Many people stayed at home or switched to Reform in protest at the big surge in legal migration. Reform had highlighted the numbers of illegals but like the other parties said little about the far bigger numbers of legal.
People were right in seeing difficulties from allowing so many visas to be granted. The country is short of homes, short of water and sewage pipes, short of electricity generation, short of GPs, short of school places. Inviting in so many people is not fair on them without the homes and services they will need, nor fair on people already here facing high prices for homes and scarce services.
The Treasury backed by most parties and many MPs thought more inward migration welcome to fill poorly paid job vacancies and to add to growth of output. Very few MPs in the last Parliament were willing and able to argue we need higher out per head, not higher output from more low income jobs. It needs investment in more mechanical and digital backup to help people be more productive and to earn better wages.
Every extra migrant adds to the need for more infrastructure, more public service and more highly trained staff like doctors and teachers. So why cannot the parties see what people can see? Why can’t there more concentration on the need to get numbers well down? Will more make the case for a higher wage higher productivity economy and stand up to interest groups that think the answer to their woes is more cheap Labour from abroad? A large increase in low pay migration means large increases in public spending to provide them with homes and services.
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