Immigration

[Countdown]

markcoznottz said:

You actively encourage the downward pressure on uk wages? Even in a time of rising utilities and inflation? What is your motivation for this? You are a afaics, are you suggesting British tradesman should sleep 8 to a house? What nationality are you?.

I dont believe in actively subsidising wages for any sector of the economy. Do you think you're owed special treatment because you're British? Stop whining about all those nasty immigrants and try doing a better job. There are plenty of British tradesmen doing perfectly well out. The bloke who does my gas servicing drives an RS4. It's not ALL British tradesmen who are complaining, just the poor quality ones whose USP was price.

[Countdown]

markcoznottz said:

TheHeretic said:

You read the daily mail, and rectors, don't you? Do you understand capitalism, market forces, etc?

We can trade with who we want, doesn't mean we have to let all and sundry in. .

So it's fine to import goods (even at the cost of "British" jobs) but not fine to import Labour? Is everything you buy Made in Britain ?

[Colonial]

Countdown said:

I dont believe in actively subsidising wages for any sector of the economy. Do you think you're owed special treatment because you're British? Stop whining about all those nasty immigrants and try doing a better job. There are plenty of British tradesmen doing perfectly well out. The bloke who does my gas servicing drives an RS4. It's not ALL British tradesmen who are complaining, just the poor quality ones whose USP was price.

We get that here too.

Readied that overcharge and under deliver spend their time whingeing about immigrants taking their jobs.

Those that do a good job are doing very well.

[scenario8]

Huge pressure on schools, housing, medical care, other infrastructure are not to be ignored, however. They're legitimate concerns.

[Countdown]

scenario8 said:

Huge pressure on schools, housing, medical care, other infrastructure are not to be ignored, however. They're legitimate concerns.

I agree. But the way I see it that's a different argument to "I can't charge my customers as much because of immigrants". Forgetting the fact that in many cases it's not mainly the price, it's the quality of work that matters.

[MX7]

Countdown said:

I agree. But the way I see it that's a different argument to "I can't charge my customers as much because of immigrants".

I don't think that there's any doubt that it undermines the economy. If the primary function of the country is to take care of it's citizens, having foreign people who live 4 to a room taking the job off a father of 3 with a mortgage shows a massive failing.

[TheHeretic]

Lost_BMW said:

Yes, but they don't have to be seven. It's amazing how productive a 5 year old can be with the right motivation.


As the erudite poster above noted, why should a business pay more in production costs just to match a white, British adult worker?



Cheap at half the age price.

So a silly point? We have immigrant workers, therefore it is a slippery slope type argument?

[scenario8]

MX7 said:

I don't think that there's any doubt that it undermines the economy. If the primary function of the country is to take care of it's citizens, having foreign people who live 4 to a room taking the job off a father of 3 with a mortgage shows a massive failing.

That would be to simplify the concept of immigration far too much. Walk into the City of London and marvel at the huge numbers of "foreign" professionals - huge numbers of very very highly paid jobs in the City, ones which pay very tidy sums to the exchequer every year, are fulfilled by armies of French, German, American, Australian, blah blah blah citizens. These jobs exist not exclusively at the expense of British workers. Walk into any hoispital and you will again find enormous numbers of foreign educated immigrants of one form or another, from Consultant down. It would not be easy by any definition to replace their services with indiginous workers. Even at the relatively unskilled level.

If this country could get itself to a position where it is not reliant on immigrant labour I'd find the concept of severely limiting immigration easier.

We shouldn't ignore the needs of the UK and the benefits of immigration when criticising the downsides to immigration. It's more complex than that.

[Countdown]

MX7 said:

I don't think that there's any doubt that it undermines the economy. If the primary function of the country is to take care of it's citizens, having foreign people who live 4 to a room taking the job off a father of 3 with a mortgage shows a massive failing.

Protectionism protects certain citizens at the expense of others. Putting tariffs on anything, be it the flow of goods, services, capital means that certain people will have to pay more solely for the benefit of the "protected".

The primary function of the country isn't maintaining artificially high labour rates for 5h1t tradesmen.

[FrankyH]

scenario8 said:

What's with the genocide bit?

Genocide, "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group".

[MX7]

scenario8 said:

That would be to simplify the concept of immigration far too much.

That is the pattern of modern immigration. I'm not opposed to all immigration, I don't think many people are, and foreigners have contributed a huge amount to this country for many decades, but Tony Blair's open door policy wasn't a good idea in my opinion, and Ed M seems to agree.

[FrankyH]

McFsC said:

Yeh, I totally agree with that.

Somewhere in the middle would be good, like you said, we breed our own criminals so why should we invite an excess from the rest of the world to live here? I don't want to live with them in their country, I don't want to live with them in the country I was born.

The solution is to have more stringent checks, be a little stricter and get the number of immigrants coming to live in the UK per year down to about 25,000.

They already make up 20 odd %, isn't that enough ( too much in fact)? Imagine say China making 20 odd % of China non Chinese, or Japan making Japan 20 odd % non Japanese, or Pakistan making Pakistan 20 odd % non Pakistani, and still letting more in, and you will see how unnatural and insane and wrong this is. We are not doing this to our own people in our own country either.

[FrankyH]

Funkycoldribena said:

Meridius said:

I work with about 20 Polish guys, they are excellent workers.

Always makes me laugh when people say this.Of course they're good workers when they're on probably the equivalent of 3 times the money they would earn in their own country.

Yeah, he works with 20 Polish guys who are good workers (or so he claims, who knows what his motives are), so let's deliberately choose to make ourselves outnumbered in our own country!
I think we have all had quite enough of this type of bs.

Edited by FrankyH on Saturday 30th June 13:33

[scenario8]

MX7 said:

scenario8 said:

That would be to simplify the concept of immigration far too much.

That is the pattern of modern immigration. I'm not opposed to all immigration, I don't think many people are, and foreigners have contributed a huge amount to this country for many decades, but Tony Blair's open door policy wasn't a good idea in my opinion, and Ed M seems to agree.

I think I'm going to continue to disagree with you here. Modern imiigration (yes including the period of evil Tony Blair's premiership) has brought a diverse range of immigrants to this country. Enormous numbers of whom are highly educated and have found highly paid work in this country not at the exclusion of UK citizens.

A proportion of modern (and ancient) immigration has been at the expense of UK workers. You may feel this proportion is too high.

I stand by the assertion that we are in danger of simplifying the concept of immigration far too much as I stated in a previous post. Ed Milliband, as you note above, recently gave a speech highlighting issues, many of which are entirely ligitimate. He did not argue immigration should be halted or reversed. He recognises that would be too simplistic.

edited to add -

I meant the assertion that we are in dange of oversimplifying the issue in response to your post that;

I don't think that there's any doubt that it undermines the economy.

Edited by scenario8 on Saturday 30th June 13:17

[FrankyH]

aizvara said:

I'm all for immigration, here and elsewhere. My girlfriend is an immigrant, my son can therefore claim two nationalities as his own. Many of my friends and colleagues are immigrants too.

My family has lived in Saudi, when I was younger. I would like the opportunity to live and work abroad again, too. My family also apparently partly comes from Spain, some generations ago.

What is the problem you anti-immigration people have with my friends, colleagues and all the other immigrants that make up the UK? Is it financial, physical, psychological harm or what?

A few immigrants, and there would have been no problem. We are way beyond that stage now. The problem is they want to allow immigration until we are outnumbered in our own country (genocide), surely any reasonable person can see what I am saying here?
We have a choice here, this is not something you deliberately choose (obviously).

[vonuber]

Polish people have just as much right to work here as you do to go work there, or in Spain, or Germany, or Sweden.

[MX7]

scenario8 said:

He did not argue immigration should be halted or reversed.

And nor am I. I said that it's had, in some ways, quite a negative impact. Nothing more.

[Colonial]

FrankyH said:

A few immigrants, and there would have been no problem. We are way beyond that stage now. The problem is they want to allow immigration until we are outnumbered in our own country (genocide), surely any reasonable person can see what I am saying here?
We have a choice here, this is not something you deliberately choose (obviously).

Only if you classify the children of immigrants as not being British.

Do you a problem with New Zealand migrants or is it those that don't look like you?

[rohrl]

What's your opinion of the Hugeunots FrankyH? It's just that my Grandmother's family were Hugeunot and I'm not sure if I'm British enough to be under threat of genocide or whether I'm one of "them" and should go back where I bleeding well came from.

[FrankyH]

Colonial said:

FrankyH said:

A few immigrants, and there would have been no problem. We are way beyond that stage now. The problem is they want to allow immigration until we are outnumbered in our own country (genocide), surely any reasonable person can see what I am saying here?
We have a choice here, this is not something you deliberately choose (obviously).

Only if you classify the children of immigrants as not being British.

Do you a problem with New Zealand migrants or is it those that don't look like you?

We are not making ourselves outnumbered (or anywhere remotely close to that) in our own country by either.