In 2004 when labour govt allowed free movement to UK to eastern European EU countries, they said only 5,000 to 13,000 people would come...

As of 31 May, the government had received 5.6 million applications for the post-Brexit scheme that allows EU (and EEA) nationals to continue living and working in the UK after the end of this month.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/56846637



Figures in op title found here...

https://theconversation.com/the-huge-political-cost-of-blairs-decision-to-allow-eastern-european-migrants-unfettered-access-to-britain-66077






WTF!!!???

I don’t want to have to click on your links....so nutshell it in your post please?

It seems you are surprised that people want to live where they have chosen to live.  Or, are you surprised that officials undercounted by as much as 80%?

Anyway, I would be suspicious of the Romanians.  "Romania is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and women and children in forced prostitution."  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_Romania

Those applications might be involved in a scheme of sorts.

I'll say it again -- if you're not a criminal, you should be allowed to go to any country you want to. But I always get taken the wrong way when I say this, so let me get ahead a bit, and add:

* I don't think you should expect to be given housing or benefits when you go to the country you want to live in. You need to be prepared to look after yourself as well as you reasonably can.

* I don't believe that people should be able to barge into houses where they aren't welcome -- that's not the same thing as moving to a new city where you presumably have arranged to have a place of your own to live.

* People aren't going to flood into a country that doesn't have enough housing and jobs on offer, unless they're fleeing a war.

So if someone isn't a criminal and is prepared to fend for themselves, why should they be shut out of a country?

I can tell you now, with great confidence, Romanians and Polish are fucking hard-working! I mean they do long hours, never call in sick and work like dogs. I see this every day where I work.

Know who the laziest workers are? The English! Where I work, they are the ones that skive off early and call in sick all the time.

eddie wrote:I can tell you now, with great confidence, Romanians and Polish are fucking hard-working! I mean they do long hours, never call in sick and work like dogs. I see this every day where I work.

Know who the laziest workers are? The English! Where I work, they are the ones that skive off early and call in sick all the time.

Not in this country. They're busy hawking prostitutes.

eddie wrote:I can tell you now, with great confidence, Romanians and Polish are fucking hard-working! I mean they do long hours, never call in sick and work like dogs. I see this every day where I work.

Know who the laziest workers are? The English! Where I work, they are the ones that skive off early and call in sick all the time.

When I worked I seldom had a sick day off all my working life.

OH worked from 15 to 65...same. He was self employed for 40 years, if he didn't work he didnt earn, even when he employed others, he always put in 100% himself.

We are just 2 of millions, we know others the same.... we are English.

I'm not English but I'll agree with Syl. People come here and live in bad overcrowded accommodation, quite often in the black economy for little money but its better than where they came from. Why should British people whose forebears fought for better pay and working conditions work for payment that they can't live on unless they live like those incomers?
Many aren't lazy they just don't want to work and not receive a living wage - too much of that going on already. A person I know has three jobs, she would be better of on benefits, wouldn't pay so much rent for one thing, she prefers to work but struggles to pay rent and feed her family, it shouldn't be like that after all that has gone on all these years to improve things, the potential employees the less you can get away with in pay.
My father worked until he was 70 then had to finish he did so because he liked his job and thought he'd get a better pension, he did but it was taxed and because his income was £2 over the limit he and my mother had no help with anything, next door up guy with a 'bad' back, never worked was looked after royally.
Myself I've worked 50 odd years and still going, my husband 55 years and still going.

Eddie, it's not about individual people from Romania/Poland and how hard working they might be in your experience... It's about all of them and the sheer numbers of them and the detrimental effects of this huge number on the rest of us.


And Ben, you say you think everyone should be allowed to go anywhere they want to go to live... But although that may be a lovely 'woke' type sentiment, it is a completely idiotic suggestion in practice!

Tommy Monk wrote:Eddie, it's not about individual people from Romania/Poland and how hard working they might be in your experience... It's about all of them and the sheer numbers of them and the detrimental effects of this huge number on the rest of us.

What are those detrimental effects? Do you have any facts?

Tommy Monk wrote:And Ben, you say you think everyone should be allowed to go anywhere they want to go to live... But although that may be a lovely 'woke' type sentiment, it is a completely idiotic suggestion in practice!

Why? Nikola Tesla was an outstanding Austrian immigrant in America, who set up laboratories and companies in New York to develop a range of electrical and mechanical devices. His alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC patents, licensed by Westinghouse Electric in 1888, earned him a considerable amount of money and became the cornerstone of the polyphase system which that company eventually marketed.

What a jump in America's industrial capacity! Probably saved your father's ass in WWII, what with lend-lease keeping the UK afloat. We would rather you just said 'thank you', tommy.

Original Quill wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Eddie, it's not about individual people from Romania/Poland and how hard working they might be in your experience... It's about all of them and the sheer numbers of them and the detrimental effects of this huge number on the rest of us.

What are those detrimental effects?  Do you have any facts?

Tommy has a point.

A few years ago, my son,an experienced qualified scaffolder. and the team he worked with, were made redundant on more than one occasion. Companies folded, only to open up again with a complete East European staff, who worked far cheaper because their overheads were far lower.

If offering jobs to a foreign workforce means throwing home grown workers out of work, not because they work better but because they work far cheaper, all this does is line the pockets of exploitative employers and create more long term unemployment.

Tesla was exceptional, and it was happenstance, you could just as easily had Hitler instead. There are no where near a Tesla or two in most immigrants just as there aren't any in the general settled population in any given country.
Why does no one talk about places like New Zealand when it comes to immigration, you have to have required skills to move there, or a lot of money, if there is a citizen who can do the job they get first chance. Bermuda - even money won't get you in there, my cousins have lived there for 50 years working, their children went to Canada and the UK for university, they are not allowed back, being over 21 ad out of full time education, their parents won't leave to visit home in case they won't get back in.
Once a population reaches a certain level anywhere to allow uncontrolled immigration will only cause problems with resources, why shouldn't a country control who goes there..

Vintage wrote:Tesla was exceptional, and it was happenstance, you could just as easily had Hitler instead. There are no where near a Tesla or two in most immigrants just as there aren't any in the general settled population in any given country.
Why does no one talk about places like New Zealand when it comes to immigration, you have to have required skills to move there, or a lot of money, if there is a citizen who can do the job they get first chance. Bermuda  - even money won't get you in there, my cousins have lived there for 50 years working, their children went to Canada and the UK for university, they are not allowed back, being over 21 ad out of full time education, their parents won't leave to visit home in case they won't get back in.
Once a population reaches a certain level anywhere to allow uncontrolled immigration will only cause problems with resources, why shouldn't a country control who goes there..  

I agree.
Unlimited immigration drains a country of employment, houses, education, services....it also allows undesirables to filter in and grow.

Mass immigration pushes up cost of living, predominantly housing costs through reducing available housing, while also holding down wage increases... It also negatively affects our everyday standard of living by increasing road traffic and increasing pollution and making every other public service more overrun.


And as far as everyone being able to go wherever they want, so, you think it would be ok if 509 million people all turned up on the Isle of Wight!?


Or if that many all suddenly decided they wanted to live in London, or Paris for example!?

And Hitler was an Austrian immigrant to Germany Quill, so what's your point!?



We have had countless murders and other crimes committed by East European criminals here in UK too.

Tommy Monk wrote:And Hitler was an Austrian immigrant to Germany Quill, so what's your point!?

Immigrants are not the problem, but conditions are. Britain is currently going through one of those waves of hard times, be it economic, social or political. Inside those waves, the tail wags the dog. You see any advantage going to immigrants as being a detraction to you or your friends/family. They're an easy target. We do the same thing with Mexicans. But when times relax, all you do is enjoy the good times and forget that you ever lambasted Mexicans.

Immigrants are an easy target. A scapegoat. The real problem is the economic conditions that make immigrant labor more advantageous for employers. The irony is that Trump companies lived off Hispanic labor, even though politically he ran on a platform of excoriating Hispanics as "rapists, drug dealers and criminals". You hire rapists in your hotels???

My point is, it's a false issue...one that greases politicians’ asses as they slide through life.

I beg to differ, the country has a high population, there is unemployment. We have limited resources if we are to give every citizen a decent standard of living, if you start piling on the population resources get stretched even in good economic years, making everyone's well no not everyone's but the majority of peoples standard of living worse.
I was born in the 50's our standard of living wasn't great along with many, many others, my father worked full time and dug other peoples' gardens to make a bit extra, my mother cleaned other people's houses and we had just about enough for rent, coal, electricity and food. Things became better for the next generation, we have a lot of people who came here for the heavy industry living in terraces of little houses which clung to the sides of the valleys, for awhile the going was good with the mines and the steel mills etc creating opportunities for other business
in the valleys, plenty of factory work for those not academically minded. Then the bottom fell out of the good times, everything eventually closed down, the valleys are ghost towns for industry and business now, not everyone has suddenly become university material they are very few factories anymore what should we do with the workforce now, why should we take in economic migrants when people who have been citizens for generations have no work and no hope?

Tommy Monk wrote:


Mass immigration pushes up cost of living, predominantly housing costs through reducing available housing, while also holding down wage increases... It also negatively affects our everyday standard of living by increasing road traffic and increasing pollution and making every other public service more overrun.


And as far as everyone being able to go wherever they want, so, you think it would be ok if 509 million people all turned up on the Isle of Wight!?


Or if that many all suddenly decided they wanted to live in London, or Paris for example!?

Reposted for Quill as he seems to have missed it.

Vintage wrote:I beg to differ, the country has a high population, there is unemployment. We have limited resources if we are to give every citizen a decent standard of living, if you start piling on the population resources get stretched even in good economic years, making everyone's well no not everyone's but the majority of peoples standard of living worse.
I was born in the 50's our standard of living wasn't great along with many, many others, my father worked full time and dug other peoples' gardens to make a bit extra, my mother cleaned other people's houses and we had just about enough for rent, coal, electricity and food. Things became better for the next generation, we have a lot of people who came here for the heavy industry living in terraces of little houses which clung to the sides of the valleys, for awhile the going was good with the mines and the steel mills etc creating opportunities for other business
in the valleys, plenty of factory work for those not academically minded. Then the bottom fell out of the good times, everything eventually closed down, the valleys are ghost towns for industry and business now, not everyone has suddenly become university material they are very few factories anymore what should we do with the workforce now, why should we take in economic migrants when people who have been citizens for generations have no work and no hope?  

You make some really valid points Vintage.
There are areas in Wales that rely on seasonal workers, as do most coastal towns throughout England and Wales. Plenty of those seasonal jobs, especially in catering, are advertised abroad and positions filled before local people even have a chance of applying.
Big businesses, including Costa coffee and Butlins have done this in the past.

Bus companies in the North of England have done this also. When challenged, have said local people didn't want the work.
They didn't get the chance to apply.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:Mass immigration pushes up cost of living, predominantly housing costs through reducing available housing, while also holding down wage increases... It also negatively affects our everyday standard of living by increasing road traffic and increasing pollution and making every other public service more overrun.

And as far as everyone being able to go wherever they want, so, you think it would be ok if 509 million people all turned up on the Isle of Wight!?

Or if that many all suddenly decided they wanted to live in London, or Paris for example!?

Reposted for Quill as he seems to have missed it.

I did see that, tommy. Fluctuations might be made, as with any social/economic transition, but they are temporary. As any capitalist will tell you, the market responds and adaptations tend to level things out.

You didn't provide any substantiation, or link, so the argument tends to end there.

For Quill...










Property prices across the UK have almost tripled (risen by 175 per cent) in the past 20 years from £81,628 to £224,337 — £61,365 of that gain (38 per cent) accumulating in the past decade.


https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/house-prices-2010-2020-an-interactive-look-back-at-the-housing-market-last-decade-hph3cldtr


And...


https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/key-topics/pressure-on-healthcare-schools-roads-and-trains

Real Estate is at a premium today. It always is when interest rates are low.

Original Quill wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:

Reposted for Quill as he seems to have missed it.

I did see that, tommy.  Fluctuations might be made, as with any social/economic transition, but they are temporary.  As any capitalist will tell you, the market responds and adaptations tend to level things out.

You didn't provide any substantiation, or link, so the argument tends to end there.

Vintage and I did....but you chose not to address what we posted.

And I posted a graph and two links... But quill then chose to waffle on about interest rates...


He obviously thinks that millions of immigrants can turn up in a small country and don't need anywhere to live, don't use roads or public transport, don't have children who need school places, don't ever need any healthcare or use any other public services...

Syl wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

I did see that, tommy.  Fluctuations might be made, as with any social/economic transition, but they are temporary.  As any capitalist will tell you, the market responds and adaptations tend to level things out.

You didn't provide any substantiation, or link, so the argument tends to end there.

Vintage and I did....but you chose not to address what we posted.

You did not post any substantiation for your claims, toms. Even if factual, "the market responds and adaptations tend to level things out."

Drink a glass of warm milk and go to bed. Everything will be well in the morning.

It's bsic economics Quill... Supply and demand...


You increase demand and the price will rise!!!

Original Quill wrote:

Syl wrote:

Vintage and I did....but you chose not to address what we posted.

You did not post any substantiation for your claims, toms.  Even if factual, "the market responds and adaptations tend to level things out."

Drink a glass of warm milk and go to bed.  Everything will be well in the morning.

It's Syl.

On forums, unless we use them just to post realms of other people's opinions in the form of links, many people will add not only their own personal experiences, but also what they see and hear in their own areas.
Vintage and I described what has happened in our lives and in our areas....some truths don't need official facts and figures in order to be believed.

Tommy Monk wrote:It's bsic economics Quill... Supply and demand...

You increase demand and the price will rise!!!

And in the end, all will be well.

Syl wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

You did not post any substantiation for your claims, toms.  Even if factual, "the market responds and adaptations tend to level things out."

Drink a glass of warm milk and go to bed.  Everything will be well in the morning.

It's Syl.

Yes, I confused you with the post by tommy, which followed.  Soz...

Syl wrote:On forums, unless we use them just to post realms of other people's opinions in the form of links, many people will add not only their own personal experiences, but also what they see and hear in their own areas.
Vintage and I described what has happened in our lives and in our areas....some truths don't need official facts and figures in order to be believed.

Yes, and it's important for you and Vintage, in an anecdotal sense.  But tommy is addressing the greater, generalized picture.

As I told toms, you can't generalize from specifics.  If you adopt the general picture, you can't go back and forth to the individual, anecdotal experience, borrow the data, and argue that it is a valid basis for the quantitative whole.  If you adopt a tense, you've got to stick with it.

We all base generalizations from our own experience.  It’s an easy trap to fall into.  We misinterpret our own eyes for the collective eyes of the whole. So, it is best to keep in mind, when we are speaking for the collective whole, that we must use factual data from the collective whole.  This means quantitative data.