You've said this about "abuse" before, it's been challenged before and you didn't explain what you meant. Please can you do so this time? The "waste" doesn't stand up to much scrutiny either - like many nationalised industries it's ridiculously lean.

I certainly would support higher taxes, and I imagine most of the public is as well. Certainly compared to making people go down the insurance route which is a profoundly unpopular with the British public - and would cost significantly more. I can't see any benefit to it apart from an ideological one.

Some also voted leave to reduce immigration from the EU hoping we'd take more immigration from Asia and Africa. Some also voted leave to 'raise the drawbridge'. My feelings are that Patel is of the latter group.

That's the problem with a binary referendum where the unknown is anybody's guess. It means so many different things to so many different people. It's why Johnson's "get Brexit done" is a complete fantasy. What does 'done' actually look like? What does controlled immigration look like? Is it one in one out? Do we only invite people when there are job vacancies to fill? Do Russian oligarchs count, or is that not immigration?

I know one thing for certain. We'll still be debating what controlled immigration looks like in 5, 10, 25 years time.

Utter rubbish. Don't make things up.


Which is exactly the opposite of what she (and other Tories) said today.


It's quite simple. We allow people who are needed to move here. We look at essential jobs gaps, assess whether they can be filled within the UK and if not, offer them out on a points-based system. Plenty of other countries have robust immigration policies like this in place, yet for some odd reason it's a problem when we suggest it for the UK.

We don't let anyone who thinks the UK looks like a cushty place to move, settle here - which is what is basically happening right now and simply cannot continue. A basic grasp of global geopolitical and climate events will explain why.

The rich will always move where they like, because they are rich. That's just how it is, and how it has always been. But they're not really the issue.

I usually think that, whether I agree or disagree with your posts, you usually put forward well reasoned comments.
However, the whole immigration issue is just bloody toxic.

Personally, as long as people wanting to come to the UK are fundamentally decent people, who are happy to work (reasonably) hard and make a contribution to our society, there shouldn't be a "points" system.

It's a little like chucking people on the scrap heap because they dont have 8 GCSE's and a couple of A levels.
We should be looking beyond bits of paper and certificates.

Also, you rubbish the point about a particular section of the electorate voting Brexit, in order to try and improve the chances of increasing immigration from elsewhere, really ?? Sorry but, on this issue you are just wrong.

How do you test if they are 'fundamentally decent people'? You can't. It's a ridiculous suggestion. So you rely on other measures.

Question: how much is too much? Net migration for the last 10 years has been *roughly* 270k per annum. Last year 612,000 people migrated to the UK and 385,000 people emigrated, a net migration figure of 226,000. How long do you can that continue? I have NEVER heard an advocate of open immigration answer.

The fact is, if we open the doors too much, we will be overwhelmed. Millions want to come here. Many millions. We are creaking at the seams as it is in terms of infrastructure and public services, without even considering our increasing elderly population and the vastly higher birth rates of most immigrants. We are a small island with limited land and resources. How many more towns, roads, etc are we prepared to build?

Immigration is only toxic if you make it so - which is what the left do without fail if anyone questions immigration. For me it's a numbers game: if you don't control the numbers, the numbers get out of hand. You can't play the 'cosy progressive' game forever at this - the numbers don't stack up. At some point the brakes MUST come on and that point isn't too far off. Control it; slow it down.

I sometimes think the left's obsession with the wonders of mass immigration is mainly because the right oppose it. It makes so little sense they're either vastly stupid or so ideologically driven they can't see sense.

I've said it many times and it was repeated on QT tonight: how can you plan for housing and public services (or indeed, anything) if you can't control how many people are about to move in?


So you think non-EU immigrants voted Brexit to reduce EU immigration so non-EU immigration could increase? Just saying I'm wrong doesn't make it so. Prove to me that a significant number voted tactically in this way. Not just hearsay or some statistically irrelevant percentage: show me solid evidence.

I'll just leave this here

The NHS is incredibly efficient but underfunded, please evidence the so called waste and abuse.

Only the richest 5% (earning more than £80,000) will pay slightly more tax under Labour, and corporations whose tax will go to 26% which is very reasonable and will still be taxed at a lower rate than France and Germany, when Labour reverse some of their tax cuts.

Cronus wrote:Utter rubbish. Don't make things up. Don't you remember Priti Patel's pre-referendum message to “save our curry houses”? https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politic ... 1.html?amp Then 3 years later, the anger at the lie. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-industry

Cronus wrote:Utter rubbish. Don't make things up. Don't you remember Priti Patel's pre-referendum message to “save our curry houses”? https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politic ... 1.html?amp Then 3 years later, the anger at the lie. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... t-industry

Amazing you accuse other people of being stupid yet you can't understand the link between A and B here.

The immigration stuff is a desperate attempt to energise the Tory base of racists and xenophobes - and it appears to be having some effect.

Priti Patel's announcement was much ado about nothing - but it had enough anti-immigrant sentiment to draw out those people for whom it is a massive issue; and despite that, as ever, the issues facing the UK are everything to do with swingeing cuts to public services, and nothing at all to do with immigrants, who any fule kno, make a net contribution to the economy and are more likely to work in the NHS, than use it.

We need immigration - not least to counter the twin phenomenon of ageing population and falling birth rates, and I can't wait to see the reaction of the racist gammon when they see that in a post-Brexit, swashbuckling free trade world, those countries we want free trade deals with will insist that visas are part of the package; so whilst EU migration may reduce, there'll be lots more black and brown people, which will really boil their pi$$.