Has The Government's Immigration Policy Failed Dismally?

[Gromit]

// A shock rise of more than 30% over the past year in net migration to Britain to 212,000 has dashed Conservative hopes of meeting their target of reducing the figure below 100,000 by the time of next year's general election. //

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/27/net-migration-uk-jumps-30-percent

The 100,000 target was set to fulfil an election promise to get immigration down to the tens of thousands, not hundreds of thousands.

Do you agree the target is little more than wishful thinking?

And the implimentation of immigration reduction has failed spectacularly?

[emmie]

exactly right, they can have no input in who comes from the EU, they are free to come and go, and British leaving, why is that a surprise, many will go where there are better prospects or retire, which is what i suspect is also happening, retire to the sun. they don't go to Spain, France, or further afield with no money, because you can't.

[Gromit]

AOG
// As regards your Guardian graph, that is like me quoting a Daily Mail graph to you. //

It is a graph in the Guardian. The data comes from the Office of National Statistic, i.e. The Government.

[emmie]

might be of interest

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2013/immigration-statistics-april-to-june-2013

[Gromit]

AOG

I don't know if you missed this in the question link (or just chose to ignore it)...

 // Net migration to Britain from the EU has doubled in the past year and EU immigration is at the highest level since 1964. //

As for 1 million east Europeans arriving here in the 5 years after 2004, under Labour, that is undeiably true. Unfortunately, you fail to mention that half of them have returned home.

//  Many Polish migrants to the UK have returned home

Many economic migrants from central and eastern Europe who came to work in the UK are returning home because of the recession, a report suggests.
The global Migration Policy Institute (MPI) study, commissioned by the BBC, says EU expansion led to 1.4m east Europeans moving to the UK up to 2008.
But the recession in Britain and modest economic growth in Poland have led to a change in this pattern, it found.
The MPI report suggests about half of those migrants have now left. //

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8243225.stm

[emmie]

which is what i said before, that as soon as a) their economy hits the skids, or in the doldrums, they will come here, b) as soon as it gets better, they will be offski.

does that also mean that those who go, are then replaced with other poor migrants, looking for work, and the same pattern occurs.
we wouldn't have so many if their own countries economies weren't in the toilet, or that they gave their workers better pay. If they can earn 100 quid a week here, as opposed to 50 pound a week there, it make sense, i only put those figures as an example, not an actual pay rate.

[Gromit]

Emmie,
If net immigration from the EU has doubled in the past year, that would suggest you are right. Past foreign workers are returning or new immigrants are replacing immigrant jobs.

It demonstrates how the below 100,000 target is wishful thinking, and in the real world, they are doing worse than Labour did post 2004.

[emmie]

but in real terms it's an impossible task, because whichever way one looks at it, there is no way to stop immigration, mass or otherwise.
Labour/Tory/Lib Dem, cannot do a sausage, or bratwurst without the ok of the men in suits.

[emmie]

with immigration before, most settled, had families, raised them, settled in for good, not some half baked stay for a year, maybe two, then head off home, so it doesn't benefit this country in the longer term. You need a stable economy, a stable workforce, and an education system that doesn't think that everyone should be an Einstein or a Media Mogul. we don't want to lose our brightest and best to overseas competition, which i believe is happening, because if they can't get a decent, well paid job here, in the field they have worked hard to get a degree in , then they will seek it elsewhere. Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, we shouldn't be importing any of those

[Gromit]

// Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, we shouldn't be importing any of those. //

The NHS and Private Hospitals would collapse without foreign doctors. Don't know why we cannot produce enough of them ourselves, but there is a shortage. Perhaps we should put a ban on people trained here from emigrating, and taking their skills with them.

Scientists and Engineers, we need to attract the best in the world to our shores if we are to stay innovative and inventive.

[jno]

Perhaps we should put a ban on people trained here from emigrating, and taking their skills with them.

I've often wondered whether something like this would be feasible. Training is expensive, and then they all toddle off to Bondi

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/27/exodus-nhs-doctors-australia

[emmie]

i honestly think that if they spend all those years training in the NHS at huge cost, then they should be required to not tout their skills elsewhere for a period of time, it's totally unfair.

[emmie]

its like giving someone a blank cheque for their chosen career, they then hoof it elsewhere and take those skills, and eduction that has been paid for here, to benefit others, whilst feathering their own nest if they end up in private practice. It is no different if its a Polish, Lithuanian doctor, who comes here,