GK> 13 Jul 16 15:13, David Rance wrote to Richard Menedetter:
DR>> You are never going to get the people in poverty to see that picture DR>> when they don't have a job or anywhere to live. Even here in Reading DR>> we have beggars on our streets which just didn't happen thirty, DR>> forty, fifty years ago. And why? Because we cannot stem the flow of DR>> migrants to this country who are as entitled to government allowances
GK> Maybe my memory is faulty, but wasn't it especially the UK being eager GK> to get in cheap working force from the new EU countries back in 2004? GK> UK was deliberately opening their labour market to them as early as GK> possible.
That wasn't government policy. It was to do with taskmasters making use of the "free borders" to employ gangs of cheap labourers from Eastern Europe whom they paid very little and kept in appalling conditions. Nothing at all to do with the UK "being eager" to take them.
When I was a little boy some seventy years ago, I can remember distinctly my first sight of a black African because there were so few of them. Then from the 1960s onwards we have had a steady flow of Indians, Pakistanis, Africans, West Indians, among others to the point where my own home town of High Wycombe, in a generation, has an immigrant population as great, if not greater, than the native population. This can be multiplied throughout the UK. As I said in a previous message, we are probably the most densely populated country in the EU. Little wonder that we want to get our immigration rate down.
GK> When thinking about UK and economic decline, poor people and such, I am GK> more reminded of the 1970ies and 1980ies, especially Margaret Thatcher GK> and her politics that willingly allowed for social inequality, crushed GK> the unions and so on.
She crushed the miners' unions because they were holding the country to ransom with unreasonable strikes for higher and higher wages which contributed to high inflation.
DR>> as those who have lived here all their lives, which is why we need DR>> not just more money to go to the NHS, we need more schools, more DR>> teachers, more affordable housing, and so on. Do you honestly think DR>> that we can see the "greater picture" when the EU is preventing us DR>> from reducing the flow of immigrants? And why do we have this flow? DR>> Because they think that the UK is a soft touch when it comes to free DR>> handouts.
GK> I don't understand you at all here: UK is hardly taking any refugees GK> compared to many other EU countries. The foreign workers you have were GK> invited, you wanted them as soon as possible. So what is this "flow of GK> immigrants" you want to reduce?
Ever heard of "The Jungle" outside Calais? That was a camp where illegal immigrants were staying so that they could try to make their way across the Channel and into England. I've seen them myself trying to get on to trucks bound for England.
David Cameron promised in his manifesto to get immigration, both legal and illegal, down to below 100,000 per year.
He failed. And that's the reason that there was a majority in favour of Brexit.
But, like Michiel, I don't suppose you're going to believe me, so I'll save my breath.
David
-- David Rance writing from Caversham, Reading, UK
