The cost of Brexit for us; the ordinary people

are those flying pigs (all I can see is little squares, but I have had a glass more than half full of

Yes, I just googled the squares and got Peppa Pig!

From my iPad, the piggies, sorry, not flying ones though.

This pc does not seem to translate emoticons into pictures, can never see them.

Trouble is nobody, not even the PM has a clue about how you can regulate immigration precisely to a country's needs - in or out of the EU.
Many major businesses are lobbying the government because they fear it will be harder to bring in talent from the EU.
And the other trouble is that the country will still need immigrants and lots of them (unless we have a whopping recession). It's clear that many powerful people in favour of leaving the UK see it, primarily, as an opportunity to undermine employment rights and bring people in from the third world to work in the UK on lower wages and much worse conditions. The winners would, of course, be unscrupulous employers who would like free rein to exploit their workers and make bigger profits.

Trouble is nobody, not even the PM has a clue about how you can regulate immigration precisely to a country's needs - in or out of the EU.
It's like actuaries - some distant relatives are both actuaries and pension forecasters - no-one can predict future trends with pinpoint accuracy.

JessM
Neither immigrant skill levels nor school building policy are germane to this argument, which is about whether or not immigration is causing huge pressure on schools and the NHS. In both cases it certainly is. Without immigration we would b closing schools, not building them, or perhaps we would be maintaining schools while reducing class size (although I must admit I doubt it).

Of course there are many factors causing a crisis in the NHS and no single one is solely responsible. I was discussing this topic earlier today and one which was mentioned was the increasing availability of new and expensive drugs which are a heavy drain on NHS finances. My own aged mother for example has recently developed AMD and is receiving monthly lucentis injections at £800 a pop, but who would opt to go blind as an alternative?

BUT for all that admitting millions of immigrants is also putting pressure on the NHS, serious pressure, on maternity services certainly, but that isn't all. Many foreign ethnic groups have higher levels of certain illnesses and medical conditions than the native population, the best known examples are probably TB and HIV, often both together. Immigration is ENTIRELY to blame for the TB epidemic and has made London the TB capital of the Western world. It requires a long and costly course of treatment and the patient has to follow a complex drug regimen , which has unpleasant side effects that can lead to non compliance. This can then lead to antibiotic resistant forms and the spread of MDR TB.
Unbelievably stupidly in these circumstances the government nevertheless ended the universal vaccination program for teenagers in the early noughties.

I have no doubt that those of you who are proudly pro mass immigration will continue to stick fingers in ears and shout lalala whatever you are told about the negatives, because globalism is a faith for you, not a matter of reason, but I do hope that those who are not yet cult followers reject the pressure to sign up, and a pressure it is, due to the claims of the globalists that they hold the moral high ground, and their vicious attempts to demonise anyone who opposes them.

Rose said:
I don't think that Mair or anyone would argue that we did not need any immigrants Jess we do, and a lot of countries do.What we need to be able to do is set our own limits, and decide where we will encourage immigrants to come from.

Spot on Rose. We certainly need only a fraction of the millions who come here and need to control admission exceedingly tightly in the future. Countries like Singapore and Dubai, make a great deal of use of foreign skills (including British), but they do not give them citizenship or permit them to remain indefinitely.

I know I'm being overly optimistic, but it seems to me that unless there is some reach for consensus, the divisions will simply get worse. you only have to look at the position on this little forum to understand how strongly people feel. I can agree it is tempting to imagine pink pigs but how else do you suggest this dreadful position we now find ourselves is to be sorted?

I would be interested to see supporting evidence for your arguments mair

Trouble is nobody, not even the PM has a clue about how you can regulate immigration precisely to a country's needs - in or out of the EU.

There is little or no futurology required to regulate immigration, the difficulty is far more in predicting how many of our own young need to be trained to fill the jobs of the future. Having said that, I dont think its as difficult as pro immigrationists (who dont WANT to see young Brits filling all the jobs) claim.

We know the population is ageing, so whats that going to need? More doctors nurses physiotherapists speech therapists and so on, fewer child care workers, primary school teachers, definitely more construction workers (to fill the housing shortfall) more IT workers to design and program the self driving electric cars that the grans will be buzzing around in and all the other robots that will do the dull jobs nobody else wants, more agriculturalists and horticulturalists to grow food for the massive population, as well as more food scientists to devise new proteins made of maggots and other disgusting horrors. And thats just a start.

I never run off to HQ, roses, so why did you say that?
Nigglie, I'm still in the middle of my festivities, not hung over at all.

I would be interested to see supporting evidence for your arguments mair

Which particular points? There is still a good deal of information about TB and HIV online, although the PTB does try to keep the impact of immigration as out of the picture as possible. You might need to dig around a bit more than you would have a decade ago to find the truth.

I can certainly find the information relating to the TB levels, however unsure about the evidence suggesting that immigrants are the main cause of the current level in the U.K. I understood that poverty and poor housing were always the biggest factor. I am also finding difficulty in finding supporting evidence for your other comment with regard to immigration.

I would also like to hear about what you consider the future immigration policy should look like.

I know I'm being overly optimistic, but it seems to me that unless there is some reach for consensus, the divisions will simply get worse. you only have to look at the position on this little forum to understand how strongly people feel.

Whitewave, surely your position would be described as pessimistic, not optimistic? But you are right I think and those of us of the Malthusian mindset feel that in an overcrowded world of scarce resources we best serve the future of our grandchildren by battening down the hatches tending our patch with care and reducing the demands made on what we've got, while the Cornucopians among us wish to continue to wave 'em all in, while keeping to the faith that technology and human inventiveness will stave off disaster!

They might do well to consider the old adage:
"The more the merrier, but the fewer the better fare".

Very clever, Mair. I wonder whether you are male or female - of course you are not obliged to say.

I can certainly find the information relating to the TB levels, however unsure about the evidence suggesting that immigrants are the main cause of the current level in the U.K
Prior to mass immigration, and thanks to the development of antibiotics, TB had virtually become a disease of the past in Britain, and was found almost exclusively among homeless persons and sometimes in large institutions such as prisons.
Today its still found in these groups, but also in BME communities. The fact that children in these communities are still vaccinated is a pointer to this.

I'll have a dig around later and see if I can find more for you.

I understood that poverty and poor housing were always the biggest factor.
That certainly exacerbates it and aids transmission, but native British families are also living in poverty and poor housing, but TB is not a significant problem.

I'll have a dig around later if time and get back to you on this.

I am also finding difficulty in finding supporting evidence for your other comment with regard to immigration.
What comment was that? I have made many!

Who are all these immigrants? I believe they are less than 1% of the population

AS long as the UK exports weapons and other machinery to promote war and bombing, then the Uk must accept its responsibility and take in some of the refugees which have been made homeless by these exports.

Whitewave:
A quick search found this, its a little out of date (2011) but certainly acknowledges the causative correlation.

www.manchester.gov.uk/info/500230/joint_strategic_needs_assessment/6355/tuberculosis/2

TB affects mainly Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) communities in Manchester which is linked to people travelling to Manchester from countries where TB is more common. The number of new TB cases in Manchester has continued to go up over the last 10 years while the number of cases nationally has stabilised.

231 cases of TB were reported in Manchester in 2011, with 80% of cases known to have been born outside of the UK. Most people with TB were born in South Asian or Sub Saharan African countries, and 60% were between 15 - 44 years old. However, recently increasing numbers of children in Manchester have been diagnosed with TB which means that they got infected in the UK.

Margaret
I am sorry to say your 'belief' is quite wrong. The foreign born population was officially 8.9% of the population at the 2011 census.
Of course it has increased since then, and even that figure was certainly an under count, as all censuses are. Illegal immigrants for example do not voluntarily draw attention to themselves by filling in a census.

"Neither immigrant skill levels nor school building policy are germane to this argument, which is about whether or not immigration is causing huge pressure on schools and the NHS. In both cases it certainly is. Without immigration we would b closing schools, not building them, or perhaps we would be maintaining schools while reducing class size (although I must admit I doubt it)."

Mair, I appreciate you have extreme views about immigration but this seems to be completely illogical to me. Do you think we would be doing as well as we have, for all the problems we have encountered, with an aging population, a dropping birth-rate and a severe skills shortage?

Foreign 'born' tells you little Mair, especially as, since the war, many more children are born abroad. With a father from Norfolk and a mother from Somerset I happened to be born abroad because my father was stationed in Germany at the time. It's a spurious statistic when used as you have.

GG
No GG my views are not "extreme". They reflect those of the majority, a desire to control our borders.

I suggest you should consider your own perspective and its role in causing you to designate this as 'extreme'.

And yes a small proportion of native Brits are born abroad but thats irrelevant to the discussion of TB infection since they probably, nay, almost certainly, do not contribute to the infected cohort.

Are you seriously trying to suggest that TB is NOT closely linked to immigration? <shakes head in disbelief>

You have no way of knowing they reflect the views of the majority Mair and controlling borders would not necessarily make any difference to numbers; it might but we cannot be certain that it would. Your views are certainly not what you could call middle of the road.

I was not commenting on the TB statistics but as you have brought it up I agree that the majority of TB patients are from ethnic minority backgrounds but as these are predominantly from South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa I cannot see the relevance to a discussion on the EU.

Keep calm, gracesgran. Mair just makes things up. He's studying for a joint degree in post-factual news and wind up merchandise.

PS. And he obviously received a new dictionary for Christmas.