THE latest employment figures from the Office for National Statistics, published in May, show that currently 16.5 per cent of UK jobs (5.24 million out of 31.58 million) are held by people who were not born in the UK.

These figures also show that over the past five years the number of EU nationals working in the UK has doubled, from just over one million to 2.2 million, with almost 250,000 of those coming from Romania and Bulgaria since they were first allowed access to the UK labour market at the beginning of 2014.

More dramatic still is the fact that out of the 413,000 jobs created in the UK last year, almost 80 per cent (in excess of 330,000) went to people who were not born in the UK. Irrefutably, immigration on such an unprecedented scale, has an effect not only of the wages of the UK nationals who have jobs but also on the employment prospects those of UK-born nationals who do not.

Despite my raising these indisputable statistics, in a number of EU debates, the representatives of the Remain campaign have trotted out a number of phrases disputing the negative impacts of immigration.

The main one being that immigrants to the UK “work hard and contribute far more in tax to the UK that what they take out”. No one doubts that most immigrants to our country work hard, and many do contribute tax, although those on minimum wage and zero hours contracts contribute very little in tax and national insurance.

However, those representing the Remain campaign ignore the immense pressure on housing, schools and the NHS and fail to make the distinction between public expenditure and public capital.

The majority of immigrants to the UK since 2004, irrespective from where in the world they have come, may well have made a contribution towards public expenditure, which pays for the day-to-day, week-on-week, month-on-month cost of running and maintaining roads, hospitals, schools, doctors surgeries, social housing, paying salaries, etc.

However, very few, if any, have made a major contribution to the public capital, which is the cost of building roads, hospitals, schools, doctors surgeries, social housing, etc, which has been paid for over generations. In this context immigrants, and their families, form a drain on public capital and diminish the total public capital available to everyone else, because these items take many, many years to build up. Thus it becomes more difficult to get a doctor’s appointment, your child into the school of your choice, NHS treatment and social housing.

At almost all of the EU debates that I have attended as an advocate for the Leave campaign, the most vociferous people wishing to Remain, on the platform and in the audience, appear to do so from the standpoint “I’m all right Jack”, and are scared that Brexit will rock their cosy, comfortable boat.

So much so that I find myself begging for them to think about those in our society who haven’t had the benefit of a good education and who are struggling to feed, clothe and house their families in low-paid jobs which, in comparison to their salaries, is a pittance.

So if you are undecided about how to vote today may I ask that those of you who are comfortably off consider your fellow Brits who are not.

On a personal note, Brexit will truly ‘rock my boat’ as I will lose my job as an MEP but that is a financial sacrifice I will gladly pay.

DR JULIA REID, MEP for South West and Gibraltar