It is a simple fact, as Richard Drax may have suggested, talking about Italy, that 600,000 is a lot of immigrants to absorb.
The mistake that Andrew Martin makes is to identify that as primarily created by the EU. Wrong target. It is mainly a refugee immigration situation in Italy due to its position in relation to North Africa and the near east. Those fleeing have suffered as a result of the belligerence of sovereign states, some, including the UK, from outside the region.
Armed forces, weapons and their delivery systems have been introduced by governments and arms dealers. Not the EU. Mr Martin attacks economic migration. Is he opposed to British bricklayers seeking work in Germany? It may take them a while to speak the local language to the foreman.
Does Mr Martin believe it wrong that British doctors should gain experience in the USA or Australia? Maybe no language problem there. What is wrong with a nurse from Asia coming here to nurse, with great good humour, my dying mother? We need an employed work force to pay the taxes to pay for nurses.
More than half the ‘thousands of people (who) continue to pour in’ Mr Martin should know are not EU citizens.
Of the 90,000 who stayed last year, nearly 50% had firm job offers. So they’ll be tax payers. Of the 200,000 non EU citizens who came in last year nearly half were students. So that’s good for our economy now and in the future. Margaret Thatcher signed up for free movement within the EU single market and customs union, which we have all benefited from. Because we are a sovereign state and have our own Border Force Agency we can decide who comes in.
During enlargement in 2004 almost all other existing EU countries exercised that right and imposed controls on immigration. Our democratically elected government chose not to.
Most of what Leave voters complain about - a dire economy, obnoxious inequality, a plummeting pound, services kept afloat by immigration - are the results of our own government’s decisions. Not the EU. Wrong target.
JOHN WHY
Sea View
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