The speed with which they learn is usually simply astonishing, and they often put our children to shame. And not just in the English language, immigrant children have often won national spelling and maths competitions, despite quite short periods in the UK.
This is what I don't understand. Why is it good that a foreign child comes to the UK, enters an education system that their parents have contributed nothing at all towards and does well? The child's education cost fall onto the shoulders of long term UK residents who have paid into the system for generations and helped to establish the schools colleges and universities over decades and perhaps longer.
When I went through university, my tuition fees were minimal and I graduated without any debt. I suppose that my parents, grand parents and their parents paid for the establishment and running of these institutions over their working lives through taxes and other payments to the state. I don't think that it is fair for a foreign national to enter the established UK educational system having paid nothing towards it.
I mentioned that last week I was in Switzerland. They have a first class medical system that puts the NHS to shame in terms of speed of delivery and quality of care. However it is expensive and unlike the NHS it is not tax payer funded and free at the point of access. Therefore the funding model is different to the NHS in that each Swiss resident pays for the infrastructure, drugs and staff to run their service through fees and insurance. But the principle is the same, Swiss residents pay for their health care just as we pay for our health care, it just that we do it through NI, tax and prescription charges. To me, it would be an inconceivable abuse of generosity if I went to Switzerland with an expectation of free health care and free access to other services which Swiss residents have paid for and are still paying for. I would be filled with shame for asking the Swiss to shoulder my costs. I would also expect the Swiss to refuse point blank and eject me from the country if I could not pay my way.
This is why, I have great difficulty in "celebrating" the fact that foreign nationals do well in our schools, that we hand out free drugs to patients arriving here with an illness, whilst at the same time, our university students are crippled with £9000 per year tuition charges, NICE denies life extending drugs to people who have contributed to their health service for decades. I can't see what is good about these things.
With Turkey set to join the EU I can only see us taking on responsibility for the hundreds of thousands of Turks who will come here. Responsibility that we can't afford, which will damage care, education, the landscape as we build ever more houses and social infrastructure for future generations. I simply can't see any good in this.
I also visited Iceland (no-EU) a while back. I know they went bust a few years ago, but prior to that, per head of population Icelandic people were the wealthiest on the planet. Today, they have bounced back and they are very prosperous enjoying massive international investment, particularly from the US in aluminium production. They have good population control and prove that a country can prosper outside the EU, and I believe that we could do the same.
