Poll: The EU Referendum: How Will You Vote? (June Poll)

[[TW]Fox]

All reports say that we are now absorbing the additional population of a city the size of Liverpool each year.

How to the remain people see this as sustainable?

How do the leave people think suddenly immigration will be zero if we leave, when the majority of immigration to the UK is from outside the EU!?

 

[MookJong]

How do the leave people think suddenly immigration will be zero if we leave, when the majority of immigration to the UK is from outside the EU!?

Who thinks that? The idea is to control the numbers and manage it at a sustainable level based on available housing and public facilities. We don't want to shut the borders, we want to control them.

So I put it to you again, how is it sustainable?

 

[awaybreaktoday]

Who thinks that? The idea is to control the numbers and manage it at a sustainable level based on available housing and public facilities. We don't want to shut the borders, we want to control them.

So I put it to you again, how is it sustainable?

All Citizenships British Non-British EU Non-EU
Immigration 630,000 83,000 547,000 270,000 277,000
Emigration 297,000 123,000 174,000 85,000 89,000
Net Migration 333,000 -39,000 373,000 184,000 188,000

 

[Roar87]

How do the leave people think suddenly immigration will be zero if we leave, when the majority of immigration to the UK is from outside the EU!?

No one thinks zero, yes it's a majority but they're very similar figures. You should be a Politician. People also need to remember that immigration figures quoted *ONLY* include the legal one's we know about. The actual numbers will be much higher.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

But if you stop squeezing everyone you end up sending prices up for everything and people buy less.
I really don't believe in our civilization you can get away from greed. It's how things work

Well maybe that's the bigger issue here? There's already quite a large body of academia supporting the formation of new 'post-growth' economic policies, and none of them advocate for consumerism-encouraging free trade deals.

 

[[TW]Fox]

No one thinks zero, yes it's a majority but they're very similar figures. You should be a Politician. People also need to remember that immigration figures quoted *ONLY* include the legal one's we know about. The actual numbers will be much higher.

The only numbers that matter are the legal ones as illegal ones are not EU citizens are they?

 

[Six6siX]

You can't outsource cleaners, builders, bin men, shelf stackers etc to abroad can you? The vast majority of minimum wage jobs cannot physically be relocated out of the country so no, they can't just do that.

But why is it that Supply & Demand law, which is accepted in every area of business magically doesn't apply to opening up low paid jobs to more potentiality applicants? Supply and Demand is a fundamental part of business theology yet you are saying in this one specific instance it's not true, you can in fact increase the availability (no of workers to pick from) and the price (their wages) for some counter-intuitive reason stays the same???

That's exactly what I'm saying because there is a fixed lower limit - the minimum wage. At this end of the scale, it completely negates the argument that people who are willing to do the same job for less will take jobs from those who aren't.

The supply can increase it all it likes for jobs at this level but there's only so low the wage can go. If that is too low to be a living wage, then the minimum wage is what needs reviewing, not the immigration policy.

Lets use a small scenario to show what I mean.

Let's imagine you live in a village of 1,000 people. There is no freedom of movement allowed from the surrounding county and you can only employ people from within the village.

Now, Mr Jones creates a cleaning business and he needs 10 cleaners to work for him. Let's say 2% of the people of the village would be willing and are able to take the job, so 20 people. Great, but those people all have different wage expectations ranging from minimum wage to twice the minimum wage, fairly distributed amongst the candidates.

So to get the full 10 workers you'd have to meet the 10th lowest expectation which is around £3 over minimum wage, and would have to offer that to all. So the cleaners get over £10 an hour.

Now the government says, you can now employ anyone in the county and they are free to move around the villages to work.

Well now Mr Jones can easily find 10 people who'll work for the minimum out of the 200 potential people he has to fill the 10 spaces he has. So the cleaners get minimum wage.

You are suggesting that isolating ourselves from the workforce in rest of the EU will benefit the country by way of artificially increasing wages due to a lack of external influence. The general cost of living will also track this. You reckon the rest of the European and world economy will do the same? How will Britain, on it's own, then be able to compete in the export or wider market with it's higher prices? What about non-EU immigrants?

In addition to this (as has already been mentioned by others), it'd be fair to assume that a successful small business (owner) employs someone on their strengths and chooses the right person for the job based on their qualifications, skills, experience etc as that is in the best interest of the company. If it so happens that that person has a lower wage expectation, then bonus. Larger businesses employing many staff in this same lower wage bracket (thinking retail, catering, service industry etc) often have a static pay structure hierarchy. Everyone gets the same anyway so it doesn't matter whether there are more people - it doesn't affect the pay.

So why when you scale that up to the UK and t's relationship with the EU why does that quite basic maths stop working? It makes no sense to claim giving businesses a much bigger pool of works to offer to wouldn't see a drop in wages.

Because it is not basic maths. It's a much wider and more complex issue than supply and demand in the workforce - we are in a highly interlinked global economy and clearly the UK needs to be able to compete within that market. I think cutting ourself off for the sake of the archaic concept of 'sovereignty' or attempt to artificially boost the local economy is likely to do us no favours in this regard.

 

[MichaelAwkward]

Did they ever explain why there was a massive discrepancy between the EU immigration numbers and the number of national insurance numbers issued to EU citizens?

 

[awaybreaktoday]

Leaving or staying in the EU will have no effect what so ever on immigration in the UK. None what so ever. It does not matter how much control we put on our borders the numbers will not change, the only likely change would be an increase in the numbers coming into the UK.

Also immigration has no effect on the money in my pocket and the cost of things I buy in the shop. I believe the UK leaving the EU will increase my cost of living therefore having an effect on the money in my pocket, therefore i am voting to stay.

It all comes down to the bottom line, which will cost me more in the long term, in or out. Out will cost me way more.

 

[RaohNS]

How do the leave people think suddenly immigration will be zero if we leave, when the majority of immigration to the UK is from outside the EU!?

That's exactly our view then. If most are non-EU the second they enter the EU they have rights.

I am generally not against other Europeans moving here. I am not general against anybody moving here but the level at which it happens should not be a deluge but drips.

We are seeing in Europe something which has never been seen before as we are seeing a threat to cultural identity. Cameron has utterly failed on his promises to curb the number of people coming in. He said tens of thousands (optimistic I admit) but then the figures were over 200,000 iirc.

There was an old estimate possibly getting on for 5 or 6 years now that said there is half a million people in London whom we know nothing about. We have an asylum policy that firstly arrests illegal immigrants and then lets them go never to be seen again.

That system is a disgrace. I agree an Australian points system and tough line came in. My Uncle used to live in Queensland and said a lot of Aussies hate them because of the way they behave and what they bring. The first rule should be if you gain entry illegally all future rights to stay are gone. We are talking about making, keeping and enforcing the rules. The ones in place now are more or less inconsequential.

Immigration is one aspect but we have to ignore the noisy loudmouth rabble that think they speak for all or try to drown out opposing views; and implement a very strict and harsh system. It may not be nice to Mr Somalia or Mr and Mrs Mehmet but this is our system and you will follow it.

My grandfather and hundreds of thousands like him after WW2 came here and every day for five years I think my dad said he had to go and sign at the local police station, stay in a hostel of sorts (wasn't allowed access to housing) and a host of other measures I'm quite sure. He told me the reason he came here was that Britain offered more cigarettes than Italy, France or America hence his choice. He had to apply and couldn't do nothing until accepted.

Anything wrong with that system?

 

[izzop]

Did Cameron really say we can control EU immigration???? How exactly?

Of course he didn't. They haven't a clue how to tackle it.

However, all of a sudden...

We can control migration inside EU, says PM

Staggering

 

[MichaelAwkward]

Leaving or staying in the EU will have no effect what so ever on immigration in the UK. None what so ever.

How so? I mean sure it won't magically fall to zero, but if we don't immediately join up to a trade deal that includes freedom of movement (seems likely considering how big of an issue it is to the leave campaigns), surely EU migration will drop severely in the short term, unless you're claiming that all of the current immigrants from the EU would meet visa requirements currently applied to non-EU migrants?

 

[PlacidCasual]

Trade

I read this intersting article in the Telegraph this week about the Norwegian model and it's usefulness to the UK but the new bit on me was that it suggested we could continue with the existing EU trade deals even after leaving.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...pt-that-norway-model-is-the-only-safe-way-to/

There would be no need for a desperate rush to both reach a modus vivendi with the EU and to renew all the EU's 80 bilateral deals with other countries and regional blocs before the two-year guillotine fell under Article 50, the EU secession clause.
Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, a former EU trade official (and Nick Clegg's wife), argues that Britain is so short of trade expertise that it would struggle to assemble 25 experts even after repatriating staff from the EU.
In this she is right. Where she is on shakier ground is to claim that we would need 500 officials "working intensely for a decade" to renew our third party trade deals.
Really? There is a simple administrative mechanism for the switch-over. All it requires is a filing at the United Nations under the "presumption of continuity" and trade goes on as before, a procedure used time and again over the post-war era.
This is what occurred after the break-up of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. It was the formula used for decolonisation in the 1960s. It would take a willful decision to override this mechanism of international law, and it is hard to see why a close allies such as US, Canada, or Japan would act in such a fashion.

I'm really quite surprised that the Vote Leave campaign hasn't made more of this, assuming it is accurate.

 

[McBain]

Of course he didn't. They haven't a clue how to tackle it.

However, all of a sudden...

We can control migration inside EU, says PM

Staggering

He said he did not accept that his pledge to cut immigration below 100,000 could not be achieved within the EU.

lol.

 

[joeyjojo]

Who thinks that? The idea is to control the numbers and manage it at a sustainable level based on available housing and public facilities. We don't want to shut the borders, we want to control them.

So I put it to you again, how is it sustainable?

Fox's question still stands. If most immigration is from outside the EU, why are "leavers" focussing so much on EU immigration and ignoring the larger problem?

 

[Roar87]

Leaving or staying in the EU will have no effect what so ever on immigration in the UK. None what so ever. It does not matter how much control we put on our borders the numbers will not change, the only likely change would be an increase in the numbers coming into the UK.

Also immigration has no effect on the money in my pocket and the cost of things I buy in the shop. I believe the UK leaving the EU will increase my cost of living therefore having an effect on the money in my pocket, therefore i am voting to stay.

It all comes down to the bottom line, which will cost me more in the long term, in or out. Out will cost me way more.

Could you explain how moving from a free movement system to a controlled system will have no effect what so ever on immigration please

 

[Roar87]

Fox's question still stands. If most immigration is from outside the EU, why are "leavers" focussing so much on EU immigration and ignoring the larger problem?

EU immigration is 180k, non EU immigration is 200k. Cutting the EU figures by half or more would still drop the numbers massively.

 

[McBain]

So Dave's plans to cut immigration is to wait for the Brits to jump ship? You couldn't write this stuff.

 

[cosmogenesis]

I would imagine that the big reason that immigration cant be tracked easily if at all is that its costly to bother doing so. Perhaps too costly. the official numbers were 334,000 last year, round 50% from non and EU migration.

The UK economy is strong, leaving the EU would mean more immigration and not less and if we get all these new trading agreements with these willing and cooperative countries then surely we will need more people coming here to work and not less.

My doubt is that leaving will mean anything significant regarding immigration numbers. The country obviously needs certain levels of immigration, any know the exact figure for a prosperous economy?

 

[Metallifux]

Well that just goes to show how out of touch you are with this country. I fully expected it and was not disappointed.

I think it shows how little faith I have in our media outlets. Particularly the Murdoch owned ones, oh and the Beeb.