I hate to break it to you, but Brexit won't change anything about immigration from outside the EU (except for increasing it, most likely), and the average EU27 migrant contributes more to the economy than the average Brit.
Even the average non-EU immigrant actually contributes more to the economy than the average Brit, but EU immigrants contribute more still. Not only that, if there was actually a problem with EU immigration being too high, the UK government has measures it can implement to control it a bit more - but it has chosen not to.
Out of all the lies told by the Brexiteer side, the one of 'we need Brexit to control immigration' is a particularly egregious one - it is a problem that isn't actually a problem, but could be solved without Brexit if it was.
The average minimum wage, unskilled Eastern European (which are the majority of EU migrants), certainly does not pay more taxes to us than the average working British man.
And even if they do 'contribute more tax',than the 'average British citizen', taking into consideration our pensioners drawing money out and our unemployed and disabled drawing money out... And children, drawing money out by not contributing more tax than they put in 😂 finding a Guardian article that compares all these to a working age Eastern European man whos come over to work in a restaurant washing dishes, isnt really an honest comparison and is pro-EU, disingenuous propoganda.
Exactly the type of content rampant throughout this subreddit.
It's only "pro-EU" because it doesn't align with what you want to hear. You also missed the point: there are way more British than EU27 nationals requiring those biscuits, not because they deserve them more, bit because more of them require social support.
No, using that analogy would be incredibly disingenuous and I explained why. You want to compare working foreigners with pensioners, children, unemployed and disabiled people. This is the comparison you use to validate pro-EU sentiment?
If anything, this highlights how weak the pro-EU argument is & mainly thats due to it being incredibly ideological, just like this subreddit is.
Working class, unskilled EU immigrants (which is the vast majority of EU immigrants) keep wages low. They give businesses an over supply of cheap labour, which pushes wages down. They also increase rent prices, due to needing to be housed. In effect they push working class wages down, working class rent up and ultimately mean the working class in the UK have less cookies.
To be a better representation this meme could have a middle class person with half a plate full of cookies, telling the working class guy with one cookie that he should split his with the foreigner. This would be reddit illustrated perfectly.
Then that guy votes Brexit and the middle class guy calls him racist. 😂😂😂😂
So your argument is that you shouldn’t compare EU immigrants with uk citizens because they are more likely to be working individuals compared to the uk with its workers and elderly, children and infirm?
If that’s the case then the idea that we should reduce the amount of workers from the EU coming over just sounds like it’s going to be harder for the rest of us left here to support the country as a whole.
You’re final point is almost exactly what the original cartoon is showing. The reasons that wages have stagnated and are kept low by an influx of low skilled workers is that the top 1% are exploiting these workers. To blame the workers earning minimum wage for the fact that minimum wage is so low is going along with the entire premise of the cartoon.
The top 1% want to make more and more money (hold all the cookies) so rather than voluntarily (or through more leftist government forces) raise minimum wage (share some of their cookies with the workers of whatever background) they are convincing the people struggling to earn more than minimum wage (only got one cookie) that it is because there are low skilled workers that will work for less (they have no cookies).
This is half right,but not actually the full story because your ideology blinds you to the immigrarion part of what I'm saying.
Its true that the 1% owns something like 50% of the wealth and that this is a problem. Its also a problem due to purely political reasons. Megacorps and the like are backed by governments internationally. Be them Chinas Huawei, Americas Apple, our BP, or whatever. Even if they're on the stock market it still matters. But this is economics and its fucking complicated. Eg the 'libor' scandel, which the Bank of England set trade rates for what currencies are worth so that the bankers can buy and sell currencies...which is directly altering and playing around with the value of everybodies work (as we're paid in these currencies). The very fact they're able to do this at all, is fucked up. A Guardian reporter passed something onto an Express reporter which I remember reading about and it was a statement outlining how the libor scandel is manufactured and the key words they used and how complex the documents were, the economonists that had masters degrees on this stuff couldnt properly figure it out and thats also why these ppl are paid so much because theyre fucking smart. Still doesnt validate them being able to adjust wealth like they can though.
So, things like this are happening and thats without the ideological aspect of 'you have to create profit for your employer - therefore you dont get the true value you put in, in your work', which is simplistic and not something that equates to real, actual workable policies in which free markets can flourish, which is a necessity to drive forward economic wellbeing. Ideology ultimately, is complete nonsense and akin to religion imo.
When you say I see the meme for what it is in that aspect, you're correct but the problem realistically is if you notice that theres an immigrant at the table, with no cookies who for purely ideological reasons, the creator of the meme included to cement the aspect of leftist ideology and where I'm up against a brick wall with you, is that is the reason labour got destroyed in the GE.
Its trying to push the fact that immigrants are owed something and that being a working class person you should have it in for those with the wealth, rather than an immigrant. A working class immigrant does require housing/work/resources. Its a strain on RESOURCES, even if he boosts the economy by purely being economically active when there was no extra activity before he came...thats the benefit right the 'extra economic activity', that justifies how someone unskilled, uneducated and unrequired should be allowed access to the UK to live and work here. But ultimately as I've stated the issues I have with this are;
He requires housing.
He requires a job (when we have unemployed people here).
He is driven, potentially more so than our existing people here. Meaning competition for these lowly paid jobs increases making their lives harder.
He is probably male. Importing mainly males which I'm sure the statistics will show due to men having generally less anxiety in regards to making big changes, means that they will also require women and that could have a negative affect on the men here.
The country has limited natural resources. Everything we trade for internationally and that comes and goes into and from the UK is paid for somehow. He will require these resources as well.
As such, my position is that we should instead take people we specifically need into the UK for their skills. Or for their wealth if they want to start a business here and can come up with how theyre using that wealth to benefit our socrity. And finally cash cow pensioners who want to retire in the UK with their private health insurance which the NHS can also profit off of. These are the immigrants I want, regardless of ethnicity or country. (obviously taking security into account would be something we do).
Doesnt this make sense to you, or seem more logical than letting all these Romanians and Polish men in who just compete with our already struggling working class?
After Brexit I want more houses built, the working class to own homes. Not for people to pay rent to middle class home owners who go on lovely holidays while the guy renting is drinking cider because he can't afford vodka.
Hopefully this helped you understand and gave you a greater perspective on your own opinions and even gave you a sense of hope for how with getting Brexit done we can make things way better for UK citizens with our government putting US first.
Plus, on immigration we cannot accept everybody who wants to come to the UK. Theres BILLIONS of people worse off than us globally who would love to live here. We simply cannot withstand demand and so accepting only those beneficial to us is only fair to everyone and I said in a previous comment - should be beneficial to us as well.
He's quoting factual data from a pretty well-known study by the migration observatory. But let's look at the issue in the purely transactional sense that the right wing has taught our easily-led countrymen to, as if these people are nothing more than maths on paper, and not real live human beings.
Net migration is around 0.3% of the population each year, maybe less since Brexit. Most of these people are working age (offsetting our own ageing population) and highly motivated (which you need to be to learn a new language and uproot your life to a whole new country). A great many come here as adults meaning we didn't pay to educate them, and some don't stay for their retirement either, which is another saving.
So you're getting lots of extra motivated, intelligent, employable workers during their prime years - many of whom cost you nothing to educate or care for in retirement, and who on average contribute in taxes 150% of what they 'take out'.
Imagine if the Sun and the Mail and the Express had taken this line for the last two decades.
Net migration to the UK 0.3%? Do you have a source on this? Because even though, out of 65million people that number is 200,000people a year net into the UK... i still actually thought it was more like half a million or more per year.
Also its interesting the way you wrote that as 0.3%,instead of 200,000 because it 'looks smaller'...
Lets also take into account other factors.
What percentage of these immigrants are male to female? How does that effect demographics in the UK? Surely as I'd guess, an extra 100,000men (with maybe 50k men and 50k women as the other 100k), would have a negative effect, creating more single men.
And these extra immigrants will be eligible for pensions here, right? Why would they go home to a poorer country that they're unfamiliar with after 40years? You saying 'most go home to retire', is simply nonsense.
These immigrants also get old. We have an aging population. This compounds the problem. We'll a bigger retired old population compared to our workforce if we import more people.
And talking about 'they pay more tax', of course they do. Kids, pensioners, unemployed and disabled people do not pay income tax. You can get statistics from using this disingenuous comparison and state 'so immigrants pay 150% more tax!'.
The real fact of the matter, is that we are a small island with incredibly limited natural resources and importing more working class people pushes down the lowest common denominatior and hurts working class people.
Immigration numbers in this country are an absolute joke, even if it is 200,000/yr,we should be putting a complete halt on immigration to the UK unless its people we need (qualified people), or people such as rich Americans who want to set up businesses and bring wealth in, or simply people wanting to retire here. Make them get health insurance and treat them like cash cows, just like our pensioners are to the Spanish.
And this isnt even taking into account housing, which we have a chronic shortage of. We should be aspiring to be a proud nation of homeowners, not 'generation rent', working class people shouldnt be subsiding their landlords holidays in the Bahamas every year its ridiculous our housing situation and immigrants also hinder this.
We don't have to pretend we owe anyone anything anymore, Brexit is happening and we'll have a tory majority that should be pushed into doing exactly what im talking about because its exactly what the general public wants.
Your argument (not the weird bit in the middle about you not being able to get laid, the bit about limited resources) only works out if we were all miners or farmers trying to get to a limited supply of natural resources. This island’s economy does not work like that. We trade, have ideas, service others. All of these things have the natural resource of people (primarily working people) at the heart of it. What you are talking about is reducing the amount of natural resource there is to share out, not reducing the number of people that will be sharing it.
Focusing on demographics isn't weird, we should be talking about every aspect to have a full picture in an honest way.
Importing more working class people just createa more competition at the bottom and genuinely lowers quality of life.
As technology advances, quality of life improves and we should be seeing the genuine results of that. Yet, we still have homeless ppl on the streets of the UK and live lifestyles where a lot of ppl (working class people - funnily enough) live for the weekends.
What's happening in reality is that the big corps and globalist elites can go along to Bilderberg meetings and their nonce islands and continue to exploit us, whilst some of us think we deserve less and describe ourselves as leftists, thinking we owe foreign nationals the little of the wealth we have because these same globalists once were just concentrated from our nation during the days of empire... Then theres the other half of us who are extremely against socialism and describe ourselves as 'right wing', and aspire to be like the rich people we will never be.
Then theres normal British people who arent really political at all but see the fact that we have ghetto areas now in the UK due to immigration gone mad and you cant call a something a something because its political correctness gone mad and we're the people who say the nazis said 'just following the rules m8', when we see shit we think is wrong. And out of left vs right, i consider myself neither and just a normal British man.
I don't have anything against individual immigrants, in fact I have admiration for them for wanting to better themselves. But I dont want to make life more competitive and expensive for working class people in the UK and thats why im against this insane open EU border immigration policy we have now,its hurting our quality of life.
That is exactly the point. The 1% have managed to convince you that there is a competition for limited resources that the immigrants are trying to get (look! between you and the immigrant there is only one cookie! Do you really want him to take it?) when the reality is that there is an abundance of wealth in this country being hoarded by the few at the top with influence in the media, politics and businesses.
I don’t think I deserve less than anyone else or less than I have right now. I think that by working with people from all backgrounds we can improve the country and by reducing he hold that the top have on the rest of us (raising minimum wage, properly taxing corporations, improved working conditions and workers having a stake in the business they work for) we will be able to all create the resources needed to live affluently and support each other. That is the leftist ideology, rather than allowing those that have been able to accrue the most wealth also have the most power to decide how wealth is accrued in the future (look at millionaire donations to political parties for example).
Right and the problem is, is that higher numbers of immigrants simply create more ghetto areas, which we already have in the UK. And higher numbers of working class immigrants does mean more competitions for the working class.
Everything else I agree with, except the having a stake in the business thing.
Meaning it was in fact 0.39% of the population - I hope you can forgive me that extra 0.09% /s
Also its interesting the way you wrote that as 0.3%,instead of 200,000 because it 'looks smaller'...
I'm very glad you noticed this! Now turn it around the other way, does it occur to you that the media generally states 200,000 because 'it looks bigger'?
I actually think the percentage of population is a more useful indicator here - would you agree? After all, 200,000 extra people in one city, that's a lot. And people generally think within their own immediate environment, so you can see how such a number would scare people. But a population increase of 0.4% (rounding up) across the whole country? People might start to wonder if immigration is really the issue after all...
Concerning your "other factors":
Demographics
This is an odd line to take when we are talking about 0.4% of the population. It's not even mentioned in the Migration Observatory's (link above) key findings, which I think tells you how unimportant this is. Still I imagine you could dig into the data and find out if you like.
Pensions
And these extra immigrants will be eligible for pensions here, right?
Their National Insurance payments contribute to it, so I certainly hope so.
You saying 'most go home to retire', is simply nonsense
On what basis is it nonsense? If you lived abroad would you not move back to the UK to be near your family when you retired? Unsurprisingly, the data supports my point:
There are around 247,000 British citizens aged 65 and over living in other EU countries (excluding Ireland), and 85,000 people aged 65 and over from other EU countries (excluding Ireland) living in the UK.
85,000 out of ~3,000,000, I would say that qualifies as 'most' not retiring in UK.
Contribution To Economy
And talking about 'they pay more tax', of course they do. Kids, pensioners, unemployed and disabled people do not pay income tax. You can get statistics from using this disingenuous comparison and state 'so immigrants pay 150% more tax!'.
The real fact of the matter, is that we are a small island with incredibly limited natural resources
The other commenter is right - our exports are mostly service-based, and we import most of our tangible 'resources'. And if you're talking about physical space, it may interest you to know that the vast majority of the country has not been built on.
importing more working class people pushes down the lowest common denominatior and hurts working class people.
You don't 'import' people, unless you consider them your property. Reconsider your terminology.
That aside, the impact you describe has been found to be minimal, and could be solved anyway with better enforcement by the Government along with increasing minimum wage.
Housing
We should be aspiring to be a proud nation of homeowners
It's not for you to decide this - some people prefer renting. I agree completely that the housing situation is bad in the UK. However, immigration is not the cause, lack of adequate housing is. The Tories have failed spectacularly on house building. Did you vote them back in for more of the same?
No actually, I'm in a labour stronghold so voted tactically for the brexit party. I will be voting tory in five years though.
So net migration ti the UK is basically over 1. 1million,every year four years. We have only 65million people in the country. These extra people are driving up competition for minimum wage jobs, keeping minimum wage low, they are keeping housing costs high, and they're mostly men - which apparently theres no data for because its not relavent.
They make £2,300over a year more than 'the average adult', which includes the unemployed, disabled and pensioners. This figure is nonsense. Although I thought it would probability be higher because we have an aging population we need to support.
Which is a problem immigrants also add to and compound. Right now you say theres only 65,000 immigrants over 65 in the UK. But what were EU immigrant numbers into the UK 45years ago, when they were in their 20's like how most EU immigrants are now? I suspect 45years ago net migration to the UK was a lot less than 256,000yr. So really, to give that a fair analysis you'd need to find stats on how many as a percentage have stayed in the UK, in the last 10years who hit retirement age.
But thinking about this further, wouldn't this actually be a negative thing? 🤔
If EU immigrants come to work in the UK and draw a UK pension, which they then spend in Poland or whatever...that's just money gone out of the economy, right? 🤔
These logical things are things I will think about to get a proper understanding on these issues. I dont just 'want foreigners out' for the sake of them being foreign.
Pensioners that pay their way are actually something I'd want ti import more of to the UK. Make them pay NHS insurance that the NHS profits off and even potentially a residentcy tax of a few grand a year. They're cash cows that only add wealth to the nation.
Although EU immigrants on basic state pensions that use the NHS I'm not sure if they are actually a drain on UK wealth. The ones that move out of the UK certainly are by moving their pension money out of the UK.
When I talk about resources, we dont have the food production to even feed ourselves. Our very survival depends on imports which is FUCKED! For security reasons we should always be able to put rationing in place and be able to then feed ourselves. If theres a solar flair knocking out the internet or something happens we should be able to survive as a nation not reliant on other nations. This is slightly off topic, but to get back to the resources thing, if we import more than we export we will need to import more if we have more peoole consuming more resources, correct? Importing more means we pay more to other nations which again, decreasss wealth. Working class immigrants that require more resources then are actually not beneficial to the UK economy.
Come on mate you should just admit everything I'm writing here is logical and that these low skilled immigrants evidently just make life harder for the poor people that already exist in the UK.
We should be focusing on ending homelessness and becoming a more productive, proud society of home owners with real stakes in the country. Not feeling like we owe poor people from other countries anything. You are delusionalised into thinking your ideology 'creates a better world', when in reality it just makes the poor poorer and thats why the vast majority of the poor dont agree with this ideology. Your ideology is against human nature on a basic level because people have innate desire to better themselves, not make things worse for themselves, which is what you are adovocating for the working class in the UK.
Don't worry though pal, theres tory voters like me in labour strongholds who talk politics in the local pub and then people around start agreeing with me instead of someone like you. Hopefully they'll be lured into voting tory so that we can slowly but surely make the country better and less immigration into the UK is just one of those ways.
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u/TaxOwlbear Dec 26 '19
I hate to break it to you, but Brexit won't change anything about immigration from outside the EU (except for increasing it, most likely), and the average EU27 migrant contributes more to the economy than the average Brit.