Asylum and Immigration are Contentious Issues

Comment on Labour Policies : Labour Asylum and Immigration Policy by David.

Asylum and immigration are contentious issues where the average person in the street in my experience have a knee-jerk reaction, especially to immigration.

As a developed nation, especially one with a free health care system and relatively generous welfare state I understand we have to have controls on our borders.

I can see it’s frustrating for many British people to have paid into the system for decades only to find when they need help they don’t really get what they expected, but at the same time there is a strong perception immigrants (illegal or otherwise) enter this country and receive lots of help with giving nothing back.

I don’t know how true this perception is, the media certainly doesn’t help as they do give the impression our borders have been inundated by illegal immigrants looking to scrounge off the UK tax payer.

Also doesn’t help that the Labour government doesn’t deport all illegal immigrants quickly: I watched a documentary about illegal immigrants and the police were stopping people who acted suspiciously, when they found an illegal immigrant they let them go and told them to report to Boston in 14 days!! What is the point in spending tax payers money on finding illegal immigrants if they aren’t going to deport them?

I find very hard to believe people are coming to this country in mass illegally with no intentions of working, if you are an illegal immigrant you can’t claim much help from the government, yes you will receive free NHS treatment, but as I understand things they can not claim unemployment benefits etc…

As a trading nation it’s extremely important for us to have a well trained and flexible work force, as I see it under the last Conservative government apprenticeships were pretty much destroyed: I remember the YTS scheme as a teenager, I was offered £27 a week to put springs in a machine, no real training/job, just cheap labor!! This has left us with a severe shortage of trained workers, add to this dismantling of many of our core manufacturing industries etc… and we are left with a poorly skilled workforce!

I don’t know if Labour has made a difference to this shortage in their time in power (probably not done enough). This means employers have little choice in many industries to hire foreign workers to fill vacancies.

If a British person wants a job they should work their ass off to get the training necessary to be qualified to do that job so they are an attractive employee to potential employers.

David