A question for the posters screaming "xenophobe & racist" at people. In your opinion if you held a referendum and allowed all voters to answer the question "Do you think we should allow more immigration or introduce tighter controls akin to the USA and Australia based on points and contribution to the country" do you genuinely think people would vote for more immigration? Of course there should also be provision for humanitarian immigration.
Or is the entire country xenophobic racists?
I'm pretty sure, and no, I can't prove it, that the vote would overwhelmingly be for tighter controls and reduced random immigration. Not because we hate foreigners, but because the UK is fundamentally "full" with the same population as France in a country half the size.
Understandably when times are bad and money is short everything comes under close scrutiny, immigration, benefits and the EU shouldn't be immune from that any more than anything else. Can the UK afford to continue to be a net contributor to the EU in exchange for "fred" being able to go work in a bar in France easily when it's becoming increasingly clear we struggle to take care of the poor and pensioners even in the UK.
No other political party is being serious about the issue so UKIP pick up the votes. Pretty much everyone in the UK is an immigrant whether their family arrived 10 years or 1000 years ago. It has nothing to do with race and everything to do with just being unsustainable in the current climate.
Now, if the question was "send them all back" I would hope the answer would be a resounding two fingers.
I don't think we need to completely abandon relations with the EU, but I do think it needs to be rebalanced somewhat, perhaps something like being in the European Economic Area without full EU membership similar to Norway should be considered?
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