On January 1^st 2014, Britain opens its doors to Bulgaria and Romania.  UKIP leader Nigel Farage is doing the rounds, telling BBC news programmes such as Question Time and The Daily Politics that the 30million people living in those two countries will turn up on our shores to join the 100,000plus that already live here.

Tempted by the well paid labour and our free health services, Farage claims it is inevitable that they will flood our country, despite the fact that they are also free to enter any other country in Europe, including Germany, Spain, and France.

The main political parties here have done little to quash the scare mongering, with communities and local government secretary Eric Pickles repeatedly refusing to estimate the actual numbers we expect. 49 year old former Conservative member Farage has relentlessly used his exaggerations about immigration to bolster his argument that the UK should leave the EU.

A recent report from University college London’s migration research unit, found that migrants coming to the UK since 2000 are less likely to claim benefits or social housing than people who already lived here. The study goes on to report that immigrants contributed £25 billion to our economy in the same period. This bucks the popular perception  the right wingers would have us believe that foreigners will come here taking all our houses, claiming our benefits and increasing crime rates.

It is high time politicians and certain quarters of the media stopped muddying the waters and had the grown up, honest debate about immigration that Farage calls for, but debate based on facts, not fantasy.

UKIP and Farage deserve to be congratulated for raising the issue from being whispered about behind closed doors, to the top of the political agenda. It is now possible to discuss immigration without being accused of racism, although there are still no doubt those who will have that agenda.

While it is arguable that immigrants are taking all the houses, what is clear, is that we need more houses. The down side of immigration “what if’s” dominating the headlines is that issues such as housing shortages, the increasing cost of living, and precautionary measures against the threat of terrorism get pushed down the agenda or shaped to fit the agenda.

Terror suspects such as Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed are able to disappear by simply entering a mosque and changing into a Burka. He has been undetected since the 1^st of November. Urgent action needs to be taken on the clearly ineffective measures we currently have in place, yet we spend time debating whether the Burka should be banned. Someone asked on TV last week, as terror suspects escape in taxis, should we also ban taxis?
 

We need honest, transparent and sensible debate on the real issues that matter from our democratically elected leaders not lies, hearsay and mis-leadership from second hand car salesmen.