Original post by typonautIt's funny that you make this argument, when you have said you are not interested in the immigration issue.
The problem with your example is that it has imperfect information, to a really large extent.
The first problem is to know whether this extra number of migrants is increasing the overall population of the UK.
Secondly, this figure needs to be put into perspective: what is the underlying population growth, without migration?
Then you would need to know what the government intends to do about the alleged strain on public services: is it providing more housing/schools/GPs…?
You might also want to ask yourself are the migrants nett contributors to government funds, or not? Or is there a difference in this characteristic between migrants from different locations (ie EU, and non-EU).
Is there any evidence that leaving the EU would change overall migration, or population growth?
One could probably continue this list for ten or twenty points, and still not really get a good understanding of the issues.
So, if Simon is looking at nett migration figures and making decisions based on that figure alone, then he isn't planning, he is just guessing.