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I understand all that Cycle.....but here's my point:
The ward I represent doesn't have a large immigrant population. Most of the people in the ward can go weeks or months at a time and not see anybody who isn't white-British. The town as a whole has had a very small influx of eastern Europeans. Very small. Yet they are seen as the problem.
The far right have whipped people up to the point where they fear for their culture. This has been possible because of the constant coverage in the press of the 'immigration and asylum problem'.
You have the figures to show how many people came into the country......do you also have the figures to show how many left? How many who arrived in that first influx, who got so disillusioned that they returned to their country of origin?
Incidentally, those immigrants coming in from the accession countries, are not entitled to any assistance (eg, income support, housing benefit etc) unless they have worked for 12 months first. Most of them have no access to medical care even when they have children.
The problem isn't how much they cost .....we're not footing the bill, nobody is. The problem is that we end up with a large homeless population and a bunch of uncared for people. Meanwhile we characterise them as being a drain on our resources.....yet we channel little if any resources their way.
The worst part of it is that they end up as victims. What's sad is that we see them as a cause and not victims of the problem. If you've any doubts about that, come spend an evening in Halifax and listen to the jokes the pub comedians tell.
The religious side of it, in my opinion cannot be viewed in isolation from our current foreign policy.
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