Mass Net Immigration.....Again.

330k net from March 2014 - March 2015 and that doesn't include illegal immigrants who are obviously untraceable/uncountable. Now I'm certainly not saying all immigration is bad but come on, how long can we sustain these numbers? Dave's tough policies are working well aren't they? If the numbers are this high under the Tories how high would they be under Labour? It seems as though we have no realistic border controls as the majority of the 330k were from outside of the EU, is it time to open our doors to anyone and everyone and give up the facade that we decide who and how many we take in? Is controlled immigration a fallacy?..........Thoughts please.

PS...Looking at the pictures on the news over the last few weeks showing the mass exodus of people from various parts of the World into the EU I Can only assume that the numbers are going to continue to rise.

Beyond a joke with these open borders to European Migrants. I'm not joking when I say both my brothers rental properties are filled with Romanians and decent ones at that, all working at minimum wages 12 hour days, 6 day a week.
We're being overrun and these tits making the point we can go there and work need shooting. I've been to Bucharest, Sofia, Warsaw and walked the streets. It ain't pretty and that's polite

And now a truck full of decomposed bodies found abandoned on an Austrian motorway, what a depressing mess.

Difficult!! I work for a charity and my role at present includes dealing with ex-refugee's who are staying in UK and are hoping to help others. These are from Eritrea, Sudan, Yemen ..... some of the stories are heart breaking but I do agree that we appear to need better controls to sift out refugee's from migrants from asylum seekers.

No one is about to stop it anytime soon, certainly not Mr Mirage. It's the nature of animals to escape pestilence, drought, or whatever, and find a more verdant life. In human terms, capital has always done it without a murmur of complaint, and now the modern world makes it easier for labour to do it. And in that sense, it's only fair, to quote Tory policy.
I'm no fan of mass migration of capital or labour in a short time span, as it causes huge problems, but it's how humans behave, and we live in the times we live in.  The worst form of this migration is often done with tanks, guns and charging horses.

In my day many moons ago, Sir Frank and I did it by boat, and "encouraged" folk to "migrate" West. I suppose we were what is called today "people traffickers", making a buck. Isn't that what we're encouraged to do from cradle to grave ? turn a penny where a penny can be turned ?

How many of the 330k are students?

In modern times, we all have good friends these days who were overseas students and then remained to work.  I personally don't have a problem with that, and wouldn't dream of prying into their business. That sort of behaviour is for the likes of Hooper the Snooper. Radio 4 this morning quoted quite a big figure, nearing 100K. The "loophole" was going to be closed down by the Tories, just as soon as they get around to closing the tax avoidance "loopholes" for the well off. I won't wait up .

The "student industry" is huge these days. They can't do without the globalisation dollar dividend. It's big big money. They are "education trafficking" to the highest payers. I wouldn't give tuppence for much of that education, but that's my opinion.
Maybe the question should be put to Mr J Brent of Plymouth University, or of course, the CFE with those foundation courses.

Fond though people are of their sepia-tinged version of their heritage the very notion that borders much matter has never really held much sway and is becoming more and more irrelevant.

As an island GB is more clearly defined than most nations but even here we have a had a border between England and Scotland which has marched, or perhaps "been marched" is more accurate, north and south so much that the Borders, as they are now known, almost have their own identity in much the same way that Corwall does. As a region it is unique.

Except it isn't. The same scenario has been replayed all over Europe across just about every border there is. Borders, quite simply, are just lines on a map. As an example the Basque people are just that despite them being notionally either French or Spanish. Kurdistan doesn't even exist (as a nation) but the Kurdish people spill across Iraq, Syria and Turkey. And so it goes on all over the world and we haven't even begun to consider nomadic people like the Laps or Bedouins. Where do they fit in?

Factor on top of that the internet. It knows nothing of geo-political boundaries. Ideas, facts, rumours and everything else go global instantly if they have the inherent oomph required to do so. Money can be wired hither and thither at the click of a button so that can't be confined by borders either. Multi-national corporations control industry, banking and commerce, political contructs like FIFA, IOC, EU, NATO and the UN all exploit or ignore borders just as much as anybody else does.

We all sit at home cheering Somalian and South African runners, Canadian tennis players, South African cricketers players and footballers from every nation imaginable while watching Japanese TVs, using Korean computers burning French electricity, cook with Russian gas and drive German cars burning Arabian petrol, communicate on American phones, eating Indian/Chinese/Italian food and yet in times of extremis we don't want people to flee pestillence, war, famine, economic blight when the invention of the internet, train and the jet engine has made it easier than ever to do so?

It's not going to happen, is it?, no matter how much we might want it to.

I'm all for supporting England at football, cricket, rugby because it gives me some skin in a game and increases the excitement levels, likewise UK/GB/Europe in other sports, of the theatre on offer but beyond that I can't see much hope for the future or borders, nationhood or anything else that goes with them. Mank on about all this stuff all you like but it is a battle that can't and won't be won and could well be lost already.

I'm with the surprisingly internet savvy Sir Francis Drake from his ship.

I have yet to meet an economic migrant who has moved here to live on benefits. In general the migration has been led by work hungry young who are healthy and want to better themselves. Surely a free market that the Tories approve of?

I listened to an 18 year old cry today on a Radio 4 Podcast because he was at his wits end after having pushed his Grandmother over a thousand miles from Afghanistan to Hungary in her wheelchair. Brought tears to my eyes. Mock all ye may but I happen to think that people are born good and that we have an obligation to welcome people here who are faced with circumstances not of their making that are beyond our worst nightmares. Germany seems to welcome 800k of them.

It's certainly out of control and we don't really seem to have the ability to do much about it. The burden that it puts on the infrastucture of this relatively small island concerns me more than any racial or integration issues. Schools, hospitals, housing, transport and some utilities are feeling the strain and without massive investment could quite easily buckle under the added pressures of prolonged high immigration.

That's a great post Sir Frank, and I agree with every word. ATD has some good hearts.
By the way, you may not know this, but I was included in the Honours list today. What's good for the 832 Lords of Misrule is good enough for me. I declined a free pass to the Westminster Palace in favour of an ATD coat of ermin. Hopefully, my new status will be up in lights in due course.

AstiSpumante wrote:

It's certainly out of control and we don't really seem to have the ability to do much about it. The burden that it puts on the infrastucture of this relatively small island concerns me more than any racial or integration issues. Schools, hospitals, housing, transport and some utilities are feeling the strain and without massive investment could quite easily buckle under the added pressures of prolonged high immigration.

That's a very one-sided way of looking at the problems.

There is supply as well as demand, you know.

Why not blame governements for not supplying us with adequate numbers of schools or hospitals, a decent road and rail network or more housing?

The problems are every bit as much the fault of piss poor governments as they are desperate, resourceful, young, fit, aspirational and, often, bi-lingual people trying to better themselves.

No coat Lord John but we can get you a season ticket in the business lounge and Directors Box?

We had raging poverty, no public services or decent education to speak of, and rampant child labour in Victorian times. There wasn't an immigrant in sight.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

AstiSpumante wrote:

It's certainly out of control and we don't really seem to have the ability to do much about it. The burden that it puts on the infrastucture of this relatively small island concerns me more than any racial or integration issues. Schools, hospitals, housing, transport and some utilities are feeling the strain and without massive investment could quite easily buckle under the added pressures of prolonged high immigration.

That's a very one-sided way of looking at the problems.

There is supply as well as demand, you know.

Why not blame governements for not supplying us with adequate numbers of schools or hospitals, a decent road and rail network or more housing?

The problems are every bit as much the fault of piss poor governments as they are desperate, resourceful, young, fit, aspirational and, often, bi-lingual people trying to better themselves.

I do to a degree. I also acknowledge the part migrants play in the running of the NHS and to a lesser extent transport but does this country have the hundreds of billions of pounds that will be needed to upgrade and maintain the infrastructure needed to keep apace with a burgeoning population ? I don't know, maybe it does, I hope so.

Billy Connolly.

A while back he was approached, as a proud Scotsman with a very high public profile, by the SNP to support their campaign in the referendum. He gave them short shrift.

"I was once a welder in a Glasgow shipyard. I feel far more affinity to a welder in a Merseyside shipyard than I do with some crofter from the Highlands" was the gist of his reply. I don't think it can be put much more simply than that.

Is any person really any different to any other due to nationality? We all have the same needs, hopes and fears. It's totally inhumane to deny others opportunities we take for granted ourselves.

In fact I'd go so far as to suggest that doing so completely opposes everything that I have ever understood to be inferred by good old "British values".

AstiSpumante wrote:

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

AstiSpumante wrote:

It's certainly out of control and we don't really seem to have the ability to do much about it. The burden that it puts on the infrastucture of this relatively small island concerns me more than any racial or integration issues. Schools, hospitals, housing, transport and some utilities are feeling the strain and without massive investment could quite easily buckle under the added pressures of prolonged high immigration.

That's a very one-sided way of looking at the problems.

There is supply as well as demand, you know.

Why not blame governements for not supplying us with adequate numbers of schools or hospitals, a decent road and rail network or more housing?

The problems are every bit as much the fault of piss poor governments as they are desperate, resourceful, young, fit, aspirational and, often, bi-lingual people trying to better themselves.

I do to a degree. I also acknowledge the part migrants play in the running of the NHS and to a lesser extent transport but does this country have the hundreds of billions of pounds that will be needed to upgrade and maintain the infrastructure needed to keep apace with a burgeoning population ?  I don't know, maybe it does, I hope so.

This country has enough money to pay for pretty much anything it damn well pleases to.

Sir Francis Drake wrote:

Fond though people are of their sepia-tinged version of their heritage the very notion that borders much matter has never really held much sway and is becoming more and more irrelevant.


Factor on top of that the internet. It knows nothing of geo-political boundaries. Ideas, facts, rumours and everything else go global instantly if they have the inherent oomph required to do so.

There's so much in your thesis that is wrong. I'll kick off  with these two...

If you don't think borders matter, you might want to explain why throughout history, war almost always breaks out when they are transgressed..

Ask the people of North Korea and China if they get the worlds rumours, ideas, facts, and everything else instantly..

The lifeboat that is Europe is in danger of sinking under the weight of refugees.  Britain being an island, should be able to 'secure' its borders more easily, however, I don't think there is the will to do it?

For heavens sake!

Britain is not sinking under the weight of refugees.

That's just complete nonsense.

I'd link to some facts but you'd just rubbish them if I did so get clicking, actually check out some real, reliable accurate data somewhere of your own choosing, then come back and we'll talk.

I politely suggest that it shouldn't secure its borders. These people are fleeing terror we would have no concept of. We should take our fair share. It is morally right to do so.

Here's 2 questions to ponder.

Q1: How many refugees have fled Syria?

Q2: How many refugees from Syria have come to the Uk?

Rickler wrote:

The lifeboat that is Europe is in danger of sinking under the weight of refugees.  Britain being an island, should be able to 'secure' its borders more easily, however, I don't think there is the will to do it?

The only lifeboat I've ever known on here is Mastpoint.
Where would the good old US of A be without it's 300 million immigrants.
Would you have been happy if you were not welcomed as an immigrant to the States. In fact, why were you so favourably treated and why wouldn't you afford that chance to anyone else?
That's not an aggressive question Ricks, I like much of your drift, I just don't get this one way migration mind set where one form of mass migration is fine, and one isn't ? What did you have to offer that other Mexican's didn't ?

Britain has about 20,000 miles of coastline.

The USA/Mexico border is about 2000 miles long.

A great read with some excellent posts.