Would you change your Ref vote if you could go back time?

[WCZ]

R E S T E C P said:

For every idiot that voted leave only because "brown people", another one voted remain only because "I ain't racist".

no way!

[jjlynn27]

Mark Benson said:

The problem as I see it is this:

I live in one of the nicer parts of the north (yes, we do have some) having lived in the south for my entire adult life (grew up in N. Yorks and headed off to uni never to return until my forties).
The disparity of wealth up here compared to the SE is quite evident, not so much where I live, but I don't have to go far north to be in Teesside, the former mining villages or Co. Durham or Newcastle.
It's hard for the lower socio-economic groups here, not a lot of work and what there is is call centres, warehouses - that kind of work, usually on zero or near to zero hours contracts. Low skilled work done by low skilled people.
But people who have roots here, families, mortgages or rent to pay. When they then find they can't get enough hours this week because someone from Eastern Europe, who house shares with 5 others and has no family or responsibilities meaning they can be more flexible and will work for less money without complaint, they begin to feel resentful.
The first time we heard nationally about this was the 'Bigoted woman' who asked Gordon Brown about it in 2010; he and the rest of the London based political and journalistic bubble ignored her and instead we kept hearing all about GDP and the economic benefits.

Now to you and I that might seem sensible, migration brings more overall benefits to the country and it is therefore, a positive thing. But it's not an equally spread benefit.
For every smiling, friendly care home worker in the crowded SE, there's a warehouseman flexible, willing and able to undercut an indigenous employee in the NE, or Midlands, or South Wales.

If you want to understand how some people might not see what you see, put yourself in the shoes of a young dad from Hartlepool whose warehouse hours were cut because some of these 'beneficial' migrants could be more flexible than he could, having childcare issues, mortgage and the like to deal with. What's the tangible benefit to him of migration, net or otherwise? It's not Geordie warehousemen that are reaping the benefits of being able to work across Europe and employ cheap staff.

And if you want to understand the backlash if we don't deal with this disparity, think about what he might have hoped would happen were we to leave the EU.

Very, very good post. Completely understandable.

What I am afraid of is that the Hartlepool dad is not going to be better of regardless of his vote. Actually, with taxes which will seemingly be rising and more cuts in spending, he'll be in, at least short to medium term, worse off. I'm also afraid that those jobs, just like the mining jobs before them, will be annihilated by automation. On top of that, nothing will change for at least 2y 3m apart from higher taxes and less spending. Higher salaries for such jobs, if we imagine for a second that all immigrants are gone thus pushing salaries up, would just hasten the automation of such jobs.

[motco]

jjlynn27 said:

motco said:

jjlynn27 said:

motco said:

Isn't net migration a red herring? It is influenced by emigrants and we're not concerned with them. Compare immigratiopn figures among these countries both as total numbers and per capita.

I don't know if it's red herring or not. That's certainly matter of opinion. As for immigration figures, isn't that what's on the second graph?
I have no idea what absolute figures are as they are not, that I can see, in that telegraph article. In my opinion they would be pointless.

You're quite correct, the second graph does show gross immigration - speedreading fails again!

I often do scan-reading myself, so I quite understand. Another question if I may. Does it surprise you how UK compares to non-EU countries with access to common market?

Presuming accuracy, then yes it does.

[Mario149]

motco said:

Exchanging UK born, English speaking people with an equal number of non-native non-English speaking people would not go unnoticed. You cannot presuppose that all those leaving are incomers in the first place when many are not. A lot of UK born people emigrate for a range of reasons as well as some foreign people returning. It's not simple at all. One of my worries with mass immigration is that UK schoolchildren's education suffers because increasing numbers of their classmates cannot speak English. Only detailed breakdowns of immigration figures with ethnic and language details included can inform this.

Maybe look at it another way: are there any teachers/school groups out there who are saying that EU immigration is causing the problems you're worried about?

[lostkiwi]

Mario149 said:

motco said:

Exchanging UK born, English speaking people with an equal number of non-native non-English speaking people would not go unnoticed. You cannot presuppose that all those leaving are incomers in the first place when many are not. A lot of UK born people emigrate for a range of reasons as well as some foreign people returning. It's not simple at all. One of my worries with mass immigration is that UK schoolchildren's education suffers because increasing numbers of their classmates cannot speak English. Only detailed breakdowns of immigration figures with ethnic and language details included can inform this.

Maybe look at it another way: are there any teachers/school groups out there who are saying that EU immigration is causing the problems you're worried about?

Does encouraging our children to be multilingual and acknowledge and expose them to other cultures mean they have a worse education?

In your example where a number of non-native non-English speaking people replaced a similar number of native English people yes it would go noticed but that would never happen unless:
1. There was something seriously wrong in the UK where people seriously didn't want to live here any longer
2. That whatever was driving the UK natives away was not an issue for the immigrants.

It takes a lot for someone to leave family and friends behind and start a new life in a foreign country (I know as I've done it several times - NZ -> AUS -> UK -> AUS -> UK). My other half and I have been discussing retiring to NZ or France but she is less than enthusiastic as she has children and grandchildren here and wants to be nearby to support them.

Immigration almost always results in a mixing of cultures and that in my view makes everyone richer and makes a more interesting country.

[Mario149]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Good points as always. And there *will* be people who "lose" due to immigration, it's inevitable. And if the warehouseman wants to vote out believing it'll help him, so be it. But, now he's assumed it's the lesser of 2 evils because as a less well off and presumably not highly skilled worker, he's put him and his family at risk due to the inevitable economic effects we're going to see. It's his demographic that suffer first. And it should be plainly obvious to him now that he's not going to see any change in immigration for 5+ years at least.

I said in another thread that some people may have very specific work-related reasons to vote Leave, but I would suggest that the vast majority of people who think immigration is causing their problems could show little if any empirical evidence that would stand up to scrutiny. The "immigration issues" can almost always be traced back to something else, immigration is just an easy catch-all. The real problem is that governments are ignoring the real problems. They let, indeed enable, people to blame immigration because as long as they can keep people focused on that and manage it, they're not focusing on the real problems. What they should be doing is putting forward a pro-immigration policy vocally at every point, showing how much we fiscally benefit from it and how that pays for things we all use, while at the same time acknowledging that the reason your wait at the hospital is longer than planned is because it's been a political football for so long, not because Slavek moved in 3 doors down.

[Mark Benson]

Mario149 said:

Good points as always. And there *will* be people who "lose" due to immigration, it's inevitable. And if the warehouseman wants to vote out believing it'll help him, so be it. But, now he's assumed it's the lesser of 2 evils because as a less well off and presumably not highly skilled worker, he's put him and his family at risk due to the inevitable economic effects we're going to see. It's his demographic that suffer first. And it should be plainly obvious to him now that he's not going to see any change in immigration for 5+ years at least.

I said in another thread that some people may have very specific work-related reasons to vote Leave, but I would suggest that the vast majority of people who think immigration is causing their problems could show little if any empirical evidence that would stand up to scrutiny. The "immigration issues" can almost always be traced back to something else, immigration is just an easy catch-all. The real problem is that governments are ignoring the real problems. They let, indeed enable, people to blame immigration because as long as they can keep people focused on that and manage it, they're not focusing on the real problems. What they should be doing is putting forward a pro-immigration policy vocally at every point, showing how much we fiscally benefit from it and how that pays for things we all use, while at the same time acknowledging that the reason your wait at the hospital is longer than planned is because it's been a political football for so long, not because Slavek moved in 3 doors down.

I don't disagree with any of that. However I do think it's a bit simplistic to say that hospital waiting hours is all down to the NHS being a political football. I do think there are areas where immigration has put a strain on local resources and that's been ignored, probably for political reasons (ignore it and it'll go away, address it and we might have to talk about some of the downsides to immigration, worse still we might have to do more about it).

And zero hours contracts can be a huge benefit to some, but not to all and this is what allows Slavek to come along and take hours from Dave in the warehouse. Dave didn't have much choice on his employment contract, he just wanted the job.

But that's not to say I can't sympathise with Dave and understand why he'd come to the conclusion that fewer Slaveks = more hours for him, even if I agree with you that in the grand scheme of things he's probably not going to feel any better off in the short to medium term, if at all.

[Mario149]

Mark Benson said:

I don't disagree with any of that. However I do think it's a bit simplistic to say that hospital waiting hours is all down to the NHS being a political football. I do think there are areas where immigration has put a strain on local resources and that's been ignored, probably for political reasons (ignore it and it'll go away, address it and we might have to talk about some of the downsides to immigration, worse still we might have to do more about it).

And zero hours contracts can be a huge benefit to some, but not to all and this is what allows Slavek to come along and take hours from Dave in the warehouse. Dave didn't have much choice on his employment contract, he just wanted the job.

But that's not to say I can't sympathise with Dave and understand why he'd come to the conclusion that fewer Slaveks = more hours for him.

Just to clarify, when I said political football, I was trying to be diplomatic Some people think it lacks investment, some people think it lacks good management etc, some people think both. What I was trying to convey was that it's not displaying the problems it does because we added a few fractions of a percent of population last year, it goes far deeper than that.

In terms of strain locally, I think you're right, and I think we're probably saying the same thing: that it goes back to funding and planning. We know we have more money due to immigrants, we know that they more than pay their way, so we should not only be able to keep services at a stable level with immigration, we should in theory be able to improve them and indeed enjoy greater economies of scale. Foreign people in the waiting room are just an easy target for blame, and that narrative is supported by the rags and not challenged by our leaders.

Like you I sympathize with Dave's situation, but that sympathy stops at a very defined point for me when he can't, when presented with facts, see that he should be challenging zero hours contracts rather than voting Leave to improve his lot.

[Mark Benson]

Mario149 said:

Mark Benson said:

I don't disagree with any of that. However I do think it's a bit simplistic to say that hospital waiting hours is all down to the NHS being a political football. I do think there are areas where immigration has put a strain on local resources and that's been ignored, probably for political reasons (ignore it and it'll go away, address it and we might have to talk about some of the downsides to immigration, worse still we might have to do more about it).

And zero hours contracts can be a huge benefit to some, but not to all and this is what allows Slavek to come along and take hours from Dave in the warehouse. Dave didn't have much choice on his employment contract, he just wanted the job.

But that's not to say I can't sympathise with Dave and understand why he'd come to the conclusion that fewer Slaveks = more hours for him.

Just to clarify, when I said political football, I was trying to be diplomatic Some people think it lacks investment, some people think it lacks good management etc, some people think both. What I was trying to convey was that it's not displaying the problems it does because we added a few fractions of a percent of population last year, it goes far deeper than that.

In terms of strain locally, I think you're right, and I think we're probably saying the same thing: that it goes back to funding and planning. We know we have more money due to immigrants, we know that they more than pay their way, so we should not only be able to keep services at a stable level with immigration, we should in theory be able to improve them and indeed enjoy greater economies of scale. Foreign people in the waiting room are just an easy target for blame, and that narrative is supported by the rags and not challenged by our leaders.

Like you I sympathize with Dave's situation, but that sympathy stops at a very defined point for me when he can't, when presented with facts, see that he should be challenging zero hours contracts rather than voting Leave to improve his lot.

I think we are agreeing on the whole, albeit from different directions.
However where does Dave turn to challenge zero hours contracts - he used to vote Labour but they have long since stopped championing the working man (I seem to remember but could be wrong that zero hours contracts were made legal under their watch). He can only deal with what it's in his power to change, which in this case is migration given that he had the chance to vote to be out of the EU and close the borders to EU migrants.

But yes, it's not about the foreigners, it's about competent government minsters and MPs who listen to all their people, not just the lobbyists and (once every 5 years) the floating voters.

[Mario149]

Mark Benson said:

However where does Dave turn to challenge zero hours contracts - he used to vote Labour but they have long since stopped championing the working man (I seem to remember but could be wrong that zero hours contracts were made legal under their watch). He can only deal with what it's in his power to change, which in this case is migration given that he had the chance to vote to be out of the EU and close the borders to EU migrants.

I would make the case that Labour ran on a very "working class" ticket in the last election, definitely as left wing as it's been in a long time.

But even assuming it wasn't, he's exercised his power to change something that everyone in the know was saying could negatively affect him for several years immediately, with the result he wants not appearing any time in the near future and maybe never. It's not a rational choice and so pretty much by definition it's a wrong choice. He was given it, and it was his to make, and now he, or other people like him, will pay for it. And then more than likely they'll blame someone else again for their woes and we'll be back to square one. Very sad.

Mark my words if we do go through with it and Leave, this will blow up in our faces again in a few years time, maybe not even that long, when the "left behind" who protest voted realize nothing of substance in their lives has changed, and worse than that, that they were suckered in by the very same "right-wing elite" that they have always despised. And it won't be pretty. There's been a paradigm shift in our country and its culture overnight and we will reap what we have sown.

[jjlynn27]

motco said:

jjlynn27 said:

motco said:

jjlynn27 said:

motco said:

Isn't net migration a red herring? It is influenced by emigrants and we're not concerned with them. Compare immigratiopn figures among these countries both as total numbers and per capita.

I don't know if it's red herring or not. That's certainly matter of opinion. As for immigration figures, isn't that what's on the second graph?
I have no idea what absolute figures are as they are not, that I can see, in that telegraph article. In my opinion they would be pointless.

You're quite correct, the second graph does show gross immigration - speedreading fails again!

I often do scan-reading myself, so I quite understand. Another question if I may. Does it surprise you how UK compares to non-EU countries with access to common market?

Presuming accuracy, then yes it does.

From the cursory check data is accurate. If I'm perfectly honest it did surprise me too.

ETA; Good thread overall, pity that most other threads descend to abusive waste of time.

[sealtt]

jjlynn27 said:

Robert,

About immigration, have a look at this, it's from telegraph;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/16/eu-refe...




Both BJ and Gove want, quite rightly imo, access to EU market.

I'm not sure how relevant immigration / x of population is. That doesn't really tell us much other than, on average, how likely it is that any given person in the population is an immigrant. Which doesn't really mean anything. I suppose it shows that culturally/genetically the country is not 'overrun' by foreign blood, but that's a pretty xenophobic argument which I don't believe (/hope) the majority of anti-immigrant sentiment is about.

More relevant statistics would be:

- No. of immigrants / No. of new houses - to compare stresses on housing supply
- No. of immigrants / £ of education / healthcare / etc budget - to compare stress on public services
- No. of immigrants / sqm of land - to consider physical overcrowding of the island
- No. of immigrants / No. of jobs

Now that would give more insight given the leave campaign complaints.

[Mario149]

sealtt said:

I'm not sure how relevant immigration / x of population is. That doesn't really tell us much other than, on average, how likely it is that any given person in the population is an immigrant. Which doesn't really mean anything. I suppose it shows that culturally/genetically the country is not 'overrun' by foreign blood, but that's a pretty xenophobic argument which I don't believe (/hope) the majority of anti-immigrant sentiment is about.

More relevant statistics would be:

- No. of immigrants / No. of new houses - to compare stresses on housing supply
- No. of immigrants / £ of education / healthcare / etc budget - to compare stress on public services
- No. of immigrants / sqm of land - to consider physical overcrowding of the island
- No. of immigrants / No. of jobs

Now that would give more insight given the leave campaign complaints.

A quick google suggests:

- 141,000 home built last year with a net immigration figure of 330,000
- ref public services, the figures will likley be complex, but given that we know that immigrants over contribute in relation to "indigenouss" persons, we have more to spend per person than if they didn't come
- population increased by ~0.5% last year due to immigration, so on a immigrants per sq mile basis it's a little under 3.5
- given that our employment rate is the highest it's ever been (or at least was before Brexit, we'll see now I suppose), I'd suggest that job supply is not a problem

[motco]

How do we 'know' migrants over-contribute comapred with the indigenous population? Serious question; not a dig.

[sealtt]

Mario149 said:

A quick google suggests:

- 141,000 home built last year with a net immigration figure of 330,000
- ref public services, the figures will likley be complex, but given that we know that immigrants over contribute in relation to "indigenouss" persons, we have more to spend per person than if they didn't come
- population increased by ~0.5% last year due to immigration, so on a immigrants per sq mile basis it's a little under 3.5
- given that our employment rate is the highest it's ever been (or at least was before Brexit, we'll see now I suppose), I'd suggest that job supply is not a problem

Job supply is probably the most relevant statistic especially given that EU nationals have only a limited time they can stay without being employed. A lot of data needs to be collected to give any real outline of how the country is changing and how valid people's grievances are specifically due to EU migration. Seems the sort of thing one of the campaigns could have done, but I guess that would involve facts & experts, and we all know how badly those things go down!

[jjlynn27]

sealtt said:

I'm not sure how relevant immigration / x of population is. That doesn't really tell us much other than, on average, how likely it is that any given person in the population is an immigrant. Which doesn't really mean anything. I suppose it shows that culturally/genetically the country is not 'overrun' by foreign blood, but that's a pretty xenophobic argument which I don't believe (/hope) the majority of anti-immigrant sentiment is about.

More relevant statistics would be:

- No. of immigrants / No. of new houses - to compare stresses on housing supply
- No. of immigrants / £ of education / healthcare / etc budget - to compare stress on public services
- No. of immigrants / sqm of land - to consider physical overcrowding of the island
- No. of immigrants / No. of jobs

Now that would give more insight given the leave campaign complaints.

Makes sense.

My post was an answer to question how many immigrants per capita.

[Mario149]

motco said:

How do we 'know' migrants over-contribute comapred with the indigenous population? Serious question; not a dig.

If you have a quick google of something like "how much do immigrants contribute to the uk" there's lots of stuff out there to read. Figures vary a bit, but for EU immigrants from some countries it can actually be as much as £1.65 for every £1 they take out. A more average figure would be something like £1.12 for immigrants from the last 10 countries to join in 2004. EU immigrants actually seem to contribute more than non-EU ones on average, despite the non-EU people already being subject to a points-type system.

[motco]

Mario149 said:

motco said:

How do we 'know' migrants over-contribute comapred with the indigenous population? Serious question; not a dig.

If you have a quick google of something like "how much do immigrants contribute to the uk" there's lots of stuff out there to read. Figures vary a bit, but for EU immigrants from some countries it can actually be as much as £1.65 for every £1 they take out. A more average figure would be something like £1.12 for immigrants from the last 10 countries to join in 2004. EU immigrants actually seem to contribute more than non-EU ones on average, despite the non-EU people already being subject to a points-type system.

The Economist and Guardian say they do but Migration Watch says they don't. See my confusion and the basis for querying 'know'?

Unbiased opinion, still less fact, is a rare commodity.

[jjlynn27]

motco said:

The Economist and Guardian say they do but Migration Watch says they don't. See my confusion and the basis for querying 'know'?

Unbiased opinion, still less fact, is a rare commodity.

motco, that is a very good question. It boils down to judgement on veracity of source. Unfortunately nobody else can make those decisions for you.
Speaking for myself, I try to discard obvious agenda sites. Things like put Reuters and to lesser extent Bloomberg above Sun/Daily Mail.
Any opinion on pretty much anything will have some (un)intended bias.

[Mario149]

motco said:

Mario149 said:

motco said:

How do we 'know' migrants over-contribute comapred with the indigenous population? Serious question; not a dig.

If you have a quick google of something like "how much do immigrants contribute to the uk" there's lots of stuff out there to read. Figures vary a bit, but for EU immigrants from some countries it can actually be as much as £1.65 for every £1 they take out. A more average figure would be something like £1.12 for immigrants from the last 10 countries to join in 2004. EU immigrants actually seem to contribute more than non-EU ones on average, despite the non-EU people already being subject to a points-type system.

The Economist and Guardian say they do but Migration Watch says they don't. See my confusion and the basis for querying 'know'?

Unbiased opinion, still less fact, is a rare commodity.

As with all info, the calculation method varies, where costs are allocated etc. I wouldn't cite the guardian as a source as it implies bias, but cite where they got the info instead. MigrationWatch is one source that shows negative impact, but there are plenty of others that show otherwise. I'm not going to post the links as they're easy to find, but if you google what I put in above, about 80% of the research referenced has EU migration as a positive impact and non-EU (where ironically we do have control) as a net drain. One suspects that is why none of this was mentioned by the Brexit campaign. Other than that, we're back to a Brexit economics style argument which consists of "I don't believe what most of the experts are saying", to which there is no answer.

Frankly, even if EU immigrants only just broke even or were in fact a slight drain (even the negative reports seem to only have them at fractions of a percent of GDP), I'd say the opportunities free movement provides to our own people, especially the young, are more than worth it. In a world where we talk about having no digital borders, and being part of a global family, it seems crazy to be putting physical borders and restrictions back up for anything less than a cast iron reason.