Why would reducing future numbers of immigrants to levels of numbers of the 1990's be such a problem?

I agree with Jess on everything except the reasoning behind the growth in birth rate. I tend to think that the English born and bred, of long english heritage are also having more children today than in the past because there is a lot of govt support for families (or has been until very recently) Whatever the reasoning, we need this generation of young for the reasons Jess has stated.

DH's grandfather walked here from Italy at the end of the 19th century as part of a government scheme to recruit labour. We've always had immigrants. My youngest grandson is a quarter Roma gypsy - does it matter?

Many of our doctors and nurses do come from countries with an over supply. The Philippines trains far more nurses than it can employ that is why so many emmigrate. Their local government is happy with this as the remittances these immigrants send home helps to keep many families out of poverty and provides the government with badly needed foreign currency to pay for vital imports. The same applies to doctors and nurses from the Indian sub-continent. Some European countries also train more doctors and nurses than they require, although I am not sure why

I do worry about doctors and nurses coming from African countries as most of those countries have too few medical staff and need to keep all those they have.

The local unemployment in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries caused by the over supply of trained engineers has been noted as a contributor to the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and to other extremist and violent Islamist organisations.

There is no lack of information about Europe available in the news media. It is in the papers daily and on online news sites like the BBC.

Topics covered extensively in recent weeks have included the banking crisis in Italy, the Austrian presidential elections that resulted in them nearly having a neo-fascist president. A recent Spanish court case that means that many British people who lost money on unbuilt houses and flats in 2008 can mow get their deposit money back from the banks funding the developers - and that is just a few stories that immediately spring to mind

Over the last year the reactions of different Eastern European countries to the refugee crisis has also been widely discussed as has the rise of right wing parties.

I do not seek out European news stories. They are in the mainstream news.

updates.oxfam.org.uk/c/1SdnPrNuiBGstxq7njWKF6imS

Caroline Lucas has an EDM about refugees. A link to ask May to attend the UN summit about refugees.

@absent

The answer to your question about the number of immigrants...

There's a chart about halfway down the page.

www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-and-uk

Migration Observatory is the best source of FACTUAL information about immigration to the UK.

If any asylum seeker currently in Hungary manages to run through Austria and Germany, finds a bike to reach Calais then swim across the Channel, the UK might just have time to fast-track citizenship and enter him for the Olympics triathlon.

There is actually a refugee team, daphne, so not that far fetched. GB misses out again.

The serious point I was making was that the UK is not likely to be overrun by an 8 mile queue of refugees (as in Farage's photo). The vast majority of immigrants to the UK are legally here to work or study. British universities make a fortune from non-EU students.

I read today that the government will probably reach its immigration figures next year, because they will not want to come because of our dire financial problems.

That does seem possible

But I doubt it!

Our benefit payments are too good for them not to come.
Please note! IM NOT SAYING THAT THE PAYMENTS ARE WRONG!

Why would they come to the UK when they can get better benefit payments elsewhere?

If the country hadn't voted to leave the EU, they wouldn't have received most benefit payments for four years.

"They wouldn't have received most benefit payments for for years"
So they would still be getting some benefits, why?

I can't remember the details now, petra. They were the ones Cameron negotiated, but the EU cancelled them when the UK voted Leave. Nearly all benefits would only have been paid after somebody had been here for four years. From memory, I think the only one which would have been paid was Working Tax Credit, which is worth almost nothing now anyway. The logic was that if somebody is working and paying tax (which you have to be to receive WTC), the tax credit is a refund of money already paid for the very low paid. We're talking about a few pounds a week, not hundreds.

And if someone is on WTC these days they are getting pressured to take a job - any job or you lose benefit - or if no jobs pressured either to "become self employed" or work for nothing, If you are an hour late getting to job centre interview because the bus did not come they dock your money. I really can't imagine that many people are getting together enough money to get to UK, pay a deposit and a month's rent on somewhere to live for the privilege of doing battle wth the benefits system. And all for the pleasure of living in a rather cold and unwelcoming country where the press are briefing against immigrants (sorry... immigration) every day of the week. The UK is hardly is a bed of benefits-funded roses.
The graph on Migration Observatory shows that the majority of immigrants come here to study (thus helping our universities and our economy) and to do a definite job (thus helping our economy). The numbers coming to join a family or partner have remained fairly stable and have been higher in the past.
This is the trouble with dopey Cameron setting a target based on net migration. It counts in the biggest and most profitable (if we were a business) group and makes the numbers look problematic if universities sell more places abroad.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/19/amber-rudd-and-boris-johnson-signal-that-net-migration-target-ha/

Net migration target has been scrapped. I wonder what Cameron thinks from the back benches.

daphnedill Thanks. I just assumed – silly me – that the OP had the specific figure in mind for a particular reason and had simply forgotten to mention it.

None of our poorly paid jobs would get done . Our market garden produce would not get picked . Streets not swept. Hospitals not staffed , etc etc .Hotels not serviced etc.

Galah that's ridiculous and sounds like a daily mail headlines why do some people think people walk into the country and hold their hands out for benefits seriously would I choose cold, wet, unwelcoming Uk to be spat on and hounded just to get benefits
In my area the main people not working are local folks all the European i know are full time workers in care homes factories, hospitals

We know all this but the very poor uneducated people who are the targets of unscrupulous traffickers believe everything they are told - benefits and free housing for all in good old UK.

where would you suggest Asylum seekers go? They get very littlle money,a roof over their head and a lot of them are in detention centres with high wire or walls around them ,These are people who have lost their homes or families..who are at risk for being the "wrong" religion or politics or sexuality in their home countries.If it was one of your family would you not want someone to offer a helping hand? We have a friend whose job is to escort failed asylum seekers back to their country of origin,he says its heartbreaking hearing some of the stories and he does not feel many should be made to go back.On the other hand there are loads who say they would return to their home country when life is back to "normal .

As ever there is a difference between asylum seekers and economic migrants.
The only real answer is for men to just stop fighting! Then they could get on with cultivating their land, their economies etc. That wont happen any time soon though. There's always some sort of often petty difference that has to be addressed with guns and bombs. Sigh

",nowadays young people want to do as little as possible."
That is a very unpleasant remark