Even if we take this Mail-influenced statement as fact, it has nothing to do with the Tory plans. Somebody coming here just to take advantage of healthcare is hardly going to do so on a long-term visa, are they?
Oh, and another thing - if the immigration system can’t cope with the present bureaucracy (which I don’t think anybody will dispute, certainly not the Torys), how will introducing more be of help?
Like I said - it’s a start. Having said that I do agree that it won’t make a lot of difference, but better than nothing.
So it won’t make a difference to what you identify as the problems, and it’ll harm the skilled immigration that we need?..sounds like worse than nothing, to me.
The problem with immigration is that no one will tell the truth about it. Britain does need immigrants - it needs well educated, english speaking people from outside the EU. It also needs large groups of less well skilled people to do the jobs that the two million idle people in this country can’t be arsed to do - these can come from inside the EU - predominantly Eastern Europe.
My lot seem unwilling to acknowldge that we need these immigrants and the Labour mob are unwilling to attempt to manage immigration to any extent at all. THis is why we are getting so many “asylum seekers” who are quite simply economic migrants.
There is nothing wrong with letting in economic migrants, but there is a great deal wrong with the current system of making them pretend that they are being persecuted. That’s where the quota scheme that Howard has put forward comes in - we decide how many we need and then the people (“pipple” to Howard) apply and the ones that fit our needs get in.
What’s wrong with educated, english speakers from within the EU?
How nice of you to let in the EU Eastern Europeans, I’m sure they’ll be so glad they can come and do all the crap jobs.
:rolleyes:
Techically people moving about the EU isn’t immigration is it? And I am sure that the Eastern Europeans are very happy working in Starbucks. I’d be happier if some of the two million dole moles got off their arses instead of mumping off the state, but you can’t have everything can you?
Where do you get this figure from?
I’ll agree that Labour seem incapable of managing it.
Evidence for this? Again, unsupported Mail-esque statements don’t do your argument any good.
What do you do when the quota for asylum seekers has been reached?
Now that is a clever way of shifting the goalposts. (Weren’t the Torys scared stiff of mass immigration from the new EU states not so long ago?)
Over one million people on invalidity benefit + unemployed/economically idle comes to around 2 million give or take a few.
Not let any more in.
The Mail got it’s knickers in a knot about the impending invasion of the gypsy hordes - but we’re not all Mail readers you know - some of us are actually presentable in public. Plus have you ever tried to get a baby sitter or cleaner in London?
I presume you mean incapacity benefit. You do realise that that means that they’re assessed as not capable of work? (I’ve been there myself - so I guess you just called me idle. :dubious: )
Errrrr…slight problem. Before they become asylum seekers, they have to already be in the country. (It’s not possible to legally enter the country in order to claim political asylum, which is why they have to do so illegally.) So to enforce a quota, you will have to remove them from the country. How do you plan to do that?
Note that the vast majority have some reason to seek asylum because their own countries are so god-awfully fucked up: there is a reason why so many Afghans, Somalians, Central Africans and Iraqis apply for a safe haven where they are not under threat of imminent death. I would like to see the simple words “refugee” or “dissident” reinstated in place of “asylum seeker”, which through utter misuse has come to mean “economic migrant”.
We are at the lower limit of what unemployment rate is economically acceptable: any lower and the workforce would become less ‘expendable’, thus pushing up inflation. Not that you would believe me, owl, but there is genuine unemployment in Wales and the North because Eddie George likes it that way.
They would probably be subjected to absurd rhetorical questions (in true Daily Mail fashion) until they all left in disgust. 
There are certainly people who can’t work - but are you really telling me that there are one million people in Britain who can’t do anything at all? It’s just a way of hiding the unemployment figures (and yes we did it too).
?
It’s not easy but it is doable. Firstly have a visa scheme for all countries likely to give rise to asylum applications. Then have people at airports checking documents etc. Then refuse to accept in-country apllications. And finally deport failed claimants. In any case “asylum” is just the name that we have chosen to give to immigration - if there was a reasonable legal way of getting in, people wouldn’t have to go through this ridiculous charade.
Yes some places are fucked up. I am sorry for the people who have to live there. Not sorry enough to want them to come and live here though. Britain is a small crowded place - we’re full.
And I don’t deny that there are people who are unemployed through no fault of their own. That’s why I’d like to see them taking up some of the jobs that people come halfway around the world to do instead of pretending to be sick.
I agree with you. But you can’t automatically lump all 1m into the ‘idle’ catagory.
So you want people in fear for their lives, possibly persecuted by police and other authorities, to be able to obtain all necessary official documentation to prove they’re in danger? What about the countries where no reliable government even exists?
Tried that, at Prague airport. Immigration officials quickly slipped into blatant racist discrimination. And doesn’t solve people-trafficking by land, nor is it corruption-proof.
In doing so, breaching the UN convention on refugees.
How do you deport somebody to Somalia?
A preposterous statement. Political asylum is a very real concept. (Although I certainly have a problem with anybody assuming that all immigrants are asylum seekers.)
And aging. We need more young people than we’re giving birth to. And in some cases we fucked up their country in the first place.
But that job surplus is often in regions far away from one’s own home: those jobs simply aren’t there in Wales and the North.
We take less than two percent of refugees. We can cope with more than that. We’re not full.
The mechanics are open for debate. What isn’t is that the issue of immigration (of whatever kind) is a big political hot potato and one of a few that there is clear water between the parties on.
The Tories have said that they will leave the relevant convention (The Geneva?) as it was set up following a European war to deal with European refugees and as such has no relevance to our current situation. That makes sense to me.
It’s the 1951 Refugee Convention. Yes, it’s the product of another time. Which is a good reason to argue for reforming it. The Tory stance, that we should abandon it completely, is scary - it validates any other country using a similar approach, even refusing to accept refugees completely, perhaps from a neighbouring state. This could be a huge step backwards.
We can’t reform it on our own. What we can do is leave it and set up our own system that suits us, not the bloody UN (the worlds most useless body). Then we can take as many refugees as we like, not as many as can make their way here by whatever means.
No one is saying that managed immigration isn’t of benefit to the country. What some of us are saying is that this current government aren’t able to manage it very well, and a new approach is required. It IS broke so it needs to be fixed.