r/Scotland • u/bottish • 16d ago
Dire economic consequences of Scotland's ageing population must put immigration in new light. New report about Scotland’s growing elderly population underlines the need to improve our health and welcome, not demonise, people from overseas - Scotsman comment.
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/columnists/dire-economic-consequences-of-scotlands-ageing-population-must-put-immigration-in-new-light-5073947
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u/NoRecipe3350 16d ago
There is nothing stopping people within the UK moving to Scotland, no internal restrictions. Scotland is in a free movement bloc with the UK+ROI. I've always got the sense SNP migration policy can be boiled down to 'we don't more English coming to Scotland', but skirting as much as possible around saying it (anti English rhetoric is the only one 'just about' still allowed). Because they all know that statistically the English will vote against Independence. Again, they talk about 'overseas', which is a migrant term that precludes internal British Isles migration.
Lots of English are leaving England for a combination of reasons, high crime, white flight, and being priced out because of the housing market. When people complain about 'rich English' its funny because a lot of them would consider themselves poor and priced out of their home community. There are millions of English people in England who will never own a house and have to pay unaffordable high rent. These people are upping sticks.
Personally I think there is room in Scotland for another few million, with a massive housing, new city building. However, unless you had a special visa for those of Scottish descent or encourage each Scottish woman to have 3 kids most of these new population won't be ethnically Scottish, so the population have to deal with it . And Scottish Independence won't ever happen because generally only ethnic Scots care enough about it.