Letter: Can the Remainers Answer These Questions?

Published on: 24 Nov, 2016
Updated on: 24 Nov, 2016

From Jim Allen

In response to the letter: Many Are Incensed About Brexit And May Support the Lib Dems

Incensed or not, one must consider the national UK vote, not just a local one.

Also, while “freedom of movement” is one of the Remainers main cries, perhaps this group of “professionals” can explain a couple of technical points – even if the Local Plan is so unimportant to them.

1. where is the 2.8 million litres of water per day coming from to allow these additional members of the community to drink?
2. where are all the additional cars (normally two per household in Surrey) go?
3. as we only have sewage capacity for 4,000 additional homes where with the waste of the other thousands of homes planned go?
5. pollution is currently running in excess of 50mg/m3 for nitrous oxide on the A3, are we to start breathing this instead of oxygen?

One would have thought that these professional types, allegedly better educated than us poor secondary school lads, would have taken these minor matters into account prior to making such rash statements or wanting to remain in the EU.

However you cut it, there are certain necessities which the human body cannot do without. Water, clean air and sanitation. All contribute to our quality of life and are every bit as important, perhaps more so, than material wealth.

The discredited open borders policy took no account of the available resources in the receiving countries, resources necessary to sustain the current residents as well as the incomers.

Responses to Letter: Can the Remainers Answer These Questions?

George Potter Reply

November 24, 2016 at 5:51 pm

All I can say in response to this is that ending free movement would make things worse.

Sadly, Jim Allen’s questions rather betray his ignorance and confusion.

Firstly, he forgets the simple truth that abandoning free movement means abandoning the single market. And abandoning the free market, as we have seen in the autumn budget statement, means creating a £220 billion black hole in the national finances. That’s £220 billion which we will not be able to spend on water, on tackling flooding and air pollution, on sewage, on parking and on transport infrastructure, and all the other problems which he identifies. Therefore ending free movement will make these matters worse, not better,

Secondly, even if there was no cost whatsoever from leaving the single market, the fundamental fact is that immigrants from the rest of the EU pay in far more in tax than they take out through public services and in any additional cost to infrastructure. Immigration means we have more money to spend on tackling the issues Mr Allen complains about and less immigration would mean a loss to the public purse far greater than any savings which might be made from having less people in the country.

Furthermore, since immigration from the EU is far from the only cause of population growth in the South East, ending free movement would not stop pressure on services and infrastructure increasing. At best we’d see a slower increase while the government deals with £220 billion less to spend on easing the pressure.

While Mr Allen might want to unpatriotically betray our country by calling for a course of action that will damage industry, increase unemployment, increase government borrowing and leave all of us poorer, I would rather we retain free movement and instead focus on the failures of our local and national Conservative government which continues to fail to distribute resources fairly to tackle the challenges communities up and down the country are facing.
Jim Allen Reply

November 24, 2016 at 10:07 pm

George Potter has (deliberately?) missed my point. No amount of free movement of humans will transfer 2.8 million litres of water per day from the EU to England nor will any amount of money clean the air pollution.

Mr Potter has fallen for his own propaganda. All he talks is money and politics while my point is practical, from start to finish.
Christopher Dalby Reply

November 25, 2016 at 2:30 pm

George Potter is talking utter nonsense and are proves, once again, how out of touch so many people are in this country in regards to the EU and some incredibly important issues.

Mass uncontrolled immigration from the EU is a massive problem for the UK, maybe not for those whose attitudes indicate that they are most probably one of the “haves” as opposed to “have nots” with your own home and a nice comfortable lifestyle and therefore have attitudes which are completely out of touch to the majority of people whom voted to leave the EU and such attitudes which show utter contempt for the have nots.

Studies have found that after taking into consideration things such as in work benefits and the cost to local services (such as schools and hospitals) immigrants take out far more than they pay in to the economy (most are low skilled workers) but the problems the infrastructure has faced due to mass immigration are far more harmful to any financial gain in the first place, a fact that cannot be denied.

This is not all about money and never has been and it is very sad that you ignore the problems many people and communities are facing and choose to focus on things like that. There is no evidence whatsoever that Brexit will harm Britain in the long term and being part of the single market is not the be all and end all at the end of the day and I have no idea why people are so obsessed with it in the first place as it comes at great financial cost too with our massive fee’s.

We are well placed to trade with the EU which needs our custom and vise versa which means that a fair deal will benefit us all and will be done, if not then we all lose.

This doom and gloom attitude and ignorance towards what mass uncontrolled immigration has done to communities and families must stop as well as this obsession with the financial impact Brexit will have, all of which have been proved to be false up to this point and will continue to be so.

Our membership to the EU has become untenable and it is a great shame that some people have their priorities so out of touch to the rest due to their own comfortable lifestyles. It makes me ashamed to be British at times.
Patrick Haveron Reply

November 25, 2016 at 9:46 pm

How would leaving the EU reduce migration?

In our quest for growth – whoever we trade with – 85% of the jobs created in the last quarter in the UK went to immigrants (source The Times).

Given that 55% of our immigration is already on a points based system (for non EU citizens – most of which are students) that we can control, I assume that there may be even more weight on EU workers to continue filling our jobs. (Source: Full fact: https://fullfact.org/immigration/eu-migration-and-uk/)

The only way to reduce migration would be to make the economy contract significantly by, say, falling off a cliff. Hmm.
- Jim Allen Reply
  
  November 26, 2016 at 9:36 am
  
  Yet another failing to spot the obvious. The questions is not about ‘reduction of immigration’ its about water supplies, traffic congestion and air pollution.
  - Patrick Haveron Reply
    
    November 28, 2016 at 11:44 am
    
    Perhaps Jim Allen should get on his bike? That would reduce traffic congestion and air pollution. Unfortunately it will increase the demand for water.