Quote Originally Posted by jon1959 View Post
You usually talk sense, Eric - even if I sometimes disagree with the conclusions you draw. But that question is nonsense.

Are you talking economically active or inactive migrants? Migrants who contribute more than they take out or the opposite? Migrants who provide essential public services, or become indispensable to agriculture or the 'hospitality' industry? Migrants who bring skills to the health service or to tech companies? Or migrants who do none of those things?

I don't know what the capacity of the UK is for population growth through inward migration. It is not a simple numbers game. There is clearly pressure on schools, the health service, the transport infrastructure, water and power and other things, but migrants can and do contribute to those services and infrastructure.

If the argument on immigration can be re-directed to economic impacts (pro and con), to the benefits of diversity and moral obligations to families or victims of oppression, to the way we can re-shape our ageing and less productive society and ensure this rich country uses its collective resources to manage progressive and positive changes, then great.

But the argument, the debate, is often around false numbers, cultural conservatism, red top scaremongering and at the fringes outright xenophobia and racism. Starmer has decided to feed that fire - because he is an unprincipled political coward and has no vision or compass.
Appreciate the objectivity Jon. My whole outlook is built upon the simple fact that life is getting shitter in the UK because fixed costs are too high, the largest being housing. I don't really care about the housing ladder, In this sense I only care about the fixed cost of putting a roof over your head. The implications of people having less money to spend spread across the entire economy and eventually society (mental health because of constant worries etc.)

Labour are doing (slowly as the parliamentary system rolls along) some things to address this but not enough imo. To answer your question though, whether economically active or inactive, if you have net migration of a million a year, building 1.5 million houses over 5 years is using a cup to bail water out of your sinking boat. If a doctor turns up or an asylum seeker turns up, they still need somewhere to live.

Completely agree with you that the other death spiral awaiting us is the aging population, which is essentially saying the ratio of working people to those who aren't working is not be enough to sustain existing programs. That is only going to made worse by more and more newly working age people not working which is why the numbers of kids on pip and neet (not my area but we touch upon it) are so alarming. Migration can be an answer to that in specific circumstances but it can't be used to prop up companies paying shit wages and whole sectors can't be reliant on it, it doesn't make us a resilient country.