So if we cut net migration to around ~50,000 a year, which is historically the level it has been at, then we'd have fewer instances of crime. What's the problem with that?
I like it when people bring up the past to describe what's sufficient now and would be in the future by throwing in an arbitrary number disconnected from the facts on the ground.
But let's roll with the figure... again. It would not sustain enough working population to a) pay our pensions b) have a healthy education sector c) do a lot of good for our science or services d) damage industries reliant on seasonal labour e) damage sectors needing specialist skills we have a shortage of.
Nonetheless, if our emigration remained static, and we only let in students, rich folk and staff tied to capital investments... we still end up with the net figure of over 100,000. Cameron found out the hard way he couldn't do it. His successor will find it equally as hard to achieve outside of Europe -- the market demand now is what it is.
Or do you want to shrink the economy to the 50s/pre-EU levels too? Retrain everyone on JSA, create them a job, and press every invalid into service to plug the gap to help out? How achievable would this be, and who would pay for it? We struggle to attract shortage-subject teachers, scientists, doctors and healthcare staff into the years of training needed to do the job from our own ranks with generous bursaries, fee wavers, media campaigns and qualified (lower grade) acceptance for adults in certain cases. What would change outside Europe and with no/drastically reduced immigration? You do know that unfilled positions cost the employer by the hour?
On the other end, there aren't as many menial, low-paid jobs as people think there are nor would it get easier to get our own people to do them than it already is. Neither the conditions nor the pay of these vacancies would suddenly improve to afford everyone a middle-income style of living.
Unfilled jobs which support other vacancies due to networks effects may collapse the entire connected employment chain, regardless of which end you decide to yank for whatever ideological reasons. You also have to realise that when wages go up to the point they can sustain less jobs per business than the business needs or can afford, the company cuts back, failing to meet certain orders, and then stops operating if it's still bleeding cash. Spare demand may create new businesses, but if the cost of entry into the industry sector becomes too high -- you guessed it -- the capital goes elsewhere in the economy, whilst workers who cannot re-skill to follow it are left wanting.
Hence why people who shout about more jobs for everyone after the drawbridge is up, may find themselves not only out of a job but with less openings to apply for and opportunities to do anything about it (if the education sector starts to shrink).
deuse said:
The old visa system we used(same as the USA) we knew who they are and what they've done.
I personally like the European-wide crime database and EEA id system just fine. It achieves the same goals for less. Just because our government chooses to occasionally drastically restructure immigration services and border forces, whilst starving them of cash, and mistakes do occur as a result, is no reason to regress on this matter.
