Are you ready to welcome the apparent flood of bulgarians and romanians....

Cheap plentiful labour is bound to be good for the country as a whole. Slavery would be even more beneficial.

But at the individual level (some) people suffer.

Of course. But there should be some limits!

Even Farage admits the country would be economically worse off without immigration.

I met two charming young Romanians on Saturday. The young woman was pregnant and they were returning to Romania as they felt there was a better quality of life there for their child.they would prefer to go to France but weren't allowed in. I couldn't cross examine them further it would have been a bit too intrusive but I would have liked to know more.

For goodness sake don't tell certain newspapers that, granjura they will be suggesting applying the badger tactics.

One of the issues which is going to make this current debate worse, is the recurrence of TB in the UK- particularly those strains which are becoming resistant to antibiotics, and therefore so dangerous.

I agree any bias is unhelpful, and that issues should be discussed and not brushed under the carpet- as in the end it makes the resetment build up. But we also need an intelligent and factual debate, with ALL the positives as well as negatives aired- without nationalistic or even racist bias. Remember what happened in Germany when those at the helm whipped up the above???

There is no way the UK services could survive without immigration. But personally I'd rather see prices rise a bit, than keep them down on the back of disgusting exploitation of foreigners, in the UK or in Bangladesh, etc.

If bias cannot be avoided, must say I believe liberal bias is a lot less dangerous than nationalistic/jingoistic.

BTW this debate about immigration is taking place all over the world, and certainly Europe and other countries (like mine) with free movement of people agreements with EU. The National Front here, in France, Italy and all over Europe is doing its best to whip up hatred... and gather populist votes.

Thanks for link Penguin.

Interesting concept: 'deep liberal bias'

As well as the BBC, i think the Guardian suffers from it as well.

Bloody irritating!

I know of another young woman who arrived here with severe depression and other health problems from UK and who has been (legally as a EU person) totally supported by state benefits too- without ever having worked here either.

Some do- I know several who benefit from all kinds of social payments, like child benefit and benefits to make up low salaries, etc, for all sorts of reasons. Like my young friend who lived with a Swiss guy and had a little girl, and has now split up - and is experiencing all sorts of problems. There are many others like her.

From today's Daily Telegraph,
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10551618/Nick-Robinson-BBC-made-a-terrible-mistake-over-immigration-debate.html
I think this link is an interesting read.
It's not up to the BBC to decide whether reporting news might, may lead to unpleasant protests, discussion, just give us the news, the facts.
It could be seen by some that knowingly withholding or not allowing any debate on immigration at that time was of some help to the Labour Party.
The BBC are impartial?..I'm not so sure.

I looked it up. If Immigrants are here for less than two years, they can pay national insurance, and in some cases tax, in their own country.

I am guessing that if they work for part of a year they can fill in a tax form and claim a refund for overpaid tax - depending on the tax code they were working on. Like anyone else that works part of a year. Tax codes assume that you will work at the current salary for the whole year.

Those Brits aren't claiming taxpayer-funded benefits from their host countries, though, are they granjura?

Depends, only if they work less than 1 year, I believe- or have very highly paid jobs as expats from Hong-Kong, etc.

Of course this is also the case for the 100000s of Brits who work abroad on short term assignments- or as employed by UK companies. And they also send their kids to the schools without speaking a word of the local language, use medical services, etc, etc.

I`ve been told, not certain if it`s true, that although the migrants are paying tax out of their wages, if they return home they get it all back again. If it IS true, then they are not contributing to the country`s finances at all.

Surely that can't be right, petallus - it makes a mockery of the whole tax/benefits system...

I think I read somewhere that foreign workers can opt to pay tax on their earnings in their own country and this will often be at a much lower rate than here.

I have a Polish colleague who, along with her husband, has worked hard in the UK for the past 10 years. Her son aged around 8 was born here. Due to the very high cost of decent childcare in London and her shift patterns the boy is now looked after by her parents in Poland.

Why should she be denied Child Benefit?

If anything, it could be said that they are saving the country money by not having him in school here, using GP, etc.

Logic doesn't wash with certain elements of our press, Jess.

If a parent comes to the UK to work and leaves their child back home in Poland, and they are paying their taxes, why should they not get the same back from the government as other hard working tax payers?

mollie65, good points made. I said earlier up the thread, I must have missed something, as I haven't seen any posts that dispute the strain on public services as a result of the increase in immigration/asylum seeking in recent years. The problem is how the country manages to continue to offer good nhs/public services at the same time as demands and expectations increase.

just to add another thought that occurred to me - but I could well be wrong - if so apologies in advance.
What about the age of the incoming immigrants. Everyone makes the point that they have come here to work - all well and good as they will contribute but there could be over60s also on the incoming immigrants who would be entitled to pension credit, and other benefits even though they have never paid into the state pension - this could be £225 for a couple - no questions asked once they have passed the Habitual residency test.
also I had read - again I would question it's validity - that there is a bit of a black market in selling eastern european passports to those who would otherwise have to apply through the 'outside eu immigration channel'

Well, it was a serious study done by a reputable newspaper. Feel free to disbelieve it if you want to.

In today's Guardian there is a report which quotes Milliband as saying that it was not prejudiced to believe that immigration of high levels of cheap workers from the EU was harming the chances of some of Britain's workers.

The tabloids are saying similar things but in more flowery language.

I suppose in the end we believe what we want to believe and then look for evidence to support it.

petallus well it must have been true if it was in the Guardian!