However all those migrants were basically a free source of human skill - i.e. another country poured their resources into nurturing and educating them, now the country they immigrate to gets to reap all the rewards. So it's hard to see how you couldn't pay an economic price for keeping out migrants.
I also wonder how you'd feel if the economic/political situation in your own country deteriorated so much that you felt you had no choice but to migrate elsewhere - but were no longer able to because anti-migration policies had become the norm everywhere.
> However all those migrants were basically a free source of human skill - i.e. another country poured their resources into nurturing and educating them, now the country they immigrate to gets to reap all the rewards.
A huge segment of the migrant flow comes with basically no skills, and is immediately dependant of the welfare system. The migration we are currently experiencing is a net negative for the UK
From what I've read, in most countries with strong levels of migration, the level of underemployment is almost always lower among migrants than the native born. I'd be pretty astounded if the UK was an exception.
Even just having reached adulthood and attained secondary-school level education makes you a capable worker that the country they migrate to has had to do nothing to support until that point. Any small amount of extra investment to ensure they learn the language and obtain employable-skills on top of that is virtually always going to pay off.
I'm not advocating anything - as it happens I do think it's unfair for some countries to cream off the best talent developed in other countries. But if those countries have failed to provide an environment their citizens can thrive in, they have every right to look elsewhere. And as a citizen of a country of migrants (*) I'm more than happy to have them come here. I recognise the UK doesn't really qualify the way Australia does but none of the concerns you've expressed make sense to me as a reason your nation's economy might be suffering.
(*) including my Dad, who came here as a 10 pound pom!
