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Comment by gabereiser | Hacker News Reader

It’s not just a British problem. Climate change, war, population growth, all play a factor. America and “The Wall”. Britain and the “mass refugee immigration”. Italy and theirs, Greece, the list goes on. People want to live, in security, and prosperity for their children and in some places of the world that’s not possible. So they migrate, immigrate, or become refugees of a war that only makes sense in the nonsensical. I’m not saying there aren’t problems, there are, but to put up walls and restrict humans and deny empathy is not the answer.

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This is an article of faith on your part. None of the immigrants are relocating directly because of climate changes, and a minority are moving because they are refugees from an active war zone. Many are fighting age men, adventurers and opportunists.

Refugee laws were written a hundred years ago when there were frequent wars in Europe that would displace non-combattent women and children. They didn't have much option to go far beyond a neighbouring country and would likely go back home after the war was over.

Our current system of laws requires us to host any refugee or immigrant from anywhere in the world on a permanent basis.

There is no way this is sustainable economically, and much less so culturally.

The government could fix this instantly, but they choose not to.

Refugee laws were written in 1951 after people felt total shame at having kept out so many victims of the Nazis during World War 2. And the immigrants are not causing the burden on the NHS but the staffing of the NHS. Just check how many of the nurses in any London hospital are Filipino. Finally, house prices are not high because of immigrants but because governments keeps inflating the house price bubble. Any politician who tried a policy of "let's radically drop house prices" would find his career tanked by Boomer voters. Any other non-truths you want to drop to blame us immigrants for everything?

So the supply and demand economy of the housing market, how would the government reduce prices? Remember the indigenous population has sub-replacement level birthrates. Homes should be becoming more available not less- and they would be if the nations children were not being disinherited by the boomers

How would the government reduce house prices? Easy:

1) Massively build out social housing

2) Stop tax incentives, part ownership and other house buying incentives

3) Tax empty houses like in Switzerland, Germany etc etc

4) Crackdown on use of house purchases for money laundering by Saudi princes, Russian oligarchs, corrupt Chinese Communist Party officials, South American drug cartel bosses etc etc

The sub-replacement birthrate is a reason Britain sucks in immigrants like a vacuum cleaner. The English don't make babies, and when they do, they murder them in the womb. The immigration is the only thing stopping Britain turning into one big ghost town.

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