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I have just read a piece of
pro-immigration propaganda put out by Class (Centre for Labour and Social
Studies) and Red Pepper Magazine.
Roma making themselves at home in Hyde Park, London
In this there pamphlet they attempt to promote
mass-immigration. I have examined some of these claims that simply don’t stand
up to scrutiny.
Claim: Patterns of
migration. The pamphlet compares UK immigration with a few other countries. In
2010 migrants made up 11.3% of the UK population compared with 9.4% of the
European Union average, 13% of The United States, 20.6% of Canada and 25% of
Australia.
Fact: The United
Kingdom is far more densely populated than any of the other examples. The
United Kingdom is home to 259 people per square kilometre compared with the EU
average of 112, the US 34, Canada 4 and Australia 3. Also just because other
countries have high immigration doesn’t make it a good thing, the other
counties mentioned have plenty of immigration problems of their own.
Claim: Migrants made
a net contribution of £25bn to public finances between 2001 and 2011.
Fact: How much public finances have been spent creating new
school places for the children of immigrants? Enlarging infrastructure to cope
with the hordes of new arrivals? On translators and community centres? Not to
mention the money they send home to their families back home and that the
equivalent of all of the food and fuel for each new immigrant needs to be
imported. When you take all of this into account it is easy to see what a
massive burden mass-immigration is to our economy.
Claim: The pamphlet
shows a graph of countries and how much they spend on Social Protection per
capita of population and claims we have some of the lowest benefits in Europe,
so there is no incentive for ‘Benefit Tourists’ to come here.
Fact: The
countries in the graph that spend more on benefits than the UK have strict
criteria as to how long you have to have worked before claiming and what you
are paid depends on what you have paid in. therefor someone who tries to claim
benefits on arrival won’t receive anything and someone who works a low paid job
for a year will receive very little. A good example is Luxemburg (the highest
payer on the graph) residents need to have worked for 26 weeks within the last
12 months and receive payments based on what they have paid in.
Claim: Immigration
has a positive impact on wages and any negative impact is caused by
noncompliance of the minimum wage and anti-union laws.
Fact: Many people
work in skilled, stressful or dangerous jobs and deserve to earn a lot more
than the minimum wage and as long as there is a never ending supply of
immigrants willing to do those jobs – due to supply and demand the wages go
down also unions on the whole have ceased to be a force for good in great
Britain and tend to be more interested in causing problems than helping their
members. Many unions are pro-immigration.
Claim: Between 2005-8
during a period of higher migration to the UK, the number of employed UK
nationals increased by 116,000.
Facts: What the pamphlet refers to as a ‘UK National’ is
anyone who has UK citizenship. Also to be noted is that the government were borrowing
billions of pounds to prop up a failing economy during that period.
Claim: Migration is a
minor factor on housing being under pressure and that Immigrants don’t jump the
list for social housing. 11% of Immigrants are social housing tenants compared
with 17% of people born in the UK.
Facts: There is no shortage of housing, only a surplus of
people, there are more homes in the UK now than at any point in history. The
problem is people have been moving here faster than we have been building homes
on school playing fields, Green Belt Land, Pubs and Hospitals. Of the 17% of
UK-Born heads of household who live in social housing many would have been
there for decades were as many of the Foreign born heads of household would
have only moved here over the past couple of years. If you were to compare
figures for social housing allocated over the last financial year you would get
an entirely different picture, unfortunately (or fortunately for them) Councils
don’t keep record of what country recipients of social housing come from.
Many of the 64% of foreigners living as private tenants will
also be having some or all of their rent paid for by the tax payer.
Claim: Due to the
majority of migrants being young they have little impact on the NHS.
Facts: Young migrants tend to be of child baring age and
therefor do have a massive impact on the NHS also the pamphlet fails to mention
previously eradicated diseases like TB that have been brought in by immigrants,
the amount of immigrants with HIV/Aids and the birth defects caused by first
cousin Pakistani’s marrying and having children together.
Claim: Immigrants are
less likely to claim benefits.
Facts: The chart shows UK Nationals compared to non-UK
nationals even though millions of immigrants have been given UK passports completely
undermining the chart, according to the pamphlet 8.2% of JSA claimants are
non-UK citizens according to Migration Observatory
7.2% of the UK population are non-British citizens meaning non-UK citizens are
more likely to be claiming Job Seeker Allowance.
We are often told that immigrants come here to do the jobs
British people don’t want to do but when you consider that as of 2013 Ethnic Minorities
were twice as likely to be unemployed than White British, what you actually
have is immigrants coming here to do the jobs the descendants of the last lot of
immigrants don’t to do.
The full pamphlet can be found at http://classonline.org.uk/docs/why_immigration_is_good_for_all_of_us.pdf
