Iron Bru › Forums › Non Football › ‘Growth growth growth!’ › Reply To: ‘Growth growth growth!’
The downside is that this (immigration) inevitably puts a lot more pressure on public services, including the NHS, and that is a problem.
You wilfully miss the point.
Once again, you repeat the myth about migration putting pressure on public services, particularly the NHS.
It’s a frequently used argument which tries to conceal racism under the cloak of a legitimate concern, while suggesting there’s something inherently ‘bad’ about making provision for the public; that somehow decent public services are an abberation that shouldn’t happen.
It’s also false argument about elderly migrants, because most migrants tend to be young, single, healthy and wanting to work and pay tax. The stats are in my OP.
You rightly point out that around 20 per cent of the UK population is over 65, (that’s 20 per cent of 67 million) and around 12 per cent of migrants are 65 or over. But, that’s 12 per cent of the 9.5 million who were not born in the UK, not 12 per cent of 67 million!
And, the reality is that almost all the 12% of 65+ non-Brits, are citizens who have lived and worked here most of their lives, starting families and paying taxes just like anyone else.
Alas, in true Mail style, you try to create a fearful impression of elderly men and women ‘illegals’, scrambling up the beaches, straight to the front of the queue in the nearest hospital.
It’s an ancient trope guaranteed to anger the elderly, who really depend on our broken-down, under-funded public services.
Indeed, wasn’t it Teresa May and her climate of hostility who very publically went round Brixton and elsewhere in a bid to round up elderly, long-retired Windrush migrants and send them back after decades of living and working here, simply because they had never applied for a British passport? It must have looked terrific to the racists in the party, a real piece of populist politics aimed at drawing Kippers back into the blue fold! The nasty party indeed.
As for the “big impact” you claim elderly immigrants have had on public services, they certainly have. They’ve been propping up the public services since the 1950s, driving buses, cleaning trains, streets, hospitals, doing a lot of jobs Brits thought were beneath them…. And that’s while putting up with years of racism, abuse, arrogance and passive hostility from the populist press and people like yourself, probably while looking after your elderly mother, and now or in future, yourself. You should be ashamed.
