Quote Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow View Post
Another reason is that people are just generally ignorant when it comes to subjects like illegal immigration, refugees and foreign aid. People seem to think that all our foreign aid is spent on Pakistan's nuclear weapons and all refugees are here to take our benefits (how all or these Somalian children without any parents or school education are aware of the UK welfare system is amazing isn't it?).
You seem to have much the same immigration issue that we have in the US, except yours isn't Hispanic based. Part of the problem is that, while most are just looking for a better life, there is a large enough minority who are happy to have a free ride and that creates the basis for painting them all that way.

One of the issues with large immigrant populations is that the economy can only absorb just so many over a given period of time. Particularly when the economy is struggling. Then you have the people who do have jobs beginning to resent the "free loaders" and voting that way. My solution would be to control immigration at a sustainable level and use the money saved (from benefits) to invest in the countries when the immigrants originated in order to boost the economy there and eliminate some of the impetus to leave. Realizing that the governments (and I use the term loosely) in some of those countries are problimatical at best and usually corrupt so getting bang for the buck would be difficult.