Brexited | the worst threads live the longest

[Relfy]

Not sure how this turned into a discussion on over population, but one of the main reasons people are now living longer is thanks to a few things, but namely due to advancements in modern medicine. For previous generations medicine was limited, and now in the space of the last century this field has come on leaps and bounds. Medicine is after all designed to prevent death and deadly diseases. Add to this the decrease of children and mothers dying during childbirth and children dying in their early years, it can only lead to increasing populations across the planet.

Add to that the global agricultural explosion and technologies which supported and continue to support that growth, and the fact that we now face far fewer wars then ever previously recorded, it is no surprise there are more people than ever.

Anyway, back to Brexit, let's hope these cross party talks result in the withdrawal of A50. I don't see how either sides views and promises on the matter can work in unison without major concessions from both camps, which both have said they won't offer up.

 

[rcoobc]

There's no way a United States could work. There's no precedent for it.

 

[rcoobc]

There's no way a United States could work. There's no precedent for it.

The problem with a United States of Europe is that the European countries have a much longer identity than the States of America. As such, it will take much longer for them to lose their constituent country identity.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Well no. As it stands, opening the whole world’s borders completely would be a fecking nightmare for the richer countries. Even you must see that. There was a reason for the Eastern European tidal wave you know? Like, disparity between us? Hence their rush for the exits? Recipient country infrastructure then struggling to cope for a while?

So yeah , as things stand, let’s repeat that 100+ times over? It’s very admirable & moral, but practical?

Don’t blame me, blame the world elites.

Those eastern Europeans have been proven to have positive impacts on the countries they came to.

Anyway it's fine, I guess with your vision of the UK outside of the EU they'll just be replaced with Africans and Asians which I'm sure you're perfectly fine with.

 

[JPRouve]

I find it interesting that it is estimated that only 3.3% of earth population lives outside of its country of birth. Also the UK are estimated to have around 5m british-born people living abroad which is the most among EU countries.

 

[Strachans Cigar]

Hm - interesting way of terming relocation of workers, but yes. The UK had a demand for workers with the skills that workers from other nations have that are in short supply within the UK or were jobs that UK nationals were unwilling to do. The currency in the UK was far stronger so the workers from Eastern Europe could make a killing relatively.

On the skills side this is through a lack of funding in education, low aspirations and complacency- certainly in poorer areas. There are also fields that are 'over-subscribed' and others that are crying out for workers (think healthcare, or trade jobs).

For jobs that the locals are unwilling to do - I'm not sure how many people grow up wanting to be a cleaner or to pick fruit or be a labourer but if people are willing to do that then they should be allowed to be here.

The people who relocated deserve far more respect than people like you seem to grant them. Also pragmatically, someone coming into your economy for a number of years and paying taxes - without having being invested in by your education system and then potentially returning home for their retirement is pretty good economically speaking. Not that I want them to go to their home nation - they deserve to be here more than some feckless prick who hangs around their council estate all day.



Hmmmm ok Mr Icke.

Ok all very good. Just interested to know what would your opinion be on the EU Meister Germany & Austria blocking EE access to their job market for the first 7 years?

Was that opt out all well & good & in the true “spirit of the EU” was it?

I said right from the outset I suspected the expansion into Eastern Europe was more about curbing Russian influence. Nobody seems to have discussed that possibility.

Personally think the EU has overstretched itself & the club should have been kept to its original 1st tier economies to discourage the mass displacement of people from one country to another in a short space of time.

Obviously me & the majority of this forum disagree on that. Fair enough. What’s increasingly evident here though is that there is no “right or wrong” on this.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Depends where you look. I told you a year ago that Norway don’t take 75% of EU rules and provided you with sources. You decided to ignore that and talk to Paul the wolf about how awful it would be to fill out a 6 line form to visit Europe. You are the problem

Eh? I think you've missed my point about Norway.
You need the Single Market and Customs Union for trade and for the GFA. Norway doesn't solve either and that was my point.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Well how do you possibly predict impending Brexit chaos based on nothing ?

How can you say it's based on nothing. If you build a brick wall across the middle of the road it's going to be very difficult to get from one end of the road to the other. Doesn't take a lot of imagination.

 

[RedChip]

I find it interesting that it is estimated that only 3.3% of earth population lives outside of its country of birth. Also the UK are estimated to have around 5m british-born people living abroad which is the most among EU countries.

Reading the last few pages, you can clearly see the gap between actual population changes and perceptions of those changes. The perception of being 'swamped' by immigration is so strong and widespread that you have the weird situation of areas with hardly any immigration voting for Brexit with immigration as the key reason and yet areas with actual, tangible immigration are heavily in favour of remain. For most people, I think the purported impact of immigration is a cover for some other motivation, implicit or otherwise. Chief among those is xenophobia.

It would really help, I reckon, if the public were well-informed about the whys and whats of immigration.

 

[Ducklegs]

Hm - interesting way of terming relocation of workers, but yes. The UK had a demand for workers with the skills that workers from other nations have that are in short supply within the UK or were jobs that UK nationals were unwilling to do. The currency in the UK was far stronger so the workers from Eastern Europe could make a killing relatively.

On the skills side this is through a lack of funding in education, low aspirations and complacency- certainly in poorer areas. There are also fields that are 'over-subscribed' and others that are crying out for workers (think healthcare, or trade jobs).

For jobs that the locals are unwilling to do - I'm not sure how many people grow up wanting to be a cleaner or to pick fruit or be a labourer but if people are willing to do that then they should be allowed to be here.

The people who relocated deserve far more respect than people like you seem to grant them. Also pragmatically, someone coming into your economy for a number of years and paying taxes - without having being invested in by your education system and then potentially returning home for their retirement is pretty good economically speaking. Not that I want them to go to their home nation - they deserve to be here more than some feckless prick who hangs around their council estate all day.



Hmmmm ok Mr Icke.

The Uk manufactured a need for those workers by making it economically viable to sit at home on benefits rather than do those jobs.

As you say, with the currency being so strong, it then made it viable for Polish lads for instance, to come over do these shit jobs for 60 hours a week, sub let a room, send everything else home and build a 6 bedroom house as they are on the polish equivalent of 100 grand a year for driving a lorry or working on the shop floor.

I've worked with them, I know exactly how it is, One lad I worked with made more driving a lorry 4 days a week (18k) than he did as manager of a massive electronics superstore back in Poland and he was on "good" money (for Poland) for doing that.

I also worked in one of the poorest rural communities in the country and watched the job market for the locals be destroyed by labours policies as it became nonviable for them not just to be employed but to bother trying to find work at all.

 

[Massive Spanner]

I find it interesting that it is estimated that only 3.3% of earth population lives outside of its country of birth. Also the UK are estimated to have around 5m british-born people living abroad which is the most among EU countries.

And a hell of a lot of those are retired older Brits who moved to paces like south west Ireland and Spain and such, places they can move to because of freedom of movement, and yet most of them vote to leave. Go figure.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Reading the last few pages, you can clearly see the gap between actual population changes and perceptions of those changes. The perception of being 'swamped' by immigration is so strong and widespread that you have the weird situation of areas with hardly any immigration voting for Brexit with immigration as the key reason and yet areas with actual, tangible immigration are heavily in favour of remain. For most people, I think the purported impact of immigration is a cover for some other motivation, implicit or otherwise. Chief among those is xenophobia.

It would really help, I reckon, if the public were well-informed about the whys and whats of immigration.

They're not listening.

 

[Buster15]

Anyone suggesting euthanasia as a means of population control is truly a worrying person to me.

Especially worrying when you get to my age.

 

[Buster15]

The feck is everyone talking about? Europe's problem is not overpopulation - the EU's birth rate is 1.6. Replacement rate is 2.1.

An aging population putting increasing burden on social safety nets is the actual problem that Europe faces, not overpopulation.

Unless, of course, massive immigration waves happen to flood into Europe, exceeding the 2015 crisis by far. But that would not be an issue of population control.

Oh, and Walrus: being in favour of the death penalty is very much incompatible with the EU.

Well said that man.
Just goes to show how some people can make such rediculous statements based up little or no knowledge.
Sort of explains the Brexit vote.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

And a hell of a lot of those are retired older Brits who moved to paces like south west Ireland and Spain and such, places they can move to because of freedom of movement, and yet most of them vote to leave. Go figure.

Not only do they benefit from freedom of movement, as eldery people they’ll be heavy users of state-funded healthcare while paying zero tax.

Hence a far more significant drain on other EU countries resources than the younger immigrants they perceive as such a burden to the UK. Selfish selfish cnuts.

 

[afrocentricity]

They're not listening.

It's clear.

 

[Walrus]

It's copyright directive, not net neutrality but I agree it is shit. The EU net neutrality regulation is actually rather nice!

The death penalty, however, is explicitly forbidden in the Treaty of Lisbon. It is one of the most important core concepts of the EU. In fact, even the trade of goods and equipment used for capital punishment is forbidden.

So no, you do not have to agree with every single thing about the EU but the death penalty is one of those big things, like freedom of movement or free trade. The rejection of capital punishment a fundamental, basic concept of the EU; it wouldn't be what it is without it.

Again, my personal opinion and priority is greater integration between European countries. I’m in favour of a Euro-superstate, in favour of a European army and hell, even in favour of a superleague for the footy. Things like the death penalty are hardly make-or-break, in that context, but rather just a personal preference.

Also, a general note with “overpopulation” - I agree that the bigger issue is an aging population, but I don’t really see any easy or obvious answers to that. I’m already likely to have to work until I’m at least 70, and don’t really like the prospect of the retirement age continuing to increase. Voluntary euthanasia would at least be a start (strictly controlled, blah blah blah).

 

[Buster15]

The problem with a United States of Europe is that the European countries have a much longer identity than the States of America. As such, it will take much longer for them to lose their constituent country identity.

Quite agree but that isn't going to stop those who are hell bent on turning the EU into a Federal Europe.

 

[JPRouve]

And a hell of a lot of those are retired older Brits who moved to paces like south west Ireland and Spain and such, places they can move to because of freedom of movement, and yet most of them vote to leave. Go figure.

To be fair it's not the case the vast majority are in Canada, the US and Australia, less than 1.5m are in the EU and the way they are distributed tells me that a large amount are probably working. Now this makes the debate even more interesting because the UK are a counter example since british people move to similar or poorer countries where they take jobs.

On a side note France and Spain are far bigger than the UK, there is space and we have fresh water. So if you really are struggling we can always take the jobs and the poles.

 

[sullydnl]

I find it interesting that it is estimated that only 3.3% of earth population lives outside of its country of birth. Also the UK are estimated to have around 5m british-born people living abroad which is the most among EU countries.

One suspects that a lot of those who look around and see their country as being "overwhelmed" by immigrants subconsciously (and more rarely consciously) include second, third and fourth generation immigrants too. Less about how many foreigners there are, more about how many "foreigners" it seems there are.

 

[JPRouve]

One suspects that a lot of those who look around and see their country as being "overwhelmed" by immigrants subconsciously (and more rarely consciously) include second, third and fourth generation immigrants too. Less about how many foreigners there are, more about how many "foreigners" it seems there are.

You could be right but in that case we will be talking about demographics instead of population which would open the pandora box.

 

[Massive Spanner]

Not only do they benefit from freedom of movement, as eldery people they’ll be heavy users of state-funded healthcare while paying zero tax.

Hence a far more significant drain on other EU countries resources than the younger immigrants they perceive as such a burden to the UK. Selfish selfish cnuts.

I've heard west Cork (which is beautiful) is extremely expensive because of them too as they zap up all the homes and basically live there for free then. Absolute twats.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Especially worrying when you get to my age.

Move to France before the end of next week!

 

[Buster15]

Move to France before the end of next week!

Thank you for the invitation. I will let you know when I am coming.

 

[Penna]

Not only do they benefit from freedom of movement, as eldery people they’ll be heavy users of state-funded healthcare while paying zero tax.

Hence a far more significant drain on other EU countries resources than the younger immigrants they perceive as such a burden to the UK. Selfish selfish cnuts.

I have no idea why anyone who's spending their winters in Spain voted leave, but it's clear that some of them did. You'll know that if you're of state pension age in the UK you can get free comprehensive healthcare in other European countries, as if you were in the UK - you get a form called the S1, if I recall correctly.

This will stop after Brexit, and they'll have to pay into the national healthcare system of whichever country they're living in. I can tell you that private insurance is simply not affordable if you have anything wrong with you - we paid nearly 3000 euros for one year of cover, with an excess of 3000 euros! The Italian health service is not cheap to sign up for if you have a decent occupational pension, but it's a far more reasonable and comprehensive option that trying to find private cover - but you have to commit to being a resident.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Thank you for the invitation. I will let you know when I am coming.

There's plenty of room and we promise not to give you a lethal injection.

 

[rcoobc]

People taking about overpopulation when there's way too much waste in our systems, no mention of moving towards sustainability or building up infrastructure, no..... Let's kill people, that's what we'll do. I know, what about a Purge?

I reckon we'll reach the peak global population within the next 100 years anyway. The solutions are already in place, family planning, better education etc... and the death rate will eventually surpass the birth rate.

Your proposed solution, as far as I can discern, is we leave the EU and suddenly immigration will drop? Or if that isn't it what are you proposing?

This is correct anyway.

Every single day there are less people born than the one before.

At the moment the population is going up. Within 50 years the population will stabilise at about 10 billion

 

[Buster15]

I've heard west Cork (which is beautiful) is extremely expensive because of them too as they zap up all the homes and basically live there for free then. Absolute twats.

What is wrong with that. Ireland is perfectly fine with freedom of movement isn't it.

 

[Buster15]

There's plenty of room and we promise not to give you a lethal injection.

That is a relief. Keep the lethal injections for your guests who voted to leave.

 

[rcoobc]

If we build a few oorbital rings, we could increase the human population by 10 or 100 fold.

Stop worrying

 

[Brwned]

Reposting...



Now, I'm obviously not empirically endorsing this view based on a single video, it's sources, and the supporting links below ALONE... I'm just positing an interesting and somewhat convincing argument, that if even potentially true, surely changes the contextual hysteria around "overpopulation" a fair bit.. No?

A hysteria that underwrites the likes of Brexit, and similar global right wing movements, quite strongly.

https://overpopulationisamyth.com/
https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/02/26/overpopulation-myth-humanity-will-begin-shrinking-century-13839
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-overpopulation-myth

I'd opened up a tab on that very video you posted yesterday, just hadn't gotten a chance to watch it yet! Will do soon. On the subject of hysteria, Retro Report have done some great journalism on precisely that subject and one report focused on overpopulation too. I think it's worth a watch, it's retelling stuff we already know but frames it well:



So yes on a broad level, I wholeheartedly agree that hysteria around overpopulation is unlikely to be useful. Before watching the video, let me clarify my (unquestionably simplistic) view. I'm not saying we should embrace depopulation to prevent overpopulation, I'm saying I don't think we should avoid depopulation just because it creates significant economic problems. Let's see if we can find a way to tackle those economic problems, and assess the significance of the non-economic benefits.

What we know is that we currently don't have a framework for a functioning society that is mostly "old", despite the fact that this is very much a reality we will have to face. To try and deal with that problem while sticking rigidly within our current framework, we've had to go out and recruit more young folks to deal with the "burden" of old folks. As a result of that, we've damaged the social cohesion of the country, because a significant portion of the population are uncomfortable about the implications of significant levels of immigration. So far we've not been very good at repairing or preventing the damage done to the social cohesion, and we know it creates significant problems. Yet our only plan currently is to amp that up significantly, while the society continues to get older.

I just think we're far too wedded to our current idea of how a society should function, that we're unwilling to consider different economic, political and other models that might be better suited to dealing with this new reality. Perhaps there is a better model out there that wouldn't need continuous population growth to fuel its economic system, and deals with the problems of an ageing society. I'm not saying there's an obvious answer, but that we should at least be open to the idea that the way we organise ourselves right now actually is't optimal on any level, and might be particularly unsuited to the future we're rapidly moving towards.

Generally speaking the arguments on this subject are based on the assumption that what we need to do is find a way to deal with this new reality that allows us to continue doing what we're doing. If our folks keep having fewer babies then we need more of those babies from elsewhere. Letting our population decline, even briefly? Literal madness! That's just not a good starting point to deal with this tricky problem, IMO.

And if we did start to stretch the outer limits of our global resources, cutting ourselves off from the world and attempting to rely on our paltry bland natural produce is gonna put us at a serious disadvantage... There’s a reason all our popular national dishes are colonial imports!

It’s almost as if these Leavers don’t actually want the truth, or any facts at all, lest it ruin the comforting notion that they voted as they did for upstanding logical reasons... and not dangerously ignorant and emotional ones, that are gonna cause a shit load of trouble for everyone, for years to come.

But we can’t say shit like that. ‘Cos its mean, and elitist. So... erm... Well done! I suppose. You definitely didn’t get conned by the tabloids!!

Since I've been tarred with that brush for being one of those awful, awful people that argues against the demonisation of the other as a strategy to achieve your own political objectives, I'll take this one on.

We know you like hyperbole but let's introduce a bit of reality back into it. Maybe you do encounter a few loons that say you can't say bad things to people you disagree with. You can't even tell them the truth if that upsets them. The idea that the a majority of any group are saying that is ludicrous, though, and we both know that. Most people on that side of the argument are not saying "you must not say this" and instead simply saying "it doesn't work in your favour to say this, it's mostly self-serving, and as long as you're cool with that feel free, let's just not paint it as something else".

Yes let's introduce some uncomfortable facts to people on the other side of the argument, and if there's no logical, factual argument that refutes it, let's entertain the notion that the argument wasn't made on logic at all. It could be good to listen to people and find out what their views were based on if not that. If they're uninterested in addressing the logical flaws in their argument, then it makes total sense to be pissed off that they made a potentially life-changing decision based on things they either didn't understand, or refuse to justify. If that decision has negative outcomes, or if you predict it to have negative outcomes, feel free to tell them the harm that it causes other people and what that makes you think of them. Just don't expect them to appreciate that, in the same way you wouldn't appreciate it in reverse.

If you need to move beyond that position to calling them idiots, liars and racists, then it makes you a bit of dick. We're all entitled to be dicks whenever we choose, but don't hold it against other people when they uphold that social norm. People that make significant errors of judgment are not idiots, otherwise we're all idiots, and the term becomes meaningless. People that are uncomfortable with the impact of immigration are not racists, and refusing to challenge that assumption just because you're much more comfortable with multiculturalism is an act of ignorance. We're all ignorant of many things, but demonising the other for their ignorance as a result of your own ignorance is unlikely to be constructive.

It's possible to be against the demonisation of the other, and to challenge other people's views on significant issues. I'll do it right now.

Why won’t it be fixed? If we are dictating the rules of entry, then I don’t share that view.

Anyway, spent way too much time on this thread during the course of today, I’m off, so we’ll agree to disagree

We were dictating the rules of entry for non-EU citizens, and we didn't curb immigration in any way. Look at the numbers man. We can say conclusively that being part of the EU wasn't the cause of the immigration issue you perceive, and leaving the EU to dictate the rules of entry will not solve that problem. The facts are clear-cut on that one.

Reasonable people can disagree on whether the amount of immigration we've had in recent years is a good thing or a bad thing, but you can't agree to disagree on the basic facts of the matter. Being in the EU was not the cause of those immigration levels, the primary driver was the Non-EU immigration levels, which we already have control of, and which has increased significantly as a result of Brexit.

Can you agree that leaving the EU isn't a solution to that problem, in light of those facts? Or can you see why it is difficult for people to understand your perspective if you're unable to agree on the same basic set of facts, which might lead them to alternative conclusions about your motivations?

 

[rcoobc]

There are less people born today than there are yesterday. There will be less people born tomorrow than there were today.

The "final" world population will be about 10 billion, an increase of "only" 50% in 100 years. In the 20th century, the world population increases 500%

Then we conquer death and all bets are off. But we'll be building orbital rings around space and most of humanity will live off of Earth. Most of Earth will be a giant nature reserve.

 

[RedTillI'mDead]

Reposting...



Now, I'm obviously not empirically endorsing this view based on a single video, it's sources, and the supporting links below ALONE... I'm just positing an interesting and somewhat convincing argument, that if even potentially true, surely changes the contextual hysteria around "overpopulation" a fair bit.. No?

A hysteria that underwrites the likes of Brexit, and similar global right wing movements, quite strongly.

https://overpopulationisamyth.com/
https://www.acsh.org/news/2019/02/26/overpopulation-myth-humanity-will-begin-shrinking-century-13839
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-overpopulation-myth

I moved into London in the back end of the noughties and in the 10+ years I feel like there has been significant increases in crowding, traffic and competition for jobs.

Yes the population of the world might be unexplainable as going through stages, but what this doesn't show is what is happening in the UK or London specifically.

These stats flow over generations, but you can have inter generational issues that take time to correct.

People generally will be against more people and especially where the makeup of those people change, whether culture, wealth, language, interests, etc. Over time some of these barriers remove. An example is Indian food which people originally called smelly and gross and it's now the UK's number one dish, with predominantly non Indian families using those takeaways as most Indians prefer to cook themselves.

What doesn't go away is the population/ wealth/ competition issues. And maybe some such as religion which can cause division. I think a lot of the anti EU opinion defines this, as the EU are far closer aligned in many characteristics than other foreigners that have come to the UK over time. However, we are at a point where people are noticing the differences more and they just want it to stop.

My opinion is we need to control migration through stats and education. E.g. the Australia type system. Control the net number of movement and ensure the right education people are coming in. This will ensure a more effective population so to speak. We also need to control population at the poorer end, e.g. a cap on births or some system that penalises having kids that results in needing benefits.

I would rather 5 more educated Europeans than 5 more kids squeezing the benefits system.

How this is done is the challenge. Someone who can afford kids shouldn't necessarily be restricted. Someone who cant afford kids can't necessarily be forced into abortion, so what's the alternative...some form of forced contraception? It's highly highly controversial as an idea, but it could solve so many more issues.

 

[Massive Spanner]

What is wrong with that. Ireland is perfectly fine with freedom of movement isn't it.

You really should have read the previous few posts.

 

[afrocentricity]

So what are the odds of no deal right now?

 

[Paul the Wolf]

So what are the odds of no deal right now?

Putting it another way.
What are the odds of May and Corbyn agreeing to something sensible and then parliament agreeing to it and then the EU agreeing to it?

 

[Walrus]

I have no idea why anyone who's spending their winters in Spain voted leave, but it's clear that some of them did. You'll know that if you're of state pension age in the UK you can get free comprehensive healthcare in other European countries, as if you were in the UK - you get a form called the S1, if I recall correctly.

This will stop after Brexit, and they'll have to pay into the national healthcare system of whichever country they're living in. I can tell you that private insurance is simply not affordable if you have anything wrong with you - we paid nearly 3000 euros for one year of cover, with an excess of 3000 euros! The Italian health service is not cheap to sign up for if you have a decent occupational pension, but it's a far more reasonable and comprehensive option that trying to find private cover - but you have to commit to being a resident.

Yup. My parents own a house in Spain and spend a good few months of the year over there, and yet my dad voted leave. I have had some fairly heated arguments with him on the topic. He claims that it was a matter of sovereignty, and that he didnt like the unelected EU officials making laws. He also seems to think that every other leave voter thought the same as him, and that immigration was never one of the major reasons.

Its particularly odd because for the most part he is a pretty intelligent bloke.

 

[Fully Fledged]

I moved into London in the back end of the noughties and in the 10+ years I feel like there has been significant increases in crowding, traffic and competition for jobs.

Yes the population of the world might be unexplainable as going through stages, but what this doesn't show is what is happening in the UK or London specifically.

These stats flow over generations, but you can have inter generational issues that take time to correct.

People generally will be against more people and especially where the makeup of those people change, whether culture, wealth, language, interests, etc. Over time some of these barriers remove. An example is Indian food which people originally called smelly and gross and it's now the UK's number one dish, with predominantly non Indian families using those takeaways as most Indians prefer to cook themselves.

What doesn't go away is the population/ wealth/ competition issues. And maybe some such as religion which can cause division. I think a lot of the anti EU opinion defines this, as the EU are far closer aligned in many characteristics than other foreigners that have come to the UK over time. However, we are at a point where people are noticing the differences more and they just want it to stop.

My opinion is we need to control migration through stats and education. E.g. the Australia type system. Control the net number of movement and ensure the right education people are coming in. This will ensure a more effective population so to speak. We also need to control population at the poorer end, e.g. a cap on births or some system that penalises having kids that results in needing benefits.

I would rather 5 more educated Europeans than 5 more kids squeezing the benefits system.

How this is done is the challenge. Someone who can afford kids shouldn't necessarily be restricted. Someone who cant afford kids can't necessarily be forced into abortion, so what's the alternative...some form of forced contraception? It's highly highly controversial as an idea, but it could solve so many more issues.

It's London Specifically. The population density of London is 52 people/hectare. Basically 52 people living in an area the size of a EPL football pitch. The average for England is 4.1 people/hectare. That means we could give every family of 4 their own football pitch to live on. There are areas of the country where next to no one lives. The South West for example has a population density of 2.2.

The problem is not that the country is overpopulated but that companies and government are centralising all their jobs in 1 city.

 

[DavelinaJolie]

Just posting this here, for no particular reason:

https://www.iflscience.com/brain/no-youre-not-entitled-your-opinion/

 

[Fully Fledged]

It's London Specifically. The population density of London is 52 people/hectare. Basically 52 people living in an area the size of a EPL football pitch. The average for England is 4.1 people/hectare. That means we could give every family of 4 their own football pitch to live on. There are areas of the country where next to no one lives. The South West for example has a population density of 2.2.

The problem is not that the country is overpopulated but that companies and government are centralising all their jobs in 1 city.

Edit: The actual average household in the UK is currently 2.4 not 4.2 I remember from when I was at school so 2 households would have to share the football pitch.