Alan Johnson most recent said he would not lose any sleep over the prospect of a population of 70 million.

All three main political parties say that immigration in the present numbers is of economic benefit to the country.

But is this really true?

If an immigrant got a job, wouldnt the same job have gone to a local person, and as such hasnt that made them and their family poorer.

Doesnt the money immigrants earn find its way out of the country, and so does nothing for the people living here.

Immigrants get use of the health care system, social security, legal aid, education of their children/themselves. The local population have paid a lifetime for these services, immigrants only pay the taxes while they work here, which are much less than the value of the services.

Waiting lists for schools, hospitals, housing get extended.

On balance, it looks one sided against immigration to me, so why do major politicians keep saying its so good.

Over the centuries immigration into this country has generally been a good thing. Now, however, it has to be strictly controlled whatever sympathy you might have for those trying to get here. We are a small country with limited resources, the numbers of people trying to move here is potentially limitless. Politicians are afraid to enter the debate (other than to criticise the Government, conveniently forgetting their failings in the past) for fear of being labelled 'racist'. This means that, in effect, the far-right have control of the debate.

When I raised this question with my MP he claimed that the immigrants were benefitting the economy! This is the escape clause that Labour MPs always quote in defence of their misguided immigration policy. On the flip side they conveniently forget that it undermines our economy by taking jobs away from the native population and giving them over to immigrants.
Those immigrants from other EU countries return to their countries when the going gets tough here. Those from outside the EU would in time be out of work when the job market shrinks and will then cast themselves on to our welfare system and guess who benefits then? They are not likely to return to their home countries as life there must be pretty miserable otherwise they wouldn't have moved.
Britain is a small island with a contracting industrial economy which doesn't seem likely to improve in the near future. As a nation we are not self-sufficient, most of our food and energy needs have to be imported, much of it coming from those parts of the world from where the immigrants originate.
When I was born - three quarters of a century ago - the world population was around 2 billion, today it's seven and a half billion and rising. In this period natural resources have not risen to cope with this increase in population. If governments - especially in the third world - are not prepared to grasp the nettle and do something about controlling population growth this planet will very well break down - if it's not already on the verge of it happening.

Mass immigration is a great benefit to the super rich but make life a lot harder for the poor. Only working class areas have to absorb this influx so wealthy politicians couldn't care less.

Good post Terence.

This is an official publication.
Upwards of 1,700,000 new jobs were created in the first 8 years of this Labour government, 81% of these jobs went to non-British passport holders!

In the past three years that could have risen to 90%.

Political suicide for ANY country to carry on with that level of immigration.
God help our next generation of English, no wonder at over 900,000 our youth unemployment at the moment is by far the worst in Europe.
One in four in the under 25 age group.

Are there ANY Polish HGV drivers left in Poland?
Just curious......

It's not immigration it's colonisation there is a massive differance. America was colonised and look what happened to the native people.

I am not saying that immigration is all bad as long as it is in small doses, but is immigration really good for the UK well maybe it is but at the sametime I dont think it is. I mean we keep blaming the bankers for the recession we are in at this present moment in time, and yes they are partly to blame but lets be realistic shall we. For every 1 immigrant that has entered this country to work,earn a descent living make a good life and pay taxes and national insurance. There is another 10 who are not working but are claiming benefits,asylum and saying if they leave they will be killed and we the public are sitting back like sheep as the labour goverment gives them thousands of pounds in benefits. I am in the army been in 12yrs am a corporal and at this moment in time in afghanistan my taxes are being given to these people and just exactly what are they doing for the good and benefit of the country, i mean please tell me. I mean there are hard workers out there from foreign countries but when is the public finally gonna get a spine and send those who dont pay taxes and insurance back to where they belong.

Don't hold your breath S.Kirkwood.
Also we shall be fighting in the Middle East for a decade or more.
We have political pygmies in charge at the moment, I cannot see any political Lionhearts around in the short term.
Cameron....Political correct wimp I think.
God help us.

Yes, mass immigration is a good thing. I see no evidence whatsoever that Britain is "overcrowded". There are empty houses all over the place. The shortage of social housing is down to Tory policies of selling off council houses. There is no evidence at all that the level of immigration is connected in any way to the unemployment rate, but there is plenty of evidence that these scare stories about illegal immigrants claiming benefits, refugees jumping the housing queue and people crossing the world to gain access to A&E are complete rubbish. We need to stop looking for easy scapegoats, immigration is not the problem.

Immigration is a problem.

We are a nation that has official controls on immigration that are too loose and a problem with mass immigration that is not measured, tackled or discussed adequately.
Mainstream media has been weak in its analysis of this and seems to purposely avoid a full scale exposure of the issue. We will be brief about 'Question Time' and its avoidance of any sensible debate of the issue.
I personally abhor Robert Kilroy-Silk as a TV personality but the questions he posed in his appearance were apt and went unanswered. I find the politics of the BNP similairly abhorrent but whilst mainstream media and political parties ignore this issue fringe politicians and personalities will be able to exploit that cowardice and gain what I believe to be protest votes. (At least I hope that they are)
Regardless of the juggling of statistics, in the sectors of catering and construction where I have worked in the last six years and in Social Housing where I now work there has been a massive surge in migrant workers, migrant customers and the exploitation of both. Yes the private housing sector is far more inundated than the public sector with those who are working and living here in contravention of government controls. I do not see this as changing the seriousness of the issue.
The fact is that those at the head of industry perceive working class britons as expensive, complacent and unreliable workers. They may feel that there is truth to this but the massive influx of migrant workers, many of whom exploit the system and in turn are exploited by industry, does not offer a long term solution.
These events save the money of the heads of industry and ensure an ongoing boost to the economy. However they have a huge demographic impact which neither the very rich nor the politicians and media companies who are funded by them want publicised or debated.
In my belief it is the white working class in this country who are left to voice the unfashionable truths in ways that discomfit the more articulate, comfortable and unaffected sectors of society.
Until migrant workers receive housing in Kensington and Chelsea proportionate to the wealth of that borough and companies such as HSBC and Sodexho give their lowest tiers of staff reasonable wages, adequate training and pay from the moment they arrive to work I believe that we will continue to watch the elites in this country abdicating their responsibilities and criticising those who suffer from the results of that abdication.

So it is not immigration that's the problem, but exploitation of workers (whether immigrants or not).

The solution to this is not to stop immigration or to divide workers by arbitrary things like race or nationality, but for workers to stick together.

There's got to be a limit at some stage. And I believe that the rate at which migrants are entering the country is beyond a sustainable level. I am saddened that only 'hate' politicians are saying this or even asking the right questions about it.
Exploitation shows that elites are serving their own interests and not the migrants'.
The bigger issue is that big business, national government, local government will try anything to give the UK a compettitive advantage globally because neither they nor anyone else can guarantee that the nation will remain competitive.

I also believe that a state has a responsibility to protect its native population first before providing for those outside of the nation state. That is the purpose of the nation state as a 'group' and if it fails to do this then then its citizens have every right to choose a new group that will serve its interests.
In the meantime whilst the nation state is still functioning then the British government and British elites need to cooperate with the rest of us (British or non-British) to admit that there is a problem and work on a solution.

S Kirkwood - can you tell us where you found the evidence that for your claim that for every one immimgrant who is working there are ten claiming benefits? Do you have a comparison of the number of migrants on benefits against the number of UK-born on benefits? I can assure you it's tiny.

Going back to the terms of the debate, what does "mass" immigration mean exactly? is it 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000, 1,000,000 per year? Are you talking about gross or net immigration? If the same number of people are leaving the UK, is that still a problem?

What you have to remember is that by being able to live in the UK you are among the luckiest couple of percent of people on the planet - you are safe, you live in a stable country with the rule of law, you have useable infrastructure, you have free education, free healthcare, you are rich (if poverty means only being able to afford the basic sky package...). You probably moan about all these things because they could be better. You are all these things, to a greater or lesser extent, because our nation has a history of exploiting those bits of the world we could get our hands on (no, we're not alone in this). You're here posting on the amazon website because someone else is growing your food or keeping the militias away from your family. You are so lucky that there are people queueing up in Calais to risk their lives trying to get a bit of what you have got.

It is an entirely natural human reaction to say "pull up the drawbridge. I've got a good standard of living. I don't want to share it with those not lucky enough to be born in the UK, if I think that by doing so I might see a reduction in mine." Because of a fluke of genetics you were born here so you deserve these advantages and they don't. There's no justice in this debate - it is about self interest. Justice and fairness would see the end of immigration controls, everyone could live where they wanted, and the standards of living would even out across the world eventually - probably some way below where they are in the UK now.

So for us, since we're not going to do that, it boils down to what direction does self-interest point us in. Is our standard of living best protected by having some immigration, lots, or none? Most of the evidence points to the fact that, currently, migrants as a group pay slightly more into the public purse than they take out - because most of them can't claim benefits unless they have made the right contributions for something like jobseekers and they're made unemployed. There are additional public costs - the impacts on healthcare, education, policing - I don't know if these counteract the positives.

Personally, I want there to be enough people of working age to pay for my pension when I retire in 30 years or so. I owe my continued good health to a number of the migrants who have been propping up our NHS for the last 20 years or more. For entirely jingoistic reasons I want the UK to continue to have a totally disproportionate role in the world, and to be able to attract the brightest and best people from all over the world to support that. In a globalised world, shutting yourself off from the interconnections created by enabling travel and migration, and the financial benefits of them eventually makes you Burma. I'd make a rubbish subsistence rice farmer. I don't want to live in Burma. Do you?

You see no evidence that Britian is overcrowded?

I find this incredible. Every time I get into my car, take the train, try to park at the local supermarket, etc. etc., I am having to fight my way through people.

What has empty houses got to do with it? They are empty because they belong to someone (probably a second home) who doesn't want to sell it. That doesn't mean there aren't loads of other people who would happily live there given the chance.

You say there is no evidence connecting immigration with unemployment. Exactly what sort of evidence are you waiting for? Tell me logically how it is possible for a million people to come to the UK and get jobs, without that having reduced the number of jobs available to the existing population?

Mr Smith says: If the same number of people are leaving the UK, is that still a problem?
Yes, it is. Communities rely on people knowing that their behaviour to others, bad or good, will affect how they are interacted with in the future. If there is a constant churn of people, or, worse still, an influx of people who see themselves as a separate group, there is far less incentive to act well. Why bother? My point to star 35 is the obvious one - when the supply of labour at the low paid end of society is increased, deliberately, the low paid will be undercut in the wages market. Immigration is an easy scapegoat for so many problems because it genuinely is the cause of those problems, and quite obviously so. The overpaid administrators of this country want their plumbers cheap and their cleaners on £5 an hour, and immigration ensures they get exactly that. Without immigration, life for ordinary British people would be as good as that of the Norwegians, who have the sense (and ability) to elect governments that represent their interests.

We must be doing something right as everyone wants to come here!
Let the lot of them in, the whole 300 million in the EU!!
Then the superstate will be an English one!!!

A method in thy madness.......

The British immigration policy is something that the British public should be proud of. It is the media which has caused this negative slant on the policy, and this is mere scare-mongering! For those of you who read the daily mail as though it is the bible, it is not! Immigration not only benefits the country economically, but culturally also. We should be proud of being a diverse country, and the politicians should not have to hide their true feelings when it comes to this issue, as they are afraid of upsetting the media, and the few people out there who are afraid of this 'invasion' which is not happening, and never will. Politicians, especially Labour politicians have done a good thing for our country, and they should celebrate immigration! And for those who fear 'being undercut in the wage market', this is impossible! we have a national minimum wage (also brought in by the labour government), thus making this both highly unlikely and illegal. Mr Smith is correct in what he says, and those of you who 'fear' immigrants, and hide behind statistics which UKIP propogate, are merely afraid of change, or racist.
I can only hope that this country becomes proud of Labour's immigration policy, and that the people open their eyes to the advantages that this diversity will have on the present generation, and more pertinently the future generation.

Only a fool or a traitor could be proud of anything Labour has done.

The Labour government of the past 12 years has done more for this country than most, rivalling the achievements of the post-Second World War Labour Government with Bevan creating the NHS. Labour have made massive contributions to the education system, the welfare system, on the issue of gay rights, and have managed to make this country a better place. And you should be proud of this even if you are not a Labour supporter.

aand killing thousands of children in an illigal war , you must be so proud.