Lets get something clear straight off the bat. I'm not saying if you voted leave you're wrong or a bad person, but If you (anyone reading or previously posting on this thread) voted to Leave only in order to stop (or reduce) immigration levels, you are a moron, or at best you voted without bothering to learn anything you were actually voting for. This thread seems to suggest that immigration is the hot topic that possibly swung the vote and that is pretty saddening.
Immigration as a notion and most likely in volume will not change now we are in the process of leaving the EU. The EU does not actually force set immigration levels (as a set number) on the UK, it never has and now won't either. The EU does employ a level of freedom of movement within EU borders, that though is in turn agreed by and regulated by the parent governments of each country (take a moment to think about the recent news stories about the UK not allowing a flood of Syrian refugees enter from the camps in France, and subsequent uproar about how inhumane the UK were being by saying no more) the EU (and the world generally) wanted the UK to take in a proportion in line with the rest of Europe, the UK said no and then relented a little, not a lot, but a little because the UK govern their immigration levels.. not the EU.
The largest volume of immigration into the UK over the past decade has been from outside of the EU and is regulated solely by the UK government, not from the EU and with ZERO EU influence on the volume of these people/families coming and living in the UK, it always has been a UK government decision and now always will be, so the likelihood is that immigration will potentially grow if the government continues to behave the same, which it most likely will despite this vote... Immigration drives the economy, a governments primary job is to act like a business and to make money. Making money pays for basic standards; health, policing, fire services, road maintenance etc. The more people in the UK paying tax, the more money the government makes.
Many have said that immigrants come to the UK to claim our benefits... hmmm...
93% of immigrants coming to the UK are paid zero benefits (so 7% are paid a form of benefit, sorry I don't have a number on sole income for this one), 64% of non-immigrants (Brits) are paid some form of benefit in the UK. 28% have half their total income paid in benefit and 18% of non-immigrants (Brits) are wholly supported financially by the UK government in some form of benefit... OMG... that is almost a fifth of our British population getting a benefit paid for by taxes of the hard working, immigrants don't come over here and get all our money, its overwhelmingly spent on Brits... this is a revelation... the immigrants (well 93% of them) actually come over here and pay the taxes that pay for benefits which are overwhelmingly paid to non-immigrants.
Just for a moment consider those percentages and just for a moment think about the actual volume of those percentages.
18% of Brits... so (heres a funny number as its remarkably close to this that voted out :lol: )... c17.5 million people that have not migrated to the UK in the past decade are on benefit as their total household income!
7% of immigrants (last ten years net migration to the UK is c2.4m), so c150,000 claiming some form of benefit.
I might be wrong, but 17million Brits claiming benefit is a lot more than 150 thousand immigrants claiming benefit...
NB. There are currently c3 times the number of jobs vacant in the UK as there are unemployed claiming benefit... yes, they may not all match location and skills wise, but they are there if anyone unemployed really wanted to work that much... simply put we need immigrants to do the jobs, pay the taxes and allow us to lead the charmed lives we all 'benefit' from. It looks like we actually need an awful lot more of them sooner than later too.
It may also be of interest, before someone says overcrowding, that the UK population currently occupies less than 19% of the land mass of the UK, so (not withstanding the fact that we don't want to be stood shoulder to shoulder with each other to sleep, EIGHTY ONE PERCENT OF THE UK IS EMPTY, now I get that living on the top of Mount Snowdon maybe picturesque, but a bit of a commute, so that stat is a little daft, but I drive across the UK every week and I can categorically state we are not full, we are far from full...
Anyway, it is done. we will move on, yesterday I was disappointed that my pension I've worked and saved for was momentarily worth 10% less than the day before, but I was more disappointed by the lack of knowledge that backed many voting decisions.
Immigration does seem to have been a key issue, it shouldn't be branded racist to have voted leave, it shouldn't be branded racist to quote immigration as a reason to leave... It could be branded stupid or ignorant though. Facts are facts, opinions are not facts. To have voted leave only due to immigration is clearly the wrong decision factually and this vote will not change it in the way that the Leave voters think.
