Todays Podcast is from retired travel writer, journalist and commentator jakethewriter. There is no doubt that one of the major topics for the EU Referendum is the fact that immigration is out of control. I start my piece on this serious subject with a story that smacks of the truth
I’m not a racist, this is a joke and the jokes on us!
A Somalian arrives in London as a new immigrant to the UK. He stops the first person he sees walking down the street and says…….. ‘Thank you Mr. British for letting me in this country, giving me housing, money for food, free medical care, free education and no taxes!’ The passer-by says, ‘You are mistaken, I am Mexican!’
The man goes on and encounters another passer-by ‘Thank you for having such a beautiful country here in the UK!’ The person says, ‘I not British, I Polish!’ The new arrival walks on further and the next person he sees he stops, shakes his hand and says, ‘Thank you for the wonderful Britain!’ That person puts up his hand and says, ‘I am from Russia, I am not from Britain!’
He finally sees a nice lady and asks, ‘Are you a British?’ She says, ‘No, I am from Africa!’ Puzzled, he asks her, ‘Where are all the British?’ The African lady checks her watch and says……… ’Probably at work’.
Migration from the EU will rise to 428,000 per annum by 2030, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Bristol to the UK population each year. 5.23 million persons will be added to the UK population as a direct result, the equivalent of the population of Scotland. The NHS will require an additional £9.35 billion by 2030 to maintain current funding levels on top of the existing savings required by the Five Year Forward View. Attendances at A&E will increase by 12.8 million per year by 2030, the equivalent of a 57.0% increase in demand for accident and emergency services. The UK will need an additional 14,746 doctors and 43,193 nurses to maintain current levels of medical staff per capita. This is the equivalent of 13.3% of the current NHS number of doctors in England and 13.6% of the current number of NHS nurses in England.
There is a fairly clear way ahead: to minimise disruption, while achieving control of numbers. The key element that needs to be controlled is migration for work (which accounts for the bulk of net EU migration). This could be sharply reduced if EU immigrants were subject to the same requirement for work permits as now currently apply to non-EU workers: the aim would be to reduce the overall scale of immigration without losing the economic benefit of highly skilled immigration. By doing this, net migration – 330,000 last year – could be cut by about 100,000 per year. Tourism would not suffer: obviously, there would be no need to require tourist visas for EU citizens any more than we do for Americans now. Nor would there be any need for restrictions on students, or genuine marriage. Even freedom to live elsewhere could be protected: EU citizens could still come to live in the UK provided they had the means to support themselves. All you have to do is to Vote Leave on June 23rd
That was more serious than I usually like to be but our position is such that unless we do something about the situation on June 23 Referendum day by voting to free ourselves from the shackles of the EU it will be too late. We will only get one chance, so make your vote count. Thanks for listening, I’ll be back next week. Cheerio!