It’s not brexit, although that may have compounded the issue. Brexit means that we have less skilled workers coming in via the legal route, and so immigration as a whole is more of a problem because the proportions are worse in terms of being illegal or unfit/unqualified to work. So what we have now is less ‘useful’ immigration and more ‘drain on the state’ immigration.
Even the most bleeding heart liberals who are favour of letting in unvetted potential murders and putting them up free of charge in hotels…must have a cut-off point where they don’t necessarily object to immigration in principle, but realise that this country can’t sustain this rate without a complete collapse of public services and the economy.
I’ve worked in a secondary school recently, and it’s obvious the country has massive problems just from being in that environment. The standard of education is dropping, due to very poor behaviour standards. The children are in charge, we’ve just done mock exams for y11, a lot of these children are refusing to sit in the exam rooms, needing extra staff to deal with them being disruptive, negotiating being in there less time etc, being very rude, they even have parents that side with them rather than tell them to do as they are told. SEN is used as an excuse for bad behaviour constantly, the children have to be ‘understood’ and not punished, the ‘deprived home life’ has to be considered…there are no expectation standards on the parents at all, the parents even call the school expecting the school to sort out rows between siblings that are happening at home or their child putting on weight because they are sitting in front of a games console all the time at home. There are many children who, after having entered state funded education (nursery) at the age of 3, by the age of 16, with the government funding that education for 13 years…then sit in their GCSE exams and decide not even to open the question papers and intentionally fail. Insanely, there’s nothing that can be done to push children to actually care. We need something like the American system where kids can’t play sports unless they do their homework and complete exam papers (no matter the actual grade, just that they are trying), or there is some other benefits that are taken away, like making them hand in their phones so they don’t have them to play with at lunchtimes if they aren’t working in lessons etc, or putting a 10% cut on the parent’s child tax credit to make the parent care about their child’s behaviour. If this sounds cruel, believe me it isn’t…these same children who apparently can’t read/write/behave due to SEN etc…as soon as they step outside the classroom they are typing on their phones, they are arranging to play FIFA online at a certain time, they are discussing their money and how much they can spend on their new phones…therefore these children do have basic literacy, organisational skills, ability to learn etc
The staff at this school spend more hours, and therefore more cost, in dealing with behaviour and the home-life of the kids, trying to gently persuade them to do 10mins of work per 7 hour school day…than they do in constructively teaching. This is in a city school, but not a major city, it has a low number of immigrants. If this school had a higher number of kids who arrive unable to speak English (as is happening in larger cities)…I think that the education of the majority of the children, aside from the top 10-20% who genuinely arrive at school wanting to work and push their way through all the distractions and ignore all the bad behaviour…must be tanking horrendously.
The reason I’m flagging this is because in addition to bringing in undocumented migrants who can’t work legally, or even if they do get granted to remain….either don’t speak good English or any qualifications they have can’t be verified…so they remain a drain on the state even if they are working as they can’t get off minimum wage…there is also a large chunk of children leaving the school system who are essentially unemployable.
When you are constantly increasing the proportion of society who are either unemployable or can only reach minimum wage…that is a recipe for tanking the economy and raised taxes for everyone else (which is already happening, which Labour is trying to disguise).
The answer, unfortunately, to the migrant/asylum situation, is to do something drastic and unpalatable. People are crossing several safe countries in Europe before making a dangerous channel crossing, knowing they may die in the process. That means there is something they are getting in the UK that the rest of Europe isn’t providing. I don’t know what the benefits systems are like in other countries…but I’m guessing ours are better. I’ve seen photos of tent camps where migrants stay in France…yet when they arrive in the UK they are put in hotels…there is your problem…the only way to stop them risking their lives with that dangerous crossing is to ensure that what they get for doing is no better than what they are getting in the place they have left. Anyone over 18 coming here should be in an encampment until they receive remain status or are deported, safe but not comfortable conditions, no access to cigarettes or alcohol, no cash provided, just meals and a safe place to sleep, compulsory English lessons, access to the same level of healthcare we get and no queue jumping. Fingerprinting and DNA taken on arrival and stored indefinitely and checked against interpol before they are granted asylum, access to sports for health purposes but no access to costly entertainment such as cinema or games consoles. Work duties assigned within the camp so they have to change their own bedsheets and cook their own meals etc and maintain the grounds of the premises, to avoid having to pay for even more staff to just to provide for them the things that the rest of us have to do for ourselves.
This system of immediately putting people arriving without documentation into hotels with meals and housekeeping provided, giving them weekly pocket money and giving them priority access to healthcare isn’t sustainable…all it does is encourage more and more people to cross the channel.
I feel like we are on a cusp of change nationally, like a severe ‘winter of discontent’ is coming within the next couple of years. Whatever Kier Starmer claims about not raising taxes on working people isn’t going to hold it off. He’s instead put in place tax changes that raise costs for businesses, there will be job losses and cost of living increases as a result…wiping out his mantra that he’s making these people ‘better off’, the lowest paid people are still getting worse off, and there still isn’t enough financial incentive, especially for parents entitled to significant benefits, to work full time. The continued high numbers of immigrants means that alongside the alongside this problem, the strain on public services will worsen, meaning discontent that people don’t see value in return for their taxation.
It’s not racist or xenophobic to say that we would like to reduce immigration to protect our own ability to access to the education, housing and healthcare…that we are paying for ourselves, rather than suffer without those things being properly provided in favour of giving them away for free to people who have entered the country through an illegal route.
All this isn’t likely to impact on me a great deal apart from if I need to use the NHS, but it will impact the younger generation, especially anyone on a low wage who doesn’t already own a property…is essentially screwed, as they can’t pull themselves out of that situation through simply working more hours or minor promotions.
