Isn't that fair though? In the past, the British Empire colonised a massive proportion of the world and extorted countries in the past - they had a huge drug-trading and slave-trading business.
Now, we should start thinking humanity as a whole and not say "the immigrants are draining the economy of this country" etc.
I don't like how people separate human societies by countries. I believe we are one.
Besides, the UK is a first world country so everyone in it shouldn't complain about it (IMO); there are people starving to death in third world countries.
Many rich people try to keep the poor countries poor so they can continue to extort them year after year.
Additionally, the world is supposed to be competitive. People say the weak perish and the strong live; but I think we should help the weak.
Unskilled workers are not draining the economy - it is creating more competition. That's good as then people may be more willing to work hard, improve their skill sets and become more worthy employees that would benefit the company more. Competition is something that raises standards. Perhaps more of the work should be automated.
The thing that could be draining the economy is jobs that could be automated.
Cigarettes? Those are draining the economy. Yes, they bring a lot of tax in, but the tax comes from the people themselves and money is being poured in to create cigarettes and advertise them. The total net profit in the country would therefore be negative in creating such a poison (cigarettes). Cigarettes also cause health problems which may increase NHS's workload and expense (I'm not saying smokers should not get healthcare, I think everyone deserves healthcare). Similarly, many repetitive jobs should start being automated like other countries have started doing. Yes, it may increase unemployment, but the total net profit of a country would increase? Maybe the increases could be given as benefits, but IDK. I'm not an economist. But, I think they should set a cap for benefits and rework the benefits system. For example, benefits should generally not cause an unemployed person to receive more money than a full-time worker. I don't think benefits should be scrapped as benefits are important to help people. It's easy to say that benefits should be scrapped if you are a rich person, financially secured or not require benefits.