[News] Net migration to UK hits record 336,000, statistics show

Diego Napier said:

cunning fergus said:

So your point is to continue with the contemporary narrative of Britain as an ancient multi cultural country with unfettered immigration and everyone all just rubbing along?

Sorry I don't buy it because it's not true...........ignoring what happened 25,000 years ago Britain has long been a mono cultural country with emigration a far greater factor than immigration.

The wider Anglo Saxon world would not exist without British emigration...........a contribution which has much more significance, than focusing on a few thousand refugees here and there during the course of the last 500 years.[/QUOTE]

You are wrong. Refugees arriving in this country over the last 500 years total hundreds of thousands not just a few. You also ignore the fact that the indigenous population was far smaller hence the impact of the new arrivals far greater.

I agree that Britain gradually became more unified in the 17th Century after the dust had settled from the Protestant reformation and Scottish wars of independence. However, to suggest that we have a history of mono culturalism that embraced the centuries of social division, squalor and deprivation imposed by feudal law and its lasting malign and pernicious influence is to view our past through a particularly rosy royalist prism.

I agree that the wider Anglo Saxon world (and the British Empire) would not exist without British emigration, fuelled by aggressive, expansionist policies and wars. What is certain is that the emigration associated with all that aggression would have included recycled British citizens who were originally refugees to our shores. The wider Anglo Saxon world; is that a good thing?

I'm not suggesting that unfettered immigration is a good thing. What I am saying though is that things never stay the same; there is no long golden period when we were British and proud and all our citizens were happy and everything was fine and we were mono cultural; we have been and always will be in flux. I understand that hysterical headlines will always garner avid readers but come on, let's stop viewing the world in black and white.

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Thousands of years ago this country did not have a population of well over 60m. How far are you going to keep going back, times change we do not play football with a pigs bladder and boots that go up to the ankle with shorts down to the knees anymore.

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mona said:

errrr those were all invasions. The Normans simply took over and destroyed Anglo Saxon language and culture. As the Anglo Saxons did to the Romano-Celts.

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Soulman said:

Diego Napier said:

Thousands of years ago this country did not have a population of well over 60m. How far are you going to keep going back, times change we do not play football with a pigs bladder and boots that go up to the ankle with shorts down to the knees anymore.

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I'm trying to elevate the debate above the visceral, emotive, single dimensional, fear ridden dogma that is always wheeled out by the one-eyed xenophobes.

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Diego Napier said:

Soulman said:

I'm trying to elevate the debate above the visceral, emotive, single dimensional, fear ridden dogma that is always wheeled out by the one-eyed xenophobes.

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Not really , all youre doing is trying to shift the debate away from the truth by muddying the waters and defelection using statistics that arent relevant, like it or not , even with the numbers you mentioned, we had a settled population from the norman conquest until the commonwealth immigration of the windrush generation.

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Westdene Seagull said:

A vast majority of whom are not EU citizens and will have required visas to come here ..... i.e. we decided we needed their skills and allowed them to come. A luxury we don't have with EU citizens - any old person can come regardless of them having a skill we need.

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Diego Napier said:

Soulman said:

I'm trying to elevate the debate above the visceral, emotive, single dimensional, fear ridden dogma that is always wheeled out by the one-eyed xenophobes.

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Kerching, if no credible response insert usual get out clause, starting with xenophobic, top job.

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alfredmizen said:

Diego Napier said:

Not really , all youre doing is trying to shift the debate away from the truth by muddying the waters and defelection using statistics that arent relevant, like it or not , even with the numbers you mentioned, we had a settled population from the norman conquest until the commonwealth immigration of the windrush generation.

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Don't forget the Huguenot influx in 1681 - 50,000 refugees flooded into England (pop c 5,000,000, so approx 1% of total). In relative terms, this is twice as large as the total in the thread title, plus it represent a solid block of a single culture, not a collection of smaller, different cultural groups. I don't think anyone would argue that the Huguenots have done anything other than enrich our history and that their descendants (probably) continue to do so.

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Igzilla said:

alfredmizen said:

Don't forget the Huguenot influx in 1681 - 50,000 refugees flooded into England (pop c 5,000,000, so approx 1% of total). In relative terms, this is twice as large as the total in the thread title, plus it represent a solid block of a single culture, not a collection of smaller, different cultural groups. I don't think anyone would argue that the Huguenots have done anything other than enrich our history and that their descendants (probably) continue to do so.

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I don't know the figures, so will accept yours, of course. And yes, their descendants presumably have contributed massively. The Huguenots were of course exiled French protestants, looking for succour in a fellow protestant country, so I am not sure that you could compare them with the present day situation. Theirs was a situation which was always likely to be successful.

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Hastings gull said:

Igzilla said:

I don't know the figures, so will accept yours, of course. And yes, their descendants presumably have contributed massively. The Huguenots were of course exiled French protestants, looking for succour in a fellow protestant country, so I am not sure that you could compare them with the present day situation. Theirs was a situation which was always likely to be successful.

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Fair point, though presumably there weren't mass pamphlets printed raging at the prospect of Catholic spies hiding amongst them, or fears that jobs would be taken, but I'm no historian. The point I wanted to make is that mass immigration isn't necessarily a bad thing. Presumably some of the modern day immigrants are also looking for succour.

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Thunder Bolt said:

23% of our doctors are immigrants.

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Diego Napier said:

Soulman said:

I'm trying to elevate the debate above the visceral, emotive, single dimensional, fear ridden dogma that is always wheeled out by the one-eyed xenophobes.

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If your calling some people xenophobes on here then that must apply to some of the migrants that come here and don't integrate properly.

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alfredmizen said:

Ive just searched government ''apprenticeships'' , an absolute pisstake , you do an apprenticeship in carpentry,. engineering , bricklaying etc , i found apprenticeships in health and social care, retail, and warehousing to name but 3 , so thats basically apprenticeships in wiping arses in an old peoples home, working in a shop and stacking goods in a warehouse , lets see how high they rate on the required skills list of somewhere like canada or australia shall we ? We are being taken for fools when governments , both tory and labour talk about apprenticeships.

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Grombleton said:

I'm sorry, can you hear everyone else from backing in the 70's? Times have moved on, professions have moved on. An apprenticeship is an opportunity for someone to learn and train on the job as well as receive education via studying. It can be in whatever is required that has practical applications, much like your long and distinguished career of being a single minded prat.

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Grombleton said:

I'm sorry, can you hear everyone else from backing in the 70's? Times have moved on, professions have moved on. An apprenticeship is an opportunity for someone to learn and train on the job as well as receive education via studying. It can be in whatever is required that has practical applications, much like your long and distinguished career of being a single minded prat.

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Pretty pink fairy said:

BUSHY'S RIGHT THOUGH two bob apprenticeships that aren't worth a toss, i did city and Guilds welder /fabricator BIT OF A DIFFERENCE

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bashlsdir said:

Diego Napier said:

If your calling some people xenophobes on here then that must apply to some of the migrants that come here and don't integrate properly.

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This is spot on.

There are extremists amongst the immigrants just as there are extremists amongst the settled population.

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JC Footy Genius said:

No matter your opinions on mass immigration it is a fact that the size and rate of immigration over recent decades is unprecedented and continues apace. 1 in 8 of the population foreign born is the latest 2015 estimate.

View attachment 70239

http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/48

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Soulman said:

Diego Napier said:

Kerching, if no credible response insert usual get out clause, starting with xenophobic, top job.

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Ending actually......

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alfredmizen said:

Yes time has moved on , and professions have moved on , i doubt arse wiping/shop serving/shelf stacking techniques have changed all that much , so i doubt there is a need for an ''apprenticeship'' to learn them then, if i am a prat, god knows what that makes you for swallowing what is little more than smoke and mirrors in the same vein as the ill feted youth opportunities scheme , enjoy life with your head inserted firmly in the sand , pillock.

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