"It's worth noting that migrants pay for themselves. The economic activity of migrants is beneficial to the UK."

It's a myth. If only the top 30% of British pay enough tax to pay for what they use, the same applies to migrants. Then there are wives, parents, children, etc who don't work. On top of their contribution, you have some from the companies they work for but as we know, a lot of them pay courporation tax exlsewhere. Add all the other swindles and we're not bringing in enough money. How can I prove that? Well look at how much national borrowing there was even before 2009. Look how many assets were sold to merely stand still. Look at how many resources like roads are now fallling apart because there isn't enough investment. Adding more and more people is pyramid selling or a Ponzi scheme, ultimately you run out of people. Either those people need to put a lot more into the system or we need to stop importing more.

If we were living within our means, a lot of governmental white elephants would have never been commissioned.

Nov 20, 2018 at 10:03 AM | M Courtney "It's worth noting that migrants pay for themselves. The economic activity of migrants is beneficial to the UK."

Historically, migrants HAVE paid for themselves, but the recent trend of "Economic Migrants" have not. I have never had an issue with people moving in or out of the UK to work, whether they are British, EU, Commonwealth or Rest of the World.

How much of the overloading of the NHS is due to free Health Care Migrants? I do not know the answer, but I am not sure anybody else really does either.

I am a regular NHS Day Clinic patient. I have no issue with the gender, colour, Nationality, religious or sexual identity of the person sticking needles into me, provided it does not get unnecessarily bloody, messy and uncomfortable. (It has!)

I am a regular visitor in residential care homes. The Nurses tend to be British, the support workers are not. I have been very impessed by the levels of "care" shown.

If "austerity" is leading to so many non UK Citizens working in the NHS and Care industry, then this has cost UK PLC a lot of money, and increased demand for social housing. How many could be accommodated elsewhere in the EU, and provided with work, if BREXIT heads towards a No Deal? Where will Health Care Migrants go if they cannot access the NHS?

If you add " productive work" used to fill in the hole after deliberate industrial sabotage and metering of abundant goods so as to provide a income for the elite then much of the physical economy is a direct byproduct of the financial industry also .

It's very obvious from UK national statistics that people are not working to produce goods for consumption in the UK.
They are working so as to access the company tokens so as to absorb goods from Europe and the wider world.
Much of this work is witless ( financial services) or degrading ( prostitution )
But the spiv economy has been around for a long time in the UK.
It's not exactly a new phenomenon .

From a national economy perspective it does not really matter if the money outflows are as a result of work or not - that is a typical puritanical mistake.
What matters is that there is a overall deficiency of income in the domestic economy.
( Things are much more extreme in Ireland)
As for the UKs real good trade position with the eurozone & Norway ...
The UK is a massive net gainer as it absorbs much of the EUs mercantile surplus goods .
But the model of a plantation east Europe and flow of young serfs to western urban zones is breaking down regardless .
The Brexit globalists who are almost to a man liberal free traders do not seem to get this and are seeking more wage slaves from the wider globe.

"The UK is in the top 10 countries for overseas workers sending back money - with billions of pounds sent to the three biggest recipients - Nigeria, India and Pakistan.
Nov 20, 2018 at 8:19 AM | Mark Hodgson"

Does the report explain whether the money being sent out of the UK was money they had earned through work in the UK?

As you note, most of these economic migrants are NOT from the EU. They may be a demonstration of why the UK needs so many migrant workers. They may also demonstrate why we have a Housing shortage for UK Citizens, and others seeking economic benefits in the UK.

"France's Macron: Europe must unite to prevent 'global chaos'"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46254393

Perhaps M. Macron should take a look a little closer to home:

https://cliscep.com/2018/11/20/carbon-1-macron-0/

and

"Yellow vests: Hundreds injured as France fuel protests continue"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-46254566

A little while ago I pointed out what a bad deal the UK gets from the EU compared to all other EU members, due in no small part to our terrible balance of payments with the EU. One (not insignificant) part of our poor balance of payments was as a result of remittances sent out of the country by migrant workers. The UN and the BBC are catching up:

"Migrant workers send home £8bn to families
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education and family correspondent"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-46223217

The BBC and the UN see the scandal as being the cut finance companies are taking for transferring the money. While I have no time for avaricious finance companies, I see the scandal as being the extent to which we are reliant on migrant workers and the damage this causes to our balance of payments and therefore to the economy.

"Migrant workers in the UK, many in low-paid jobs, are sending £8bn a year to support families in their home countries, says a report from the United Nations' education agency.

This is often used to help relations in poorer countries to stay in school.

But Unesco warns too much of this "hard-earned money" is being taken in transfer charges by finance companies.

It says that people wiring money should only have to pay 3% in charges - but the global average is 7%."

However, although our membership of the EU exacerbates this problem, the biggest aspect of the problem, it seems, is elsewhere:

"The UK is in the top 10 countries for overseas workers sending back money - with billions of pounds sent to the three biggest recipients - Nigeria, India and Pakistan.

Hundreds of millions are sent to Poland, China, Kenya, Philippines, Bangladesh and Ghana each year."

Having said that, the report is ambiguously worded - it is not clear (to me) whether the biggest (non-EU) recipients of remittances are the biggest recipients specifically from the UK, or worldwide.