Laurence Dollimore
THE Leave campaign is closing the gap following the release of EU immigration figures last week.
The latest ORB poll revealed Brexit is now only five points behind, having been trailing by 13 the week before.
The news comes after official migration statistics released last Thursday showed that the number of EU citizens moving to the UK had matched an all time high 184,000.
The Leave campaign said the figures show the lack of control Britain has over its borders.
The ‘decision of a generation’ is now just three weeks away.
184000, multiply that by at least 5 and you might be near the true figure.
Just on the lack of control of UK borders (not blaming the EU for that), the UK has 3 small cutters patrolling its coastline, France apparently has 40 and Italy has 600, mainly keeping an eye out for illegal migrants. For years we lived along the Kent coast and quite often small groups of non English speakers were found walking along the coast, M20, and other main roads as well as the rail track towards London. Much appears to have been hushed up though, Ca-moron would want it that way.
On top of this, many migrants have been found on lorries after Dover, but I shudder to think how many really do get in!
The latest finding of 18 Albanians and 2 British people smugglers at Dymchurch shows this could be the tip of the iceberg as that coastline is pitch black at night and not a border patrol anywhere near. It really does grate with so many Brits mainly because successive Gov’ts have done sod all about border controls. Figures for illegals in hiding seem to range from 1 to 1.5 million but how they know true figures is a mystery.
However, for bizarre reasons these people must think the UK is the land of milk and honey!
I’m perfectly happy though with the influx of young well educated Spaniards, French, Italians etc who offer skills, colour, vibrancy and more to essential services as well as retail and cultural services.
The article is specifically about EU immigration figures, so mentioning illegal immigrants arriving by boat under the cover of darkness is off-topic and not relevant to this particular subject of discussion. Illegal immigration can never be stopped entirely. EU immigration is not illegal, and of course we must also realise (painful as it is to some people) that there is also no such thing as an “illegal asylum seeker”. Asylum laws predate the EU and are a UN creation, and each member state sets their own asylum levels (not Brussels). Europe’s demographic has changed, and the EU needs reform. I want to see a reformed EU with more sensible EU member state migration controls – and this will come. Leaving the EU to solve migration issues is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Remember, you can be pro-EU and still want reform.
So glad the media are at last picking up on the illegal immigrant issue as well as so called legal immigration painful as it is to hear. It just adds to the dubious figures given above of 184,000 (what?) and shows how Gov’t hush up the truth. As the article above points out ‘the Leave campaign said the figures show the lack of control Britain has over its borders’
The media are picking it up, but they are constantly conflating it with EU migration (on purpose, of course). Migration figures are never static, they change all the time, but of course more EU migrants are staying in the UK – that is because the UK is so generous in its benefits and other hand-outs. A Spanish friend of mine today says he loves the UK because the UK tax threshold for self-employed workers is so much higher. In Spain it’s like a pathetic 1,500 euros, yet in the UK it’s something like £8000. No wonder people want to come to the UK. Those are UK laws, not the EU’s. Spain is not a magnet for migrants, so perhaps the UK needs to make its system work like they do in Spain? The UK governments are weak.
‘UK Governments are weak’ we agree on that!
Except when it suits them. Re.Hillsborough. The Birmingham Six. Thousands of prisoners rotting, well past their time, on indeterminate sentences. The Miners strike. The “prison works” lie. Insane drug laws. The “Living Wage” lie. Persecution of the disabled. Not weak. Sly.
We all need to ask the question: Why do all these people want to come to the UK?
Well because they get given everything. Money, housing, child benefit etc, etc. Do you think the rest of the EU do the same? NO…
So why do the Brits continue to pay out so much to immigrants?
This is not an EU thing its a UK thing.
Our minimum wage is also the reason people come to the UK and earn x2 x3 or x4 what they can earn in their own countries. Loose the minimum wage and loose the benefits and no-one will come.
Spot on, the UK makes a rod for it’s own back, other countries don’t hand out all those benefits to foreigners as soon as they arrive so why do we?
Why indeed, and is it a EU law that we have to give these benefits? I think not. The EU did not create the NHS; the EU did not create the UK benefits system, and the EU did not create the illegal immigration problems faced by the UK either. Yes, the EU has raised EU migration levels, and that is where reform is needed. Free movement now needs to be reformed to take into account population issues – it has to, or the EU will just collapse, and frankly it deserves to collapse if they cannot reform it.
Lose the minimum wage? you’re an employer I take it?
The minimum wage is a government strategy not an EU one, and it actually benefits business much more than employees, albeit with regional variations.
The fewer people you have in a job market the more competitive employers have to be to attract and retain staff, this fuels inflation.
I can remember the days when 5% + pay increases were the norm, now people are lucky to get anything.
When you artificially fix prices i.e. Minimum Wage, you inevitably attract people from poorer european countries to come over to compete for jobs.
Many of these people have high levels of qualifications & skills, just what the government want, + many coming over are prepared to do work which Brits have long since stopped doing, i.e. working on farms, picking fruit, manual labour, etc.
This influx of labour ends up reducing competition for the employers, (so many people now to choose from), but ends up significantly increasing competition for people trying to get a job.
Also as many of these workers coming over are well educated they don’t just take the lower level jobs, they actually take jobs which were previously or traditionally higher paid.
Employers benefit yet again by offering the previously higher payed job at a lower rate because they now have so many people to choose from who are willing to work for less money.
So Russell, you would like to return to the days (not so long ago) when a job as a security man paid £2.50 an hour, pay for your uniform, bring your own alsatian and drive between patrol jobs at your own expense. Keeping in mind, that membership of even a castrated union was forbidden.
“Now people are lucky to get anything” Exactly. The only thing, for some people, between penury and survival, IS the minimum wage. Your oxymoron reasoning says that low wages makes people richer.
You MUST be speaking from an employers perspective.
Russel Owen,
you really should move to the USA, you will feel right at home there. Your view is totally anti-European. If you saw how an employer had to treat Danish/Dutch/German workers you would have a heart attack. High wage/high living standard countries are doing better financially and something that those who think like yourself never ever mention – quality of life.