Record immigration has failed to raise living standards in Britain, economists find

9 comments

1. This cant be right. There have been numerous whitepapers by think tanks that have told us that immigration is wonderful and we cant exist without it. Also that immigrants built this country too.

2. Mass immigration to a tiny island can’t improve living standards. It can theoretically improve the economy (which it also hasn’t done, lol) but not living standards.

   But raising living standards was never the goal of mass immigration. The goal of it under Labour was to “rub the noses of the right in it” (Tony Blair’s words), and the goal of it under the “Conservatives” has been to use it to funnel taxpayer money to their mates and family businesses, and to make sure wages are kept low for the working classes due to an over-abundance of workers for whom the national minimum wage is like a kings’ ransom compared to the part of the world they came from.

3. Record immigration built Britain. Britain didn’t exist before record immigration.

4. The governments hostile stance on immigration, even toward what I’d term ‘friendly’ countries, just depresses the number of people looking to emigrate here that would contribute to this country. And that’s without mentioning the debacle of people risking life and limb to cross the Channel in the hands of criminals. This is a self-made problem.

5. We’ve only been saying this for years now.

   It isn’t racist or xenophobic to question that maybe the huge and unsustainable immigration problem is contributing to things like the housing crisis.

   Not only that, but a vast majority are a net minus to the country and are only being exploited to help push wages down for the working class.

6. This is a dog whistle.

   Why should we assume immigration to be the thing that increases the quality of life?

7. Seems obvious? Improving living standards is a wealth distribution problem. What about adding more people to the working pool improves anything at all about wealth distribution in any meaningful way?

8. Immigration is not the reason to why things have gotten so shit in the UK. Austerity and Brexit have been failed policies and massively limited our growth and ability to pay for our services. Immigration can’t independently increase living standards, it needs other action. It needs to be coupled with increased investment in housing and services to serve the increase in population. We have to become an outward looking country and reject the Farage outsider shouting in completely not adding to anything debate.

9. Meanwhile the far left will try to guilt trip you for not voting Corbyn who wanted an unregulated, open border policy. Their inferiority complex to conservatives and even liberals will always be a renewable source of comedy to me.