00:00Recent protests have pushed the issue of immigration back into the national spotlight.
00:06A new polling from Ipsos shows how sharply opinions are split.
00:11The survey of 2,451 adults suggests 85% believe the country feels divided.
00:20Immigration or the migration of people, it's been going on for as long as humanity has been on this planet.
00:26We move about, but quite clearly we have a situation where borders become more important,
00:32and particularly so after Brexit, which is about securing the borders.
00:36Now the fact is, of course, that we get people coming in on boats on a regular basis,
00:41and indeed over the summer there were some days when there were over 1,000 people coming each day.
00:45You don't have to be a genius in maths to work out. That's a lot of people.
00:50Ipsos found that almost half of those surveyed on immigration
00:54feel it has had a negative impact on the UK overall,
00:58with 48% raising concerns about pressure on the NHS and other public services.
01:06Housing worries were also significant.
01:0962% said immigration has made homes harder to find,
01:14and concerns about employment were highest.
01:17Now, of course, migration is a good thing.
01:19It brings lots of different cultures and skills and expertise and whatever else,
01:23and we are a rich and diverse society.
01:25But undoubtedly, where you get it concentrated in certain areas,
01:29there are pressures that come on the local amenities, housing, hospitals, education,
01:35all the sort of things which are struggling to cope anyway.
01:38The fact that more people are coming in to consume these services is a problem.
01:42And, of course, this requires greater taxation.
01:44There's then another issue, the sort of people that we bring in,
01:47are they going to be net contributors?
01:49Now, of course, if you bring in somebody who's going to be a computer engineer,
01:52being paid maybe $100,000 a year, for example,
01:55there's no doubt they are going to sort of contribute sort of immensely.
01:58But if you bring in somebody in on sort of a low wage to sort of work in the care system,
02:02it's a big problem, and it dominates the sort of the headlines.
02:06And, indeed, I think it's going to be a major sort of electoral issue
02:08at the sort of the next general election,
02:12because, of course, a certain sort of reform party claim that they're going to solve this problem.
02:16But there is no doubt in the last number of years,
02:19immigration has sort of gone up very dramatically
02:23without sort of little sort of preparation for the consequences this has for the existing society.
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