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A Question Time audience member has been criticised for calling on the UK to “completely close the borders”.
Speaking on the BBC programme on Thursday during a debate on the Government’s new points-based immigration system proposal, the woman claimed the country was “sinking”.
She added “enough is enough” as she hit out at people coming into this country who “cannot speak English.”
But her comments have been blasted as an “unhinged rant” by critics.
It comes after Home Secretary Priti Patel introduced the new system earlier this week, with plans including ending free movement to take effect on January 1, 2021.
The proposal calls on employers to stop relying on “cheap labour” from Europe and start investing in retaining staff and developing automation technology.
The QT panelists had been asked: “Please explain how chronic understaffing in social care will be tackled, given the government’s new immigration system?”
The outspoken audience member weighed in, saying the UK was in such a bad state due to immigration that “there’s no education, schooling, infrastructure”.
She added: “In the National Health Service, everything is written in different languages – how much is that costing? How much is it costing for the interpreters?
“I was in hospital last week, the interpreter never turned up for the people who couldn’t speak English.
“She was paid, they all had to go on and all the radiologists stood around. What sort of country is allowing this?”
She added: “What sort of country is allowing this tourism to come in? You arrive in a plane, you get free service, you can have your babies, you can just carry on having it all for free.
“Why haven’t they got points set up in the hospitals and you pay, like you do in every other country you go to? You wouldn’t turn up in America and be allowed to go for free.”
Her comments have prompted a major backlash on social media.
One Twitter user slammed blamed Brexit for giving “people like this a platform”.
Labour councillor Alex Paterson tweeted: “Giving fact-vacuums like this woman a platform to display their ignorance on national TV makes for uncomfortable viewing.”
Another joked: “I think we should also close the borders….First we should kick her out then close them permanently.”
But not all the comments criticised the woman with many people agreeing that the borders should be closed.
One said: “Totally agree with her” while another wrote: “Thank goodness someone has the guts to speak the truth. This woman is to be commended.”
A third said: “She has valid points but we can’t afford a complete shut down of immigration.
“Thus why a points system of sorts is warranted. People coming will pay far more than they spend.”
Thursday night panelist Ash Sarkar scrutinised the audience member’s use of the term “health tourism”.
She argued that figures show migrants “bring more and contribute more in tax than they take out of the system”.
“One is that migrants, particularly when they are young, they are working age, they are contributing to the private sector through the form of paying rent, through paying for their cost of living in this country and also contributing to this country through taxes,” she said.
Meanwhile Environment Secretary George Eustice argued Britain will be able “to do things differently” with an independent immigration policy outside the EU.
He said: “Rather than simply having free movement with European countries, we have got a chance to say we are going to have a skills based system and not decide on them because they are European but that they’ve got to have people with the right skills from around the world.”
