Being tough on the causes of crime and immigration
To actually be tough on the causes of crime and immigration means doing almost exactly the opposite of Tory and New Labour's rhetoric.
Fortunately, even if it's only in one area, the Lib Dems are pushing something powerful through - if you legitimise those who entered the country illegally, but live productive and innocent lives here, then you cut off the lifeblood of the underground and criminal elements.
Taxation, representation, and removal of fear from reprisal turns the oppressed migrants into a powerful force against the system that encourages illegal immigration and illegal workers - the traffickers, the gangs, the dodgy networks organising sham marriages and finding work that pays well below the minimum wage and with no protection for workers.
Odd then that the Labour party that traditionally represented the workers, now targets them instead of the organised criminals that are the real problem.
The same kind of logic works well when applied to other key social problems that the electorate care about - drugs and prostitution : by legitimising and decriminalising, you remove these activities from the hands of organised crime, and can provide statuary protection and regulations, workers rights, safety / quality control, and reduce the resulting petty crime.
Hopefully, the Liberal Democrat party leaders will grow enough backbone to deal with drugs and the sex industry in the same mature, rational and sensible way as immigration. Daily Mail readers won't vote for a liberal democrat we would recognise anyway - why bother trying to get them on board - all we have to do is provide the public with enough facts and start a rational debate, there's no point trying to get the Diana-hugging-darkie-hating-middle-englanders onboard.
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The problem comes with the welfare state though. We simply cannot afford to offer the same welfare to immigrants as to citizans. This is at the root of lots of non-racist anti-immigration thinking (although it is at its root nationalist - foreigners don't deserve the same as natives...)
The reason Labour is so anti-immigration is that they have never represented workers, they have represented unions. Now the unions no longer have the power to enforce a closed shop they do not want the competition from non-union workers, especially those immigrants who will work for less. The Trade Unions Movement is opposed to immigration on those lines (although they'll dress things up as 'concern for workers' and mention lots about 'exploitation).
No offense, but that's nonsense.
Compared to our lazy workshy natives, immigrants regardless of status or why they came, work a lot harder and break less laws.
Emergancy services and most medical services are provided to all anyway, so allowing immigrants to make full use of the NHS will have little to no impact, in fact the extra tax would probably be immensely helpful.
Benefits are already limited by national insurance contributions - there is no reason that the same standards can't be applied to immigrants, very little changes would be necessary to the national insurance and benefits system - while we're at it we could pay for the changes by scraping the useless tax credit system, and simplifying the whole benefits system.
Only some benefits are limited by NI contributions. The NHS is funded out of general taxation, not NI. Job Seeker's Allowance is either Income or Contribution based - the latter is based on NI contributions.
Personally I think we need to reduce benefits for the whole population. There are some who do have special needs and cannot work, but too many could work. Perhaps a citizen's basic income or a negative income tax is a better approach.
Why people shouldn't buy private insurance instead of NI I don't know though.
As for immigration - open the borders I say. Let anyone in (perhaps unless they're terrorist suspects). Let all work and pay taxes. Let them contribute to society.
The dislike of 'economic migrants' I especially loathe - they are the very people who cause the least crime and benefit us the most. They are here to improve their lives. Why shouldn't they be allowed to?
Attempts to force people to work in jobs they don't want tend to fail, also I think the number of 'fraudsters' is grossly over-estimated - many people with injuries and disabilities would love to be able to work, from my experience the benefit system spends so much time focussing on a negligable number of fakers, that it fails the people it's actually supposed to help.
Any serious organised fraud should be a police matter, not worked around by layers of beurocracy and the assumption that all claimants are fraudsters.
I'm happy to see the costs of the benefit system reduced -- call me a socialist pinko, but I'd rather make it easier for people who want to work (or do something constructive/productive/helpful), than waste effort trying to force the workshy into jobs they will hate, do badly and generally end up costing us more than if we just paid them a minimal ammount to be the lazy slobs they are, particularly as the number of extremist workshy people is so very small.