Tories smear migrants

Submitted by Matthew on 7 October, 2015 - 1:43 Author: Gerry Bates

Home Secretary Theresa May's comment at the Tory Party conference on 6 October 2015 should become as notorious as Margaret Thatcher's outburst against immigrants in 1979.

"When immigration is too high", said May, "when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society. It’s difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope".

She echoed Thatcher in 1978: "People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture".

The facts brand May's words as divisive scaremongering.

Immigration brings not only demand for infrastructure, but people to build and operate that infrastructure. Just like any increase in population. Or even better, since immigrants are mostly highly productive young adults.

Researchers at University College London have found that European migrants pay out far more in taxes than they receive in state benefits, a net contribution of £20 billion between 2000 and 2011. This is true for migrants from the "new" EU members such as Poland, Romania and Bulgaria as well as the "old" EU countries.

The highest-immigration area in the UK is London, where about a third of the population (2.83 million of 8.63 million) are migrants. Only 34% of year 11 students in London schools are "white British"; the other 66%, far from making schools unable to cope, give London schools an average 8-point GCSE lead over the rest of the country.

The most dynamic and cohesive societies in human history have often been high-immigration societies, like the USA of a hundred years ago, when over 25 million Europeans poured into it within a few decades.

Tory (and New Labour) government policy is making it difficult for schools and hospitals and housing to cope. Cuts are making it difficult for those services to come. Low public investment is making it difficult for them cope.

The allocation of credit to the economy by pumping it direct into the pockets of bankers (which is essentially what QE means), rather than by putting it into social projects, makes it difficult to cope.

Not immigration.

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