Immigration – A proper disaster?

A provocative title I know, but I find myself shouting at the news of late. I can’t believe the incompetence of the government.

Yesterday morning – the government thought we had 800 000 foreign workers.
Yesterday evening, oops, it’s actually 1.1 million.

But it’s worse, tonight it looks like it’s actually 1.5 million. Some are saying this is still hugely short of the mark!
So on the new figure, that’s 700 000 people we didn’t know about. I don’t know how big your town or city is, but that’s 13 times the population of my town. I know we’re told constantly that the economy is better for having these workers.

But wait a minute…. if we didn’t know about these people (the tax is actually being collected), then there’s no infrastructure in place to allow for them, and no money going to pay towards them. That’s police, hospitals, schools, dentists, roads, prisons, maternity wings (I've seen this disaster first hand) and all public services we rely on.

So taking all these expensive things into account, how much a benefit are they to our economy? Either we throw a load more money at these public services, or get used to them declining as they come more and more overstretched.

The government is already spending the extra tax revenue from foreign workers, but have absolutely no idea, how much it needs to spend on infrastructure. In fact it’s already increasing national borrowing so there’s no more cash to spend anyhow, so what gives!!!?

I don’t think the government has a grip on this at all.

Also….who is really benefiting? Are your wages going down, or at least not going up with inflation?

Wages are being driven down for the average worker. Take your average factory boss (A). He’s paying a wage of £8.00 an hour. He chooses not to take on foreign workers and is happy with his workforce. A competitor down the road (Boss B) gets rid of ¾ of his work force and takes on a load of foreign workers at minimum wage. Factory boss A – then closes down as he can’t compete with Boss B’s prices. This isn’t just happening in factories, it’s right across the board, where companies can realistically use foreign workers (it’s not often a board of directors is replaced by a team of Poles- things certainly would be different then).

Please don’t get me wrong. This isn’t a race issue. I wish every individual luck if they come here to better themselves, or want to send cash back to their families.

But with the governent leaving the floodgates open, it’s about economics and fear for what’s happening to our communities. What's happening is irreversible and it’s becoming more and more obvious that the powers that be have not idea what they’re doing.

I think now is the time to STOP new people coming in and spend 6 months counting and doing some maths. At least with correct figures there can be a proper debate.

Have any of you guys any comments on what you see happening in your area / workplace?

It's so difficult to tackle this topic without being called "racist" by every liberal on the planet. I do think that too much immigration is causing a bad effect on wages. My partner works with Polish people and since they have come along, he has not seen a pay rise for the past 3 years.

It is impossible almost! it seems to me almost as if the only people without the right to defend their ethnicicity or beliefs are the british white - i'm no racist but it seems to me that "equality" has gone from being something to fight FOR to something to fight WITH

I think the debate is now beginning, albeit 5 years too late. It has to.

It's nothing to do with racism, more practicality and addressing the issues this country is facing.

You can't go on increasing your population by 200 000 per year (that's the figure of people coming in, minus those leaving) without a serious look at your infrastructure. (The true figure is probably much more because they're not actually counting ). The roads are gridlocked much of the time, and don't even get me started on the rail system.

It's not simply the population growth. Local authorities have to deal with dozens, even hundreds of languages. It seems to me that current policy is, let's push it till it creaks. Not a good policy when you're dealing with irreversible issues.

700,000 is at least 70 times the size of my town! I remember a while ago there were companies in our region taking up Polish to make their workers feel more at home which is a nice thing to do.

Jobs available decreased in our area... we have Polish bus drivers, when I did work experience at one of the big hotels in my town I was the only Scottish person on the tour for all the new workers (they were permanent), at Stobo Castle health spa a lot of workers are foreign...

As far as I know my mums job was never affected with foreign workers (she was a home carer) but I'm sure my dad will have some (construction)

Not only jobs that are affected though but housing... practically impossible to buy a house here because we're within easy reach of Edinburgh for workers etc.

Think Britain is just the wrong place to come though if they're looking to make money to send to families etc with such a high cost of living.

D

Agree with you Neil. Shortermism - permanently damaging the company. No different to Gorden Brown selling our gold reserves.

One of the big arguments is "they'll help prop us pensions". The problem is, they'll grow old too, and they'll need propping up so where does it end. Another problem is, much of the money they earn is sent home, lost to the British economy forever.

Like I mentioned, government borrowing has increased at the same time of a strong economy and mass immigrations.

Listened to BBC 5-live phone in earlier, and the general consensus is there's massive problems being introduced.

The podcast is available for a few days....victoria derbyshire's thursday program.

Right then...i wasnt going to put my two penneth in but anyways.

I am soooooo sick of this ''pc'' country and people not being able to say what they like without causing offense. People may class me a rascist but thats up them, me personally i don't want to share this country with 1.5 million immigrants. Claiming benefits, using our NHS and taking our jobs. I personally feel that these people are having a good laugh at GB's expense and its grates me soooooo much! Have people not noticed that our traditions and values are disintegrating?? Wanting to call halloween ''autumn festival'' and banning xmas so as not to upset these people. Get a grip! This is our country and and our traditions, they choose to come here and want to be treated equally then stop pulling the race card when things don't suit! It so upsets me to think our ancestors fought and died for this country, what does our govenernment do? gives it away!

To be honest ive been attacked loads of forums for my opinion and it does little good to vent my frustration anyway, what difference to our lives will it make, or to my childrens lives when suicide bombers are living within our communities and are regular citizens who ''pc'' do gooders protect. What chance really does this country have??