[roughbeast]

Most net immigration, 208,000, is from outside the EU. The EU is 187,000. Within both figures are very many students, much needed skilled workers and dependents of folk already here. The only group to have a negative effect on UK wages are those agricultural workers that the government has allowed unscrupulous bosses to pay less than the minimum wage.

Why did they do this? 1. To keep food prices down, 2. For the same reason they have allowed immigration to remain high. i.e. to create demand in the economy, to boost business start ups and to increase tax revenue. Indeed without high immigration we may still be in recession.

The disgusting thing about this that whilst the government has encouraged high immigration, its rhetoric has been in the opposite direction. (They lied to us and kidded us that austerity was saving the economy.) Just as bad is the fact that the didn't invest their increased tax receipts into help those areas hit hardest by immigration

Solution? 1. Enforce the minimum wage / living wage so that indigenous workers take up agricultural industry jobs currently being filled by cheap labour 2. Build an economy that is less dependent on immigration by a) Borrowing to invest education and skills training, infrastructure, science and technology and particularly in green technology.

Austerity holds the economy back and just gives an excuse for shrinking the state and for selling state services off to Tory mates.

Asylum seekers and refugees are an issue nothing to do with the EU, but having to be managed by the EU. Out of the EU there would still be our international obligation to support and take asylum seekers and refugees.

Because we are not in the Schengen area and because we have proper border controls we are able to stop known undesirables entering. If we invested more, not less , in border controls there would be far less illegals entering. That is a government problem, not an EU problem.