General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Here's why 52% of British voted to leave [View all]Denzil_DC
(7,230 posts)With our depleted class sizes, for instance, it costs no more to employ a teacher, provide a classroom and heat and clean it for ten pupils than it does for one pupil. There are some other costs (we're unusual up here because kids get free school dinners whatever the parents' income on the basis of universality promoting social cohesion), but given widespread cutbacks in provision of schoolbooks etc., they're marginal. Immigrants can actually help keep our schools open.
As for some of the other things you mention, a society has to invest in people in order to reap the benefits they can bring, but you're assuming immigrants will need to claim housing allowance etc., which isn't necessarily the case. And even if they are, it's still economic activity. It ultimately puts money in others' pockets, and the great dance continues. Immigrants generally are quite high achievers academically from reports I've studied, because they're quite strongly motivated.
You can't separate the myths about the effects of immigration from attitudes toward the immigrants themselves, because of what lies behind them. You have to tackle the myths. That's the challenge.
Guess what? People from the UK migrate too. For economic reasons, among others, including mass retirement in Spain, where they have avery poor record of integration: none of the media has covered the ramifications of this result for the 700,000 Brits currently settled in Spain yet. If they have to repatriate, we really will have some problems.
If we want our people to be able to live abroad, we can't just slam the shutters on our own country. Leave actually acknowledges this, as today they've openly admitted that exit from the EU won't reduce immigration levels. So your "self-interested working class" just missed the target and shot themselves - and the rest of us who don't see things that way - in the feet in this case.