The NHS could not operate without immigrant workers.

An obvious falsehood.

Our social care system, and our education system are significantly dependent on immigrant workers.

I’m not sure what is meant by “significantly dependent,” but let’s assume that in order to facilitate social care and education, net migration to the UK is positive for all future time periods.

Then it follows as a matter of simple mathematics that the native population of the UK will be completely replaced by the migrant population.

Perhaps this is a good thing, as far as Natalie Bennett is concerned? I doubt that many people would agree, though.

But of course their contribution isn’t only through employment, whether they are young or old. The grandmother who moves to Britain to be with her family – she might be providing childcare, or she might simply be providing the solidity, the knowledge, the experience of a lifetime… [etc]

Translation: migrants who migrate are people; as people they have had experiences; these experiences influence who they are as people; therefore, immigration is always a good.

Hooray!

The NHS could not indeed survive without the NHS. Migrants routinely fill shortfalls in several key sectors (none more so than care staff and nurses), and without those places the NHS could not survive. With an increasingly larger older population and the demand for more elderly care this problem is going to only get worse.

Then again these are all facts that the UKIP mentality finds hard to swallow.

Its quite bizarre that a ‘green’ would promote migration on any kind of scale. Most of the problems addressed by that faction have as their root cause some aspect of globalisation. Surely a true green would be promoting sustainable development within nations i.e. Serious limits on the international trade of manufactured goods would force nations to be self sufficient and encourage local markets.

Vimothy, Do you have the brains or backbone of a flatworm? Because the people who have your stated outlook in real life do. The billionaire bribe masters behind such obvious poison are laughing at you all the way to the offshore tax haven with our liquidated wealth, while you blame others who commit the heinous crime of wanting a better life for themselves and their families.

Hooray for you too

Btw, if those billionaire bribe masters weren’t such odious scroungers worldwide, there would be less people needing to migrate for a chance of a decent life in the first place. Not that you would ever acknowledge that simple fact.

Dissident,

I’m not sure what simple fact you refer to. However, our “billionaire bribe masters” do not, as a rule, agree with me–alas. If they did, we’d certainly have a lot less immigration. Our billionaire bribe masters generally agree with you (assuming that you believe immigration to be the summum bonum). That’s why we have so much of it.

Otherwise, our billionaire bribe masters are not really worthy of the name, are they?

For example, here’s Peter Sutherland, UN rep for migration arguing that EU states should do their best to undermine national homogeneity in order to make themselves more welcoming to migrants:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-18519395

He also suggests that trying to limit migration is contra international law.

In addition to his role at the UN, Sutherland is a chairman at LSE, a member of the Bilderburg steering group, a chairman at Goldman Sachs, former head of the WTO and a former chairman at BP.

That’s a very incomplete list, though. You can find out more about the life and times of one of our billionaire bribe masters at his Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sutherland

@ Paul Peter Smith

The flip side of such migration are entire forests regrowing in Eastern Europe! As for global trade, yes definitely manufacture as much of the goods we need locally. It is slightly daft to have say a bog standard cupboard built in China, shipped thousands of miles in a container only to open it and find its broken due to said journey. The company I work for has had about a hundred million pounds worth of losses over the past decade due to that little niggle.

I agree that such attacks do indeed ‘distract from “Britain’s long-term failure to build adequate housing, particularly social housing”

But since there is no realistic possibility that this need will ever be met (especially following right to buy 30 odd years ago) surely it can only mean more, and more people from the lower strata in a perpetual fight to avoid the least worst housing option?

According to Shelter there are nearly 1.8 million households in England on local authority housing registers but many waiting on housing lists for years and years still have little prospect of a decent home each time their application is trumped by another family deemed more in need.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwMe4YBcE0o

3.
Are you suggesting that a member of the British Green Party, addressing a symposium on cultural diplomacy, should have made an anti migration speech?

No Ceiliog I was pointing out the strangeness (to me) that someone who should be promoting local and regional solutions to poverty and access to opportunity, would effectively promote migration. The reasons people flee poverty to wealthier climes are many of the same issues organisations like the greens rightly take on. If the greens are consistent with their core message then they should be opposing the brain drain from under-developed countries and pushing programs that mean an engineer, doctor or candlestick maker can earn a good living almost anywhere.

8.
The speech was about the British Government’s rhetoric being at odds with reality. I’m sure that Ms Bennett is a supporter of sustainable development, localism, green energy solutions and other socio-economic issues but you need to bear in mind that the speech was on one topic.

5. That’s why MI5′s flat pack furniture empire collapsed and why there will be no new episodes of Spooks!

Ceiliog
I read the speech in its entirety and agree with much of the sentiment there in. My puzzlement arose from the contradiction of supporting ( in general terms ) the human asset stripping of the third world ( economic migration ) by a representative of an organization defined by localism. Regardless of the audience or subject an argument needs internal consistency.

10.
ICD Conference Details.
http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/index.php?en_2013-iscd-uk_timetable
Natalie Bennett’s lecture and discussion slot took up 30 minutes.

Thanks for the link Ceiliog, I will give it more attention tommorrow.
But I stand by my opinion.

Serious limits on the international trade!

The billionaire bribe masters!

Hahahahahaha. Usual crap from meaningless partys and loons, its never been so funny to witness the dysfunctional destroy them selves hahahahahaa.

The sooner the uk has a population of 100 million and the EU control tax budgets and foreign policy, the better!

Ob – is that short for obnoxious? Just wondering…
Is your Amygdyla hyper stimulated at all, I believe there are some good medications available. The combination of corplormazine and lithium can work wonders I hear.

Uhuh little dissent the eco warrior. The uk NEEDS to double its population, the UK needs to hand all major control over to the EU, get over it pal, racist little englander.

For the amount the EU and immergrants have done for this country, little bstards will always refuse to acknowledge its value.

Wow, such a coherent argument there, Ob. Which ‘dissident’ are you on about? My moniker is spelled with a capital ‘D’ – understand the difference?

What ever you say kid! The sooner we make the transistion to super state the better, for the world finally gets to stop hearing the opinions and suffering the votes of self important little shits.

UKIP Bennett ?????????????????????

15 million Brits living abroad. (Foreign & Commonwealth Office figures)

7.5 million immigrants living here. (government’s own statistics)

So for every one immigrant who came in… two Brits went out.

Nuff said.

Yes yes we get it. Immigration is wonderful. Everyone should have some. Except of course for the countries that are losing all their productive workforce. If the NHS is being supported by immigrants, that really says to me that the society cannot effectively produce the necessary skills indigenously. Conversley if they bring in skills they ,by the same logic, are taking away skill from whence they came. The logic is greater population growth will need greater amounts of immigration. Unforunately Ponzi with people is a hiding to nothing. Anyone that dresses up asysmetric population distribution as desirable is insane.
But one should imo not forget that this asymetry is driven by the same mechanism as the continuing development of underdevolpment of the third world. Until nation states are allowed to keep the procedes of their national wealth instead of being robbed by multinationals and the political infrastructure thats supports them (eg IMF,World bank etc) then individuals will be left running around the globe looking for personal betterment instead of developing their own communities.

Yes I’m also surprised that the Green Party is encouraging skilled health workers from the developing worold to come to the UK – to do what? To spend an increasing amount of time caring for those who are obese and alcoholic?

Are there not far more pressing health and social care needs to be met in the developing world and shouldn’t the Green Party be encouraging skilled Britons who are finding it difficult getting employment in their own country to volunteer elsewhere in the world where their presence will be of greater value?

Natalie Bennett has skewed her argument in favour of immigration by stating (a) that governments could and should have solved the housing shortage (which is undoubtedly exacerbated by immigration) and (b) maintaining that “the NHS could not operate without immigrant workers”, when the NHS’s dependence on immigrant workers is something that could be changed – just as the housing shortage could be rectified.

If we can deal with (a), we can deal with (b), particularly when we have a couple of million unemployed people. That said, dealing with (a) and (b) would take time, and meanwhile immigration both exacerbates housing shortages and helps staff the NHS.

@ 19 so imagine if repatriation was enforced worldwide. 15-7.5 million is 7.5 million. The population of London. Be ironic if it happened…

@ 20 asymmetric population densities are what we have always had since we started to settle down in agriculturally based communities. The most successful eventually grew into cities – and now, with a population of billions worldwide it will be necessary to start building urban arcologies, unless we want to concrete over even more of the countryside.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcology

Whether people would actually want to live in mega skyscrapers over a mile tall is another issue, given our propensity to turn utopian fantasies into dystopian realities!

22.
Natalie Bennett, in her lecture at a symposium on cultural diplomacy, highlighted how the current Government is using immigrants as scapegoats. Given that Ms Bennett only had a 30 minutes talk plus discussion slot at the centre, I think that she made an important point.

“The flip side of such migration are entire forests regrowing in Eastern Europe!”

That’s great for Eastern Europe. Please let us know how that is to the benefit of a country which is struggling to cope with a booming population while facing an energy capacity crisis.

Sustainable migration can only be achieved by ending the trade barriers, corporate stranglehold and subsidies that strangle third world economies. The answer is not to impose barbarically brutal migration policies that split up couples, deport vulnerable asylum seekers & set up immigrants as the scapegoats for society’s ills. A humane migration policy would stop forcing people out of their country of origin, through war, foreign intervention, ecological disaster and ecomomic abuse. It would make conditions in those countries liveable rather than continuing to profit from inequality. Equally it would acknowledge that our wealth, our quality of life, is fundamentally indebted for the ways we’ve taken advantage of third world countries. We have a debt to pay to those that can’t get by in their own countries. I’m proud the Green Party gets this, when no other party does

@ 25

The whole world is facing a booming population. The projections are another 2-4 billion, on top of the current 7 billion by 2050. Unfortunately if we don’t solve the problems of resource depletion and environmental degradation worldwide, that boom will precede a crash back to as little as 2 billion by 2100.

What makes you think Britain would or should somehow be exempt? Since the only parts of the globe that are facing a local fall in population also happen to be areas with a moribund economy, like Eastern Europe, shouldn’t the cause of said economic stagnation be dealt with, as others have pointed out?

Or do you want this country’s economy to be just as bad, after all if it was, people wouldn’t move here for a better life. Lets imagine if this country’s economy collapses due to the current austerity measures (which benefit only the rich) your options would then be stay or go elsewhere. Which would you choose?

As far as infrastructure is concerned, what did the Victorians do? They built it. In an era when the population of this country doubled from 16 to 30 million in the space of 50 years, with technology little better than pickaxes and shovels. We now need to rebuild most of it anyway as it is crumbling away beneath our feet after decades of poor investment and maintenance. Energy security is tougher, yet even there we have many options as you should be aware.

Lets not forget, large areas of this country were deliberately depopulated a couple of centuries ago, so a bunch of self proclaimed nobles could indulge in the über important pastimes of ‘gentlemanly’ sports like deer hunting as an example. To say nothing of cramming way too many sheep into country estates, which are keeping much of this country looking like the scenes from quite a few post apocalypse films.

Lets imagine if this country’s economy collapses due to the current austerity measures (which benefit only the rich)

LOL how do they beneift “the rich” then?

@ 29 obtuse

Here’s an analogy for you – a tapeworm (or flatworm) inhabits your gut. Then it not only evades your immune response, but takes so much from you that you become weak. Your body can only cope with so much, but in the short term it is boom time for the parasites infesting your body.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-01/billionaires-worth-1-9-trillion-seek-advantage-in-2013.html

Lol indeed

You cant answer how it benefits the rich then, just an analogy and a link stating there are rich people in the world, fuck off and crawl back under your rock you self hating scum.

@ 31 obdurate

obviously I am too kind to you in your obstructively defined obedience of the scum that rise to the top. How much are you obliged to obstinately troll? And how much are the scum observing you in your obnoxious and all too obvious attempts to be obtuse?

More bullshit. If you can not explain how the uks austerity measures benefit the rich specifically then do not make the claim that they do.

We could Really do without idiots trying to promote class war and Hate in this country, especialy idiots thats give analogys about tap worms in the gut and links to rich people getting richer as economic activity recovers, when simply asked for evidence of their claim.

I am sick to death of leftists with big words and zero substance, you literaly think if you type with some style it no longer matters that you are saying nothing, big words were made for big minds with something big to say my freind.

Ob
Here’s a quick example of how the financial plan for recovery is a scam. Quantitative Easing was supposed to improve credit flow throughout the economy, instead the banks used the money to speculate on the commodities markets causing huge rises in the price of oil & food. No money ‘ trickled down’, the cost of living went up and the rich got richer.
Why do you assume the rest of the shell game is any different?

Why do you assume the rest of the shell game is any different?

Most around here have the economic literacy of a rat and would cut a siblings legs off in the name of equality if they could run faster than them. The world would be a cesspit if they were not pushed out of the way of development.

Burn her shes a witch! vs burn her shes rich!

Kill him its witchcraft! (no actualy its an invention)
vs
Ban all cars! Ban trade! Wash with your urine! Its save the planet!

Mind set of the stupid & incapable still very much with us.

Why is some guy called Ob kicking the fuck out of me?

Ob
Is it lonely under your bridge?
And by the way, I have the economic literacy of at least a monkey maybe even a chimp on a good day!

And by the way, I have the economic literacy of at least a monkey maybe even a chimp on a good day!

In that case the bad bankers used the money to buy bananas.

Why is some guy called Ob kicking the fuck out of me?

Would you prefer some analogys about tap worms because them rich peoples iz bad dey is! Ban cars! Ban trade!

He’s doing it again!
It’s damn lucky I have no flesh to bruise.

Ob
Check out Oxford English Dictionary – Sarcasm. And then kiss my arse.

Check out Oxford English Dictionary – Sarcasm.

I think it would benefit you more.

And then kiss my arse.

The “burn the witch” mind has not yet evolved to the point of hygiene, I think I will give that a pass sweety.

Ob
I used sarcasm, the lowest form of wit, easily countered with any other kind of wit or a reasoned argument. You respond with sarcasm showing you understand neither wit nor reason.
Likewise the invitation to ‘kiss my arse’ was purely metaphorical, do you understand metaphor?

I used sarcasm, the lowest form of wit, easily countered with any other kind of wit or a reasoned argument. You respond with sarcasm showing you understand neither wit nor reason.

I have little time to reason with someone who claims the recovery to be a “scam” because “the banks bought grain”

Likewise the invitation to ‘kiss my arse’ was purely metaphorical, do you understand metaphor?

Why yes, yes I do, there goes your mental snobbery right out the window so BAN TRADE! IS EVIL!!! SAVE EARTH! WASH IN URINE!!!

Dear God! Both of you shut up!

Sorry everybody, forgot golden rule – dont feed the trolls.

Sorry everybody, forgot golden rule – dont feed the trolls.

Or anyone unfortunate enough to live in a poorer country than you, save the earth!!!! Turn their food into fuel so you can drive to tesco and they starve to death!!! Ban trade!

@ Obtuse, various posts 33-47
Your statements there have proven that the last thing you want is substantive arguments. To the rest of us, how about using what I wrote or variants thereof to feed it with every time it tries to obfuscate…

Your statements there have proven that the last thing you want is substantive arguments.

Your previous statements on this site prove you want to starve countless individuals to death to adress a dysfunctin within your own mind..well done! You arent worth arguing with.