Cardiff is coming here every year, and that is based on net figures. England is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. London is the most congested city in Europe, traffic jams are chronic (the Tooting to New Kings Road the worst in Europe apparently). Massive pressure on hospitals, schools, roads, utilities etc in the South-East, yet this is where the vast majority of immigrants want to be. Impacts on social cohesion at these sky high levels of immigration. We are approaching 4 times as dense a population as France, 2 times as Germany. It can't continue. No wonder Immigration is the top issue of concern for UK voters. The fact that we can't control immigration numbers from an ever expanding EU will have big consequences for the forthcoming referendum imo.
I'm no expert on this but I guess one benefit for the long term could be that most coming here are relatively young and at or close to the age of having kids who will then grow up and be 'British' meaning we have a younger workforce and less of a dependency ratio (the % of the population not working due to age or anything else).
If they go to the UK as being part of the ´workforce´, breeding successive generations of scroungers is already part of the English ´culture´ don´t need any more help from anyone else.
They generally don't have that mentality, as the figures above suggest. The average Eastern European in the UK is probably more productive than the average Brit I would guess in spite of the language barrier. If they reproduce, in theory the kids should have a good work ethic, have been educated in our system and therefore good contributors to the system at a time when the 'indigenous' workforce is ageing.
Why would you say that?, that would imply that the average Brit is lazier than an Eastern European and you may be right but most Eastern Europeans are happy to undercut the local workforce and of course the employers are happy to pay less.
I think that was the case once upon a time. Nowadays it's probably too much of a generalisation. I would stress I'm saying on average but, yes, on average I would say the average Brit is lazier and I include myself.
No need for self-deprecation Wats, but I´m interested to know why you think the average Brit is lazier?, is it because they won´t work for a ´low´ salary or is it economically better to be on the dole (or both?).
Just sheer productivity levels in comparable roles. Part of the reason you rarely see a cleaner, car washer etc. who is English is that they may see it as beneath them in terms of salary and/or status but it's more economically viable if you can do it quicker at a high level of quality and from my experience, foreigners are better at doing that. My cleaner is Bulgarian, not exceptionally cheap but gets a hell of a lot done in three hours. The place I sometimes get my car washed they're Hungarian. Six of them working on it for 5-10 mins, do an exceptional job and it comes to £10-£12.
But British people were always admired for their work ethic and quality of work and still are to a certain extent. But I agree that now maybe some feel that cleaning cars or houses are beneath them, ironically most people use to clean their own cars every Sunday morning, I guess that was an excuse not to go to church!!
Not really a response to being shown wrong re emigration, but there you go. "From an (sic) independant (sic) source"? Really? No, it's from Migration Watch UK, a political lobby group with the aim of limiting the UK population to 70 million, and regularly quoted by UKIP. I don't think even Immigration Watch UK claims to be independent/neutral, but nice of you to make the effort to claim it for them, really strengthens your credibility.
It's Migration Watch, Stan, though I suppose they do watch immigrants. Sir Andrew Green is highly respected by all main political parties and I've never heard anyone question his or his organisation's impartiality. It's not just UKIP that quote them. Most media sources regard their figures as reliable.
Freudian! Thanks, have edited. Look a bit harder Goldie, plenty of dispute around their reports out there, both political and academic. And obviously business given that the CBI and Institute of Directors are calling for more skilled immigration. But that's not the point, I have no problem with their view and all points on the spectrum will manipulate statistics and create projections which back up their position, which in Migration Watch's case is to limit immigration, clearly, explicity and unashamedley. It was set up because it founders' were worried about immigration levels. So it can't be described as 'impartial' it has an agenda and it's why their reports are used mostly by the right wing, anti immigration press and political parties. Their facts/statistics might actually be right, who knows.
It can't be 'independent' can it? because it paints a different view to what you subscribe to. In fact this is the under, no, overriding theme with all your condescending posts against anyone who has slightest difference to your tedious left wing drivel. You and the rest of the Marx Brothers on here 'bully' posters if they have a different opinion. I wouldn't normally post on a political thread but I am fed with reading your left wing poisonous shyte. It's a shame Chaz is no longer with us but you and your grey socks and sandle wearing cronies bullied him off the site. But you won't do that to me.
If you haven't got an argument, resort to abuse. You post all the time on political threads. What I do is argue, I enjoy it. When I see opinion, particularly bigoted opinion, spouted as fact, I'll challenge it. If you can't respond, put me on ignore, avoid the pain. How is it left wing to point out to you that only 15% of UK emigrants are retirees rather than the 'vast majority' as you claimed? Or to highlight that the effort you made to claim a source was 'independent' was bullshit? I don't know what happened to Chaz, but he was much better at this stuff than you are.
