Immigration: Should the borders be opened on Jan 1st 2014 to Romania and Bulgaria?

[Reality]

Bad idea, in my opinion. We can't expect people to be able to live months on end without an income; ask your parents whether they would be able to do this comfortably; I imagine the answer would be no.

I know they do this for travellers in Australia (to make sure they can make you pay for a flight out), and they have a very good system where they only let people in if they need that persons specific trade; although Australia do still have their own unique immigration problems.

I don't know if you saw, but this morning in the news they said that immigrants from the countries will have to wait three months to claim job seekers allowance! I was close
What do you think?!

[-:Undertaker:-]

I don't know if you saw, but this morning in the news they said that immigrants from the countries will have to wait three months to claim job seekers allowance! I was close
What do you think?!

That's just the usual rubbish that the Tory Party put out to appear tough when they know damned well that such a rule or proposal would be illegal under EU law. Under EU law, you and I are EU citizens as is a Romanian, a German or a Frenchman - therefore we are all entitled to the same services on a national level - which means Britain is screwed as it has a very generous welfare state and a strong currency compared with other members of the EU.

The Conservatives are in a big panic over this now hence why they're coming out with proposals like the one you mention, but considering it was they who all voted for enlarging the European Union to Eastern Europe - they are even more to blame than Labour for it.

[Vodafone]

The UK is overpopulated. Why are immigrants being allowed in at all when the economy is dependent on the import of almost everything, even a worrying percentage of the food supply..

[-:Undertaker:-]

The UK is overpopulated. Why are immigrants being allowed in at all when the economy is dependent on the import of almost everything, even a worrying percentage of the food supply..

Because the politicians and large corporations (who only advertise their jobs abroad in Eastern Europe) will tell you that the hundreds of thousands of young Britons in the youth unemployment figures are all lazy and good for nothing, and therefore we need to import half a million cheap workers a year so that the corporations that pay low wages can continue paying low wages whilst their profits rise year on year as they continue to avoid tax and fund the main two political parties. Meanwhile, you'll be instructed via the BBC and media in general to enjoy this new 'vibrant' and 'diverse' Britain where you don't have a hope of a decent job and your local services are pushed to breaking point - and if you complain about any of this then you're just a racist bigot who is 'out of touch' with the new Britain.

In other words, the political class tell you to bend over and take it.

[Vodafone]

I agree with your sentiments, couldn't have said it better myself really.

[Reality]

I know what you mean and they will tell us to just take it, or alternatively leave and go find somewhere else to live if you don't like it.
The generosity that the state provides means this country is seen as the 'weak point' in the world, the country that will give you everything and will only notice it when you start 'robbing' their system and being fraudulent when you start avoiding tax or claim benefits that aren't needed. The place we call Britain will soon be called 'Benefit Britain', with more than 80% of the population filled with immigrants, working longer with less pay, and the Brits from this country distributed all over the work searching for jobs, because they were to stupid to realize the damage until it was caused...

That just piped into my head, so some of it maybe be irrelevant or diverse!!

[The Don]

Yes, I think our borders should be opened up to Romania and Bulgaria under the EU. I also can't seem to find any statistics that back up your claim of over 800,000 polish over 5 years.

- - - Updated - - -

you'll be instructed via the BBC and media in general to enjoy this new 'vibrant' and 'diverse' Britain where you don't have a hope of a decent job

This video has a funny (although not the most politically correct) take on that whole argument (around the 4:00 minute mark)

Warning: Contains inappropriate content Hide

[-:Undertaker:-]

Yes, I think our borders should be opened up to Romania and Bulgaria under the EU.

So what do you say to the issues of services being put under strain, social cohesion being broken with cultural ghettos forming and youth unemployment?

I also can't seem to find any statistics that back up your claim of over 800,000 polish over 5 years.

http://www.polish-migrants.co.uk/pol...in-the-uk.html

This video has a funny take on that whole argument

Warning: Contains inappropriate content Hide

A doped up clown/'comedian' passing off lines from the Communist manifesto as New Age thinking? Give me a break.

The 'nations' of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and countless others were built on the thinking of trashing heritage, culture and patiotism in favour of internationalism and creating new identities. Did they work out well? Is South Sudan working out well? It's very easy for naive young people to be all 'why don't we all live together man, peace and get rid of borders yeahhhh' but that's what you believe when you are around the age of 12 or if you continue to smoke dope into later life and listen to Lennon's 'Imagine' on repeat. You soon realise though that the world is a little more complicated than that, and that actually thousands of years of history, religion and culture have huge impacts on the real world.

You get me, dude? Or was everything you just said a wind up? I do know this sort of insanity exists though, as I once was debating somebody over immigration in university and they were all for open borders so I asked them - if a million Rwandans sought asylum to Britain in the event of a crisis, would you let them all in? She stared at me and had to admit she would. I said i'd let such a crazy statement stand without comment as it speaks for itself.

This is basically your logic (Jo) vs my logic (Savage) on this -

[The Don]

http://www.polish-migrants.co.uk/pol...in-the-uk.html

So the beginning of that article opens with "It is increasingly difficult to give an accurate figure of the size of the Polish community in the United Kingdom", I guess we're off to a promising start (that is before I point out the domain of the website and how incredibly bias anything from it will most likely be...).

Now, let me directly quote the source of your incredibly accurate information

Wiktor Moszczynski of the Federation of Poles of Great Britain gave his own estimate at the end of 2008 as being in the region of 800,000

So, the information you're passing off as fact is actually just some guesstimate, from some random guy, from an incredibly bias site and without any sources to back it up.

The office for National Statistics seems to put that number to just over 532,000 (which has risen from just under 100,000 over a TEN YEAR gap), which is nearly 1/4 less than you would have us believe, and is in fact far more reliable than the bias and false information you've provided. Here's a graph for you...


source

That roughly averages out to be 50,000 per year which is far more manageable than the 160,000 per year yours worked out to be.

Give me a break, Dan. Your entire argument is built on fabricated lies coupled with exaggerated, scaremongering comparisons (south sudan, lol wot?).

[-:Undertaker:-]

So the beginning of that article opens with "It is increasingly difficult to give an accurate figure of the size of the Polish community in the United Kingdom", I guess we're off to a promising start (that is before I point out the domain of the website and how incredibly bias anything from it will most likely be...).

Now, let me directly quote the source of your incredibly accurate information

So, the information you're passing off as fact is actually just some guesstimate, from some random guy, from an incredibly bias site and without any sources to back it up.

The office for National Statistics seems to put that number to just over 532,000 (which has risen from just under 100,000 over a TEN YEAR gap), which is nearly 1/4 less than you would have us believe, and is in fact far more reliable than the bias and false information you've provided. Here's a graph for you...


source

That roughly averages out to be 50,000 per year which is far more manageable than the 160,000 per year yours worked out to be.

Oh dear.

Well firstly you've caught me out on that - at the start of the thread i've stated Poles when I should have said Eastern Europe, although the bulk of my argument still stands considering how most have been from Poland. Either way - it doesn't matter what country they are from, the 800,000 since the 2004 borders opened still stands just as the pro-Polish immigration site I linked to makes a point of.

Even the Guardian and the BBC don't dispute the 800,000 figure, and they actually say 800k POLES - http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...ultural-splash & http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7282923.stm

Accurate statistics are hard to come by, but it's believed 800,000 Poles moved to the UK in the years after European enlargement.

Or even...

http://metro.co.uk/2008/02/26/800-00...permits-10145/

800,000 Eastern European immigrants have sought UK work permits

Nearly 800,000 Eastern European immigrants have applied to work in Britain since Poland and seven other ex-Soviet countries joined the European Union four years ago, new figures showed today.

The Home Office statistics did not include the self-employed – thought to include a large number of construction workers – nor those from Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the EU later.

Separate figures also showed the number of failed asylum seekers and dependants removed from Britain last year fell 26% compared with the previous 12 months, to 13,595.

There were 796,000 applicants by the end of last year from the so-called A8 countries, including Poland, of which 766,000 were approved.

The reason why many of the figures are seemingly 'low' (although i'd say hundreds of thousands every year is high) is due to the fact that as the above piece states, the figures are fudged by exceptions.

Give me a break, Dan. Your entire argument is built on fabricated and scaremongering lies coupled with exaggerated, scaremongering comparisons.

My argument is that having 800k+ people come here within a period of about 5 years is ridiculous and foolhardy. Labour even admits now (although it's not really sorry) that it's estimates of 13,000k a year were totally off and the people who warned otherwise were right.

So tell me where I have lied when I state that 800,000+ from Eastern Europe (rather than Poland, I stand corrected on that) have come in the past few years. What part of you thinks that allowing hundreds of thousands of people into this country every year is a sensible thing to do and this won't hurt services or community relations?

Your argument stinks and even the main culprits of mass immigration (Labour) don't back you anymore on this. You lose.