Hey now, we've all been doing just fine (with the glaring exception of rulezero
) I for one have learned a lot from this thread, especially about the leave voters (thanks kman)
This is what I was really driving at when I mentioned the racism thing. It might be a very small minority who are actually "racist" per se, but it's a large group that wants to stop/greatly reduce the amount of people coming into the UK. It's a very familiar song as we're going through the same thing here at the moment
our last prime minister, who incidentally got booted by his own party just recently, campaigned with a "stop the boats" slogan.
Got any further reading on that last claim? From everything I've read recently it's the opposite. e.g. I just googled "immigration increase debt". 4 of the top 5 links say overall it's helpful.
The one that doesn't agree is titled "Illegal Aliens Drive Up National Debt - Newsmax.com"
Impact of Immigration on UK Economy | Economics Help
Why migrants may be our greatest economic asset - The Drum (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Goldman Sachs: Immigration the answer to debt crisis caused by ageing populations | City & Business | Finance | Daily Express
Sure. This article is particularly great because not only does it present his reasoning (also backed up by an economics professor at Cambridge), but it also explains why other economists and politicians are wrong and how they derived their answers that immigrants are a net positive. Like anything, this article could also be wrong, but it seems pretty concrete to me. Bear in mind this in particular applies to the UK, it may not be true for other countries, as it comes down to immigrants and how our welfare system works.
Does immigration make Britain richer or poorer? - MoneyWeek
How do I feel about immigration ?
Well, when people on Facebook in the remain group post pictures of NHS workers who are Spanish, German, Greek etc, it really pisses me off. Not because I have a problem with them people, but because Remainers
believe that those who don't like our current immigration do have a problem with it. I don't, and we don't (generally). What we don't like is the ~80,000 or so immigrants coming here who don't get jobs, can't speak English etc etc. They come here for no other reason than to claim welfare. And as evidenced by that article, it would seem even the hundreds of thousands that do get jobs, the majority do the bare minimum so they can claim tens of thousands in welfare. That is what I don't like. And just to be clear, I don't like it when British natives do it either. If you have a medical reason that stops you working, obviously that is fine and I think you should get all the welfare support you need to live a good quality of life. If you are just lazy and don't want to work, then I am not impressed.
So when people say "What will the NHS do without immigrants", I agree ! I don't want to get rid of them, and we won't be. It's not like we're going to deport all immigrants, such a suggestion is absurd. I just want to have immigration based on quality. If a qualified and talented Doctor from Germany, Poland, India etc wants to come and work NHS, then absolutely let them in. Same for other industries. We don't want to stop this, we're not stupid. So again, the majority of us are not against immigration per se, we are against 'bad' unproductive immigrants.
My other issue with immigration is a security one, as it's already been established that terrorists posing as refugees and immigrants got into countries like the UK, France and Germany posing as legitimate migrants.
edit:
Oh and as for rulezero, I have to defend him a bit here as he is completely right. You won't understand unless you voted leave and came from the UK, but ever since that day we've received as voters a constant barrage of abuse. I've been named everything under the sun on Facebook and Twitter every day since the brexit result, and in person at work too. People who were trusted and decent colleagues have just flipped out and stop speaking to me and make off hand comments as I walk by. It doesn't upset me, but it does make me angry. There are people I know who are actually afraid to admit they voted leave, and are instead saying they voted remain, just to avoid the abuse. It's horrendous. It's very hard to stay calm and keep cool under such circumstances.
Gee, I wonder why we don't normally allow discussions about politics & religion...
Because this forum is dieing so it absolutely makes sense to disallow the only topic that everyone can relate too and everyone has an opinion on.