OT. The futures Bright, the Futures Brexit!!!

[Andy_Faber]

Some were I believe, though it was nowhere near 500, anyway its all *******s and very simple to stop, just open legal routes and process them in calais as the French have offered, that way those that don't qualify can be stopped.

That sort of comment (unqualified) usually comes from those who are either naive or have some agenda for maximising immigration.

'Open legal routes' won't stop those who know that they will fail via the legal routes. I don't know the split but it appears that those who will fail make up 'a signiicant amount' of the small boat crossings so the problem will remain.

'Open legal routes' also emanates (usually, although you may have a more sophisticated view) from those who can't then answer the question 'with what upper limit?'. If there is no upper limit or an huge one, that would be green light for a truly mass influx imo, if there is a low upper limit effectively the situation would be no different to now.

[SithHappens]

ah but, yes but, no but....

photos, fingerprinting and conformation of their place of origin

sounds like the process UK passport holders have to look forward to when holidaying in most eu countries coming soon

[Trickytreesreds]

sounds like the process UK passport holders have to look forward to when holidaying in most eu countries coming soon

No problem with that whatsoever. It happens everywhere else I go.
Amazing though, how the normal legal routes are so stringent, yet the EU has the most porous borders in the world for everyone else.
The UK should be even easier to protect with a moat, but stick weak/liberal minded MP's in parliament, you may as well build an open bridge.

[swaledale]

Oh dear me! Starmer actually says what has been obvious to all but a Tory government and their idiot voters, to stop the boats and the illegal people smugglers, its necessary to reach an agreement with the EU on a safe legal way for processing Asylum claims and have a return agreement so that those that don't qualify can be returned to other countries.

Of course the Tories and their supine, billionaire ex pat right wing press start bleating about Starmer being willing to allow 100,000 into the country, as if they hadn't noticed how many ahve been coming in via the boats with no control and no way of returning most who don't qualify!!

Like the renetry into the Horizon science programme, bit by bit the Uk has to face the reality and reengage with the EU.

[Geoff Parkstone]

Ah yes because the EU countries do it soo much better

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/15/europe/italy-lampedusa-migrant-crisis-intl/index.html

[Trickytreesreds]

Starmers idea is absolute tosh.

In essense, we will send back illegal migrants to the EU, whilst taking in illegal EU migrants legally in exchange

Now seeing as Brussels has already laughed, saying that in no way can the UK have a deal better than its members, he's an idiot.
Even if so, it would mean being part of the EU's planned quota of distribution, so as much as Swale scoffs it, it would equate to double minimum, of what gets in now,
Also, you are committing to the said amount 100k(ish) every year. We can't cope with what we have now and flip flop says there will be no hotels/army camps/barges being used? So what the hell is he going to do with them? Stick em down old mine shafts?
The young today can't afford to buy a house or stand a cat in hells of social housing.
But Starmer thinks year on year this is the way forward?

Well I'd been waiting for him to commit to something and he's just confirmed what I expected. He hasn't got an f-ing clue either.

Only way to stop this, is to exercise your right to control your borders. Pretty much as Poland and Hungary have done.
This shower hasn't got the balls to do it and neither has Labour.

[swaledale]

Starmers idea is absolute tosh.

In essense, we will send back illegal migrants to the EU, whilst taking in illegal EU migrants legally in exchange

Now seeing as Brussels has already laughed, saying that in no way can the UK have a deal better than its members, he's an idiot.
Even if so, it would mean being part of the EU's planned quota of distribution, so as much as Swale scoffs it, it would equate to double minimum, of what gets in now,
Also, you are committing to the said amount 100k(ish) every year. We can't cope with what we have now and flip flop says there will be no hotels/army camps/barges being used? So what the hell is he going to do with them? Stick em down old mine shafts?
The young today can't afford to buy a house or stand a cat in hells of social housing.
But Starmer thinks year on year this is the way forward?

Well I'd been waiting for him to commit to something and he's just confirmed what I expected. He hasn't got an f-ing clue either.

Only way to stop this, is to exercise your right to control your borders. Pretty much as Poland and Hungary have done.
This shower hasn't got the balls to do it and neither has Labour.

AS usual you take your views lock stock and barrel from the usual right wing media and internet sources which aren't even factual.

Lets start with immigration, yes I know you and your fellow Brexiteers believe in this fantasy that virtually nil migration is required, only trouble with that is that economically the Uk would be ****ed! Thats perhaps why the government has let agreed legal migration which exceeds 500K at the moment!

Now of course it is possible to move to a new economic model, which looks at growth etc. differently and indeed eventually we are going to ahve to do so, given the earths resources are finite, but I suspect thats probably half a century away and given humans innate stupidity, there will probably be a world war or simialr before that happens!!

So you want nil immigration, no overseas aid, economic growth, moan about house prices (but don't want them to go down if it affects you), moan about lack of NHS services, but don't vote for the one party that actually got the NHS working and waiting lists down and also fail to realise that immigration has kept public services which you rely on like NHS etc going!

Anyway, in simple terms, we take in 500K a year legally (needed or the country would grind to a halt), so that fictitious 100K of asylum seekers (it would be half that) actually forms part of that total, because funnily enough most coming in are skilled, intelligent people who as history shows actually create wealth, pay taxes and perform useful jobs.

The Uk can easily cope with its population, but I guess its escaped your notice that this Government thats been in power for over 13 years has failed to plan for growth, build either the homes for sale or rent required (and done nothing to tackle the million plus second and empty homes in the UK), has failed to invest in the NHS and other services.

I ahve one simple question - IF this population growth was solely due to births from UK citizens what would you consider the appropriate action by the government? I am genuinely interested in what you say on this.

[Trickytreesreds]

AS usual you take your views lock stock and barrel from the usual right wing media and internet sources which aren't even factual.

Lets start with immigration, yes I know you and your fellow Brexiteers believe in this fantasy that virtually nil migration is required, only trouble with that is that economically the Uk would be ****ed! Thats perhaps why the government has let agreed legal migration which exceeds 500K at the moment!

Now of course it is possible to move to a new economic model, which looks at growth etc. differently and indeed eventually we are going to ahve to do so, given the earths resources are finite, but I suspect thats probably half a century away and given humans innate stupidity, there will probably be a world war or simialr before that happens!!

So you want nil immigration, no overseas aid, economic growth, moan about house prices (but don't want them to go down if it affects you), moan about lack of NHS services, but don't vote for the one party that actually got the NHS working and waiting lists down and also fail to realise that immigration has kept public services which you rely on like NHS etc going!

Anyway, in simple terms, we take in 500K a year legally (needed or the country would grind to a halt), so that fictitious 100K of asylum seekers (it would be half that) actually forms part of that total, because funnily enough most coming in are skilled, intelligent people who as history shows actually create wealth, pay taxes and perform useful jobs.

The Uk can easily cope with its population, but I guess its escaped your notice that this Government thats been in power for over 13 years has failed to plan for growth, build either the homes for sale or rent required (and done nothing to tackle the million plus second and empty homes in the UK), has failed to invest in the NHS and other services.

I ahve one simple question - IF this population growth was solely due to births from UK citizens what would you consider the appropriate action by the government? I am genuinely interested in what you say on this.

more lies.
No one has EVER said no immigration. They want CONTROLLED immigration.
You legal migration is a farce, when they include students families to come with them? WTF is that all about? Then there enough of these visas revolve around false jobs and fake jobs. A lot of these visas are for things like care homes on minimum wage. Again, you miss the bigger picture. Minor skilled job, that is under paid, yet by filling it with an immigrant, suppresses said wage and adds to the problem
Then the immigrant filling the job, is entitled to tax payers money for top ups of coming for a low paid job, whilst paying no tax

What you are promoting is a ponzi scheme,
Need more people in to get things working, which in turn needs more people in to cover the growth shortage of care/housing/schools/ services/
So where does it end? On and on it goes. It has grown by 7 million in 10 years. Now they start having kids and bringing more family over.
Your skilled workers figures are garbage
Can easily cope? Where do you live Mars?
House prices are sky high, as are rents. SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
Social housing was already in short supply by Thatcher, now in areas like London, it is non existent.
That is a typical comment from someone, who lives a comfortable life, with minimum stress caused by the issues of over population density in certain areas. In fact straight from a politicians hand book.

Your subject of birth rates, is a complicated one.
One that has been distorted by many things. Mainly financial.
It wasn't so long ago, that dad went to work and mum stayed at home bring up 3-5 kids.
Today that isn't so easy due to financial burdens on the family unit. The irony being, that the imported ethnicities all have large families by culture. That means they go after all the social housing first by urgency and any native born, waiting for a start in life is screwed.
All that puts pressure on the social welfare payments as well.

I was tempted by the idea of the Swedish system, which pays by the child equally. But the Swedes found out that was being abused by immigrants as well and encouraging them to do less work and have more kids. It also encouraged ghettos.

So no, you are wrong.
Immigration is about control. It isn't being applied correctly. Other countries manage it way better than us.
We do not select correctly and your 500 k a year figure is bloated with a lot of unnecessary incomers.

[swaledale]

more lies.
No one has EVER said no immigration. They want CONTROLLED immigration.
You legal migration is a farce, when they include students families to come with them? WTF is that all about? Then there enough of these visas revolve around false jobs and fake jobs. A lot of these visas are for things like care homes on minimum wage. Again, you miss the bigger picture. Minor skilled job, that is under paid, yet by filling it with an immigrant, suppresses said wage and adds to the problem
Then the immigrant filling the job, is entitled to tax payers money for top ups of coming for a low paid job, whilst paying no tax

What you are promoting is a ponzi scheme,
Need more people in to get things working, which in turn needs more people in to cover the growth shortage of care/housing/schools/ services/
So where does it end? On and on it goes. It has grown by 7 million in 10 years. Now they start having kids and bringing more family over.
Your skilled workers figures are garbage
Can easily cope? Where do you live Mars?
House prices are sky high, as are rents. SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
Social housing was already in short supply by Thatcher, now in areas like London, it is non existent.
That is a typical comment from someone, who lives a comfortable life, with minimum stress caused by the issues of over population density in certain areas. In fact straight from a politicians hand book.

Your subject of birth rates, is a complicated one.
One that has been distorted by many things. Mainly financial.
It wasn't so long ago, that dad went to work and mum stayed at home bring up 3-5 kids.
Today that isn't so easy due to financial burdens on the family unit. The irony being, that the imported ethnicities all have large families by culture. That means they go after all the social housing first by urgency and any native born, waiting for a start in life is screwed.
All that puts pressure on the social welfare payments as well.

I was tempted by the idea of the Swedish system, which pays by the child equally. But the Swedes found out that was being abused by immigrants as well and encouraging them to do less work and have more kids. It also encouraged ghettos.

So no, you are wrong.
Immigration is about control. It isn't being applied correctly. Other countries manage it way better than us.
We do not select correctly and your 500 k a year figure is bloated with a lot of unnecessary incomers.

The question I asked you re birth rates was a simple one, If the population increase was down to increased births from current residents, what would be your response? Given that the current issues of housing NHS, and other services would all be impacted to the same extent.

Because its very easy to swallow the lies being pumped out, that many of todays current issues are down to immigration, when in fact they are down to a complete lack of investment and planning by the current government over the past 13 years.

You mention housing and correctly identify that Thatcher started the dismantling of Council Housing, the great lie was that new ones would be produced by the proceeds of sales, they weren't because the Tory government stopped Councils from replacing their stock, I know because I worked in local government in the 1980's.

The great irony is that over 55% of those Council houses were sold and are now let out as private lets at market rents which cost the taxpayer around 3 x in housing benefit what it would cost if they were still council/social housing.

Sky high house prices are down to
1. Developers restricting supply (despite having 100,000s in planning permissions) to keep prices high.
2.Developers prioritising high cost exec detached houses as they produce more profit
3. The governments disastrous "help to buy" scheme which artificially inflated demand and boosted developers profits
4. An obsession in this country, almost unique in Europe of seeing a home as an "investment" leading to policies which further inflate the market.
5. Lack of supply of council housing, not even replacing that lost through sales - the real reason why people of whatever colour or creed cannot access it.
6. A deregulated private rented market, poor quality stock, insecure tenancies and obscenely high rents
7. In excess of a million homes either left empty (often as investments) or as second homes which in some areas now outnumber homes lived in permanently.
8. A planning system that favours developers and landowners making a fast buck against the development of homes that are needed by people.
9. Double income families which enabled more households to buy homes and buy higher value homes than would previously have been possible with single income families
10. Deregulation of the lending and mortgage markets, which in the end led to the financial crash due to bad debts, which we the tax payer ended up paying for - just imagine if just a small proportion of that tax payers money had gone into providing council/social housing at affordable rents or smaller lower cost homes for fist time buyers!

It astonishes me that people are so eager to "hit down" at immigrants as the source of most of their problems, when it is clearly the government and rich companies and corporations who are responsible for the mess we are in and it could so easily resolved.

[SithHappens]

The help to buy scheme could still prove to be more disastrous.

We know a few young couples (family) who took advantage of it and just saw it as a way to get a more expensive property, lumped it on their mortgages saying they'd save enough over 5 years to pay it off, but 5 years goes fast and they have added it to their mortgage balance, tied I with fixed terms ending and interest rates going up their mortgages are horrific now.

I don't fully blame the government though as we are all able to make our own decisions and should look ahead and think 'what if' , I know i did with my first house when the Derbyshire were pushing an endowment, telling me I'd have tens of thousands in my pocket at the end. Fortunately i was always cautious and had a repayment mortgage and I'm so glad I did.

[Andy_Faber]

The help to buy scheme could still prove to be more disastrous.

We know a few young couples (family) who took advantage of it and just saw it as a way to get a more expensive property, lumped it on their mortgages saying they'd save enough over 5 years to pay it off, but 5 years goes fast and they have added it to their mortgage balance, tied I with fixed terms ending and interest rates going up their mortgages are horrific now.

I don't fully blame the government though as we are all able to make our own decisions and should look ahead and think 'what if' , I know i did with my first house when the Derbyshire were pushing an endowment, telling me I'd have tens of thousands in my pocket at the end. Fortunately i was always cautious and had a repayment mortgage and I'm so glad I did.

Help to buy on at least one estate local to you and I was nothing short of a scam, the implications of it, of buying leasehold and of the implications of rate rises were glossed over in countless sales to naive young folk (ok I’m worlds worst at saying they should have known better), in many cases ‘guided’ towards legal firms who were imo complicit

[swaledale]

Help to buy on at least one estate local to you and I was nothing short of a scam, the implications of it, of buying leasehold and of the implications of rate rises were glossed over in countless sales to naive young folk (ok I’m worlds worst at saying they should have known better), in many cases ‘guided’ towards legal firms who were imo complicit

The leasehold scandal is just another way for some developers to rake in more money, reform is needed urgently on that score.

People thinking interest rates were always going to be very low was a mistake, mind I got caught on that having fixed a 5 year mortgage at 4% when interest rates were rising and forecast to continue doing so, only for the financial crash to happen 9 months later and interest rates plummeted!

[Geoff Parkstone]

Yep, we can all back the wrong horse there....

[Andy_Faber]

The leasehold scandal is just another way for some developers to rake in more money, reform is needed urgently on that score.

People thinking interest rates were always going to be very low was a mistake, mind I got caught on that having fixed a 5 year mortgage at 4% when interest rates were rising and forecast to continue doing so, only for the financial crash to happen 9 months later and interest rates plummeted!

Fortunately for my daughter her developers had the good grace, after pressure was applied, to sell freeholds for £2000. Many houses are now virtually unsellable due to onerous lease terms

[SithHappens]

When we last moved we could have had a mortgage for over twice what we did, I'm a cautious person and always think 'what if'.

I know for some it's not easy and just getting on the ladder means taking the maximum loan but in a lot of cases that's not the case (said family being an example). Its a bit like when people were snapping up 125% mortgages in the early 2000s.

An old work colleague of mine used to always say borrow whatever they will give you, and he did remortgage a few times to cash in on equity.