Europa!

@wordsworth60 wrote:

@terry wrote:

@wordsworth60 wrote:

Better in than out I say!

May I ask why?

The Swiss don’t belong to the EU and still trade in Europe (as do the Chinese..)

It costs this country close to £50,000,000 per day to be a member of the EU. Please explain why we need to be ‘in’. :roll:

No.

I so love one word answers …..

How refreshing …

:)

gawd :D

Fact: 82% of Polish migrants are aged 18-34.

Fact: 8% of workers bring dependants with them.

Fact: 97% of the migrants are in full time employment.

Fact: Polish and other Eastern European migrants have added almost £5bn to Britain’s economy since 2004 and added around 1% to the GDP since 2005.

Fact: there has been no discernible impact on wages as a result of immigration from Eastern European countries.

Although the education system is good in Poland, the skilled jobs just aren’t there and migrants are willing to come to Britain and do work for which they are often overqualified that many Brits shy away from, e.g. catering, domestic work, factory work, crop harvesting.

So the majority of Polish migrants are not a drain on our welfare system, they are economically active and pay tax and NI and they fill jobs that many British don’t want to do.

But here’s a question…it seems to be popular to bash the Polish immigrants but why?
They work hard, yes they send money home but they also treat themselves well and they generally shop locally. Where a community welcomes them they are (generally) friendly and integrate well. However woe betide any Pole who is enterprising and opens a business…if they open a Polish deli we’re up in arms, why can’t they shop in our shops? Why do they need their own? Why has our local supermarket got shelves full of Polish food and lager? and so on.

In 2010 11.9% of migrants came from India, 5.8% of migrants from Pakistan, 5.4% from Poland, 5.2% from Australia, 5.2% from China.

Where are the people complaining about the high immigration from India and Pakistan, the Indian restaurants, the shops, the shelves of Indian food and lager in our shops? Ah, that’s right…we were bashing them a while ago when they were doing exactly as the Eastern Europeans are doing now, except that now we’ve accepted them as part of “our country”; we’ve accepted them as valued members of, and contributors to, “our society”; we’ve accepted their food as our food and so on.

Go further back and before the Asians, the immigrants that we were bashing were the Irish and Afro Caribbeans, with guest houses having signs saying “No Irish or blacks”, with people up in arms because there was a black family moving into their street. Now we happily drink in Irish pubs, Guinness has become a fixture in our pubs (How many British stouts can you name without googling?), we even celebrate St Patrick’s Day with greater fervour than we celebrate St George’s Day. We don’t even blink at dreadlocks or rasta hats, and few have any problem with mixed race marriage – it has, quite rightly, been accepted by the majority.

And if you continue going back through history you’ll find the immigrants that were bashed before that, all the way back to the Romans…even further back if you have a mind to.

The sad fact is that with every wave of immigration from a new country we exhibit the worst characteristics of xenophobia and downright racism until gradually we accept the new influx into our society and culture. With acceptance comes a richer tapestry that is Britain, constantly changing and growing as it has throughout the centuries. It’s just a shame that it takes so many of us so long to embrace our differences and accept the changes and that we feel the need to attack that which will enrich us in the longer term.

There you are Terry, a mix of facts and emotion. Heaven forbid that we should only focus on hard facts and discard the emotion though, for it would make this a sad and bland world to live in.

Fact: Facts need reliable, independent sources are it isn’t fact.

So where are your sources for these so-called facts?

@jen_jen wrote:

Fact: 82% of Polish migrants are aged 18-34.

Fact: 8% of workers bring dependants with them.

Fact: 97% of the migrants are in full time employment.

Fact: Polish and other Eastern European migrants have added almost £5bn to Britain’s economy since 2004 and added around 1% to the GDP since 2005.

Fact: there has been no discernible impact on wages as a result of immigration from Eastern European countries.

Although the education system is good in Poland, the skilled jobs just aren’t there and migrants are willing to come to Britain and do work for which they are often overqualified that many Brits shy away from, e.g. catering, domestic work, factory work, crop harvesting.

So the majority of Polish migrants are not a drain on our welfare system, they are economically active and pay tax and NI and they fill jobs that many British don’t want to do.

But here’s a question…it seems to be popular to bash the Polish immigrants but why?
They work hard, yes they send money home but they also treat themselves well and they generally shop locally. Where a community welcomes them they are (generally) friendly and integrate well. However woe betide any Pole who is enterprising and opens a business…if they open a Polish deli we’re up in arms, why can’t they shop in our shops? Why do they need their own? Why has our local supermarket got shelves full of Polish food and lager? and so on.

In 2010 11.9% of migrants came from India, 5.8% of migrants from Pakistan, 5.4% from Poland, 5.2% from Australia, 5.2% from China.

Where are the people complaining about the high immigration from India and Pakistan, the Indian restaurants, the shops, the shelves of Indian food and lager in our shops? Ah, that’s right…we were bashing them a while ago when they were doing exactly as the Eastern Europeans are doing now, except that now we’ve accepted them as part of “our country”; we’ve accepted them as valued members of, and contributors to, “our society”; we’ve accepted their food as our food and so on.

Go further back and before the Asians, the immigrants that we were bashing were the Irish and Afro Caribbeans, with guest houses having signs saying “No Irish or blacks”, with people up in arms because there was a black family moving into their street. Now we happily drink in Irish pubs, Guinness has become a fixture in our pubs (How many British stouts can you name without googling?), we even celebrate St Patrick’s Day with greater fervour than we celebrate St George’s Day. We don’t even blink at dreadlocks or rasta hats, and few have any problem with mixed race marriage – it has, quite rightly, been accepted by the majority.

And if you continue going back through history you’ll find the immigrants that were bashed before that, all the way back to the Romans…even further back if you have a mind to.

The sad fact is that with every wave of immigration from a new country we exhibit the worst characteristics of xenophobia and downright racism until gradually we accept the new influx into our society and culture. With acceptance comes a richer tapestry that is Britain, constantly changing and growing as it has throughout the centuries. It’s just a shame that it takes so many of us so long to embrace our differences and accept the changes and that we feel the need to attack that which will enrich us in the longer term.

There you are Terry, a mix of facts and emotion. Heaven forbid that we should only focus on hard facts and discard the emotion though, for it would make this a sad and bland world to live in.

=D>