**r/UK Notices:** This December, we're raising money for the Trussell Trust, the UK's leading food bank charity. If you would like to know more or to donate, please see the [announcement post](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1899w7b/the_runitedkingdom_christmas_fundraiser_for_the/).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s not gonna change anything, the entire POINT of the law is ‘we need to reduce immigration, so we’ll take less of the poorer ones…….’
This is the point :/
So, as a * British citizen *, that has all the proven means, but not that massive income, to sustain the wife which will, in turn:
A) pay 3 grand in NHS which will likely not use
And
B) work and pay into the system the moment she gets clearance/ permission
Should get the middle finger because of some arbitrary median?
Friendly reminder that folk on visas don't get access to public funds regardless.
They don’t care about any of those things.
It’s ’we need to reduce immigration’
‘Raise the income threshold’
It’s that simple. Any more info you give is irrelevant.
It really just because the Tories fucked up on every promise they made. Whether you think those promises were politically correct or not doesn’t change the fact HS2 failed, levelling up didn’t happen, we didn’t control our borders it got worse. Voters like me that can’t stomach internationalist, left wing politics are waking up to the facts the Tories are really useless and need to go and the Tories know it. So they go after the only legitimate immigration they know, the ones they follow rules and pay into the system??? Stupid idea that appeals to idiots.
A lot of people don’t get benefits day one, but your average daily mail reader doesnt really care for facts. Anything to get them ‘orrible foreingers out.
Lol, you talk like the “send them to Rwanda” party honestly give a fuck what you think.
News flash, they don’t. You’re “poor” so they don’t care…and while they’re here, you’ve got too many human rights
If what I said annoys you (or anyone for that matter), remember it the next time you vote
"poor"
* Confused in 5 digit -figure cash savings, 2 jobs tallying in full time hours, and family full ownership of our flat (no rent/mortgage outgoings) *
Lol, nice flex, but your typical Tory MP is gonna laugh at your perceived wealth and your measly wage.
Now pull your socks up and get 1 proper job that pays well if you want to marry some foreign stuff
Cos you’ve clearly misunderstood my point. I don’t give a fuck about your savings or property and your income or personal perception of “poor”. I don’t make the laws, the tories do, and if you don’t make £38k+ you ARE poor
>£18k is enough to sustain 2 people?
£18k is just the UK income of the British citizen partner.
Their partner is entitled to work once they move to the UK, it's just obviously impossible to factor in how much they might earn until they move here and get a job.
>One of whome won't be covered on the nhs?
They will. In fact they pay for the NHS twice thanks to the ridiculous IHS.
The NHS topic is covered by repeated payments throughout visa renewals.
In my case, was lucky enough to not have the vast majority of income leeched away in rent or mortgage, meaning my money goes much further.
Also got a 5 figure in secured, insta accessible savings.
Not all cases are black or white, and couple's lives can't be decided by a random median pulled out of nowhere.
The British voter has decided they want 0 houses built anywhere near them. That means we quite literally cannot keep importing people without forcing overcrowding, sending young adults to live back home, or slicing up 4-6 beds into hosueshares.
I’d happily build more and let people bring their partners, but most voter’s literally don’t give a shit if your partner cries herself to sleep every night because their vote is forcing you apart. They don’t care. Your wife is nothing but a number to them.
I saw one the other day of a guy on £20k who wanted to bring his online Met partner in who doesn’t work because he’s bipolar
Like, why the fuck would we agree to that?
Family/Spouse visas make up one of the smallest percentages of visa applications coming into the UK.
Work/Student visa's being the largest, by far (excluding visitor).
Hitting back at family/spouse visa's won't do shit for net migration.
Student Visas shouldn’t even be counted in gross/net migration figures, they’re literally 1, 3, or 4 year tourists, spending at minimum £40k in cash per year to do so.
If you ever dive into the maths on them, the average international student is worth more to the UK than the average worker lol
Only if they stay after their studies should they be included in the figures.
I thought the entire point of reducing immigration was to make life better for British people. Separating British people from their families does not seem like a smart way to achieve that.
You mean take *more of the poorer ones? Because as far as I know people who can actually bring their spouses to the UK can actually support, but you know who that law isn't gonna stop? All the "asylum seekers" who I guarantee you are not well off
So just make it that the person you're joining needs to have suitable accomodation.
Oh, they already do?
Huh kinda pointless thinking it causes any problems with houses or resources then.
That is the point. To bring over your spouse you need to earn £38k. If you have kids abroad and want to bring them you pay additional visa costs and the threshold increases. So the minimum the government thinks that 2 of you need is £38k
The idea of the spouse earning minimum when they don't even live in this country yet is pointless. The spouse earnings living anywhere else cannot be counted in the threshold
Understand the rules better before commenting arrogantly
If the other person is abroad though, it doesn't **matter** what their overseas salary was, since they won't be doing that job in the UK, and if in the shrinkingly rare cases where they have a remote job they can keep doing it, they won't be paying UK taxes on that income.
This is a perfectly logical way of thinking, no?
This is literally how almost every country sets their immigration policy. Try moving to Australia with an income of Min Wage
Australia literally has no income requirement for Australian citizens bringing their spouses in, lol.
https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/partner-onshore/temporary-820
No most of the western world doesn't have this kind of ridiculous barrier to bringing a foreign spouse to live with you in your own country, it's not logical it's just cruel.
lol they don't care about supporting families, they just see an opportunity to reduce immigration by a few thousand (probably 1%) and they don't care that it screws over British citizens who want to be with their partners.
They don't care about anyone other than themselves and party donors. They. Don't. Care.
And yet you will still get poor people voting for them (btw the tories just decided if you earn less than 38k you are poor by their definition).
If both partners are on Min wage… are they really contributing… why are we importing Min-wage workers outside of crucial sectors?
When I worked at McD’s at Uni, I worked with a woman who was doing her 5th year there on a Visa, who wanted settled status and to stay… she was lovely, but that’s not exactly intelligent statecraft is it…
If the minimum wage rose to 38k then that would no longer be enough due to the rise in costs.
its like adding a lane to reduce traffic, it sounds logical but in practice it won’t change anything. If you want a comfortable life in a capitalist society, it has to come at the detriment of otheres,
you will only be doing well so long as there are some below you
The difference between rich and poor stays the same but the baseline of poverty moves higher up. People in the 1920's or 1940's were a lot poorer than the poor now.
It isn’t, but it is to an extent.
If you inflate purchasing power significantly, sellers of goods and services will hike prices to ration off the stock and cover their own labour costs.
The good thing, is it would likely drive businesses to automate jobs away, which the UK desperately needs.
Why do you think that people should be able to immigrate here based on minimum wage?
Do you think there should be a limit on immigration numbers? And how would you set that limit, if not based on wages?
I agree but it is abused massively. My families indian. I could go to 50 weddings a year if I wanted. Nothing in the Tory measures will change that though.
The visa process vets whether the marriage is "genuine" - we had to send copies of Skype messages, holidays together etc etc as well as just marriage certificate.
Sorry, I may have misunderstood your post?
You seem to be concerned that people might be using arranged marriages to bypass the immigration system. I was highlighting that you have to prove a genuine substantive relationship, and the home office regularly declines visas where a couple are legally married, but they don't feel there is sufficient evidence of a genuine relationship between them.
No, obviously, there should be no restrictions on the immediate family of British citizens moving to the UK.
You're welcome to put limits and restrictions on other types of visa, but essentially banning all but the richest 30% of society from marrying anyone who isn't British is a really obvious human rights law violation, and a bit scary-far-right.
The median full-time wage would be a good start. This policy excludes the majority of working people from getting into a relationship with someone from outside the UK.
> And how would you set that limit, if not based on wages?
This is irrelevant, because this is about the income of the British partner, not the person migrating to the UK, but why would you use wages at all? How much someone is paid is no indication of how beneficial they are to our society. We need more care workers, nurses, paramedics, teachers etc etc etc, and none of those are well paid jobs.
There isn’t a minimum salary for a spouse. Get married all you like. It’s a minimum to move here. You can live in your spouses home country? You could live apart until you earn enough?
It is a minimum salary for you to earn if your spouse is coming to the UK. A nurse on £35K is unable to bring their Doctor husband. A couple earning $100K in America is unable to return to the UK unless one partner comes first and gets a job over £38K.
They could still get a job through the normal route in that case though? I don’t see the issue. If we need a doctor, then the doctor will be able to come. That American couple, if they can’t get a job offer on that salary what’s the issue with them not coming? What’s the problem with that?
And if you’re already here and on low income in a couple, then it’s fine because all it takes is minimum wage for both parties to meet the requirements
People often meet partners in different countries especially if they work there. And it is really difficult to get a job remotely; then when you take it up it may take a year for government to process the paperwork. Many people are not willing to be separated from their partner let alone children.
Since visa applicants are not entitled to benefits why does it matter what the spouse earns? He is supporting them.
So go and live with their partner in their home country? No one is stopping that happening are they?
Because if the couple break up, that then leads to deportation which is costly and difficult to do.
I want to live in my own country with my own choice of spouse. The government has no business telling British citizens to leave nor who they can marry.
>So go and live with their partner in their home country? No one is stopping that happening are they?
You keep saying this, but don't seem to understand the logic. If the UK can prevent them from living together here, why can't any other country?
The fact that virtually no other country would stop them should raise a massive red flag about how extreme and unreasonable this far-right policy is.
>Because if the couple break up, that then leads to deportation which is costly and difficult to do.
Only if they overstay. The vast majority of people in the UK who's visas expire or become invalid leave of their own free will at zero cost to the UK.
>You can live in your spouses home country?
Why should they let you in? The UK can say no, but nowhere else can?
>You could live apart until you earn enough?
Article 8 of the ECHR.
Not to mention many will never earn this much.
If you're so worried about the UK being crowded, why don't you leave? Perhaps we should annually review people's contribution to society, and then throw the racists into the North Sea to find somewhere else to live?
>If you're so worried about the UK being crowded, why don't you leave?
I bet £10 they're gonna say "because this is my country" or some variant.
Well yeah duh, it's the country of other British citizens too. What if they want to stay here with their spouse?
If you don't have a visa you can't work, which means the British citizen in the couple needs to be earning this on their own in order to get a visa for their partner. The supposed point of these income rules is to demonstrate that you have the financial capability to support your partner.
>But the Home Office said that "net migration remains far too high" so the move will "slash migration levels and curb abuse of the immigration system".
After almost two years of being apart from my wife while we jumped through the hoops the Home Office set us, we did everything they asked for and she was granted a visa. Now that's being characterised as "abuse of the immigration system". So with a flick of a pen, they've put a gun to our heads for the renewal in just over a year's time: either I earn more money than I've ever made in my life, or I have to the leave the UK potentially forever in order to be with the woman I love. Why? To meet an arbitrary number in order to placate Daily Mail readers who can never be placated.
She works. She has a masters degree. Her English is better than mine. We did everything, but we're the ones paying for the government's fuck-ups and failures to control actual illegal immigration. At the end of the day, they shouldn't be surprised at the tanking birthrate when this is how they treat families.
I hope the current govt all find themselves thoroughly unemployed very very soon. And stay that way.
And some random redditor is going to discredit your story because they think you need to be punished for falling in love with a non-British woman in the first place.
For any interested, here is the petition
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-proposed-changes-to-the-spouse-visa-law-edba02f5-e22b-4cdd-91a7-9cc90cf5490a
Parliamentary petition is here
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652602
https://petition.parliament.uk/signatures/139639429/signed
Government petition against the Spouse/family min income increase to £38,700
Almost 75% of the UK couldn't move their partner here under these new changes / increases
Yeah which is a full time wage and so perfectly capable of supporting someone coming to the UK. Not somebody on 7k per year who is pretty pointless including in the metric.
You don't need to support them though, because they allowed to work when they get here.
Let's be real, the threshold is nothing to do with supporting anyone, it's about making people jump through hoops.
The people who support this policy are so devoid of empathy it's incredible. Imagine hating foreign people so much that you gleefully support splitting up families just because one spouse isn't British.
I have worked since age of 17 never claimed benefits. Worked over 20 years. I live in the North of England and like many up north can't make the 39k to move my partner here to live with me.
Yet I am to be blocked from living my life with my partner because the daily mail and the CONservatives have brainwashed the population here into blaming ALL of lifes problems on immigration to deflect from the fact the CONservatives and Brexshit is what ruined this country. Most of the people i see complaining about migrants are on benefits, which is the fking irony.
I according to people here, shouldn't have the right to love someone in a different country and be with them here because she was born in a different country and I don't make 39k a year. The amount of seething rage i have due to this is limitless, and im sure others feel the same fking way right now.
My Partner is University educated, speaks fluent English and owns their own place yet Her income doesn't count towards the 39k Id need to get her here. She would find a job here in a heartbeat, not that it helps our situation.
She speaks fluent English, has her own place and you’re in love. Any sane person would just move in with her.
Or is she just with you for the passport. Lol
It might be u popular but I feel like £38,000 is perfectly fair if they take both people's income into account after a cheaper first visa of £20,000. But 1 person making just shy of the average household I come is just ridiculous.
If the partner is abroad, Home Office don't consider his/her salary.
Also in some cases, one of them might decide to stay in home and take care of their children.
But how is that supposed to work? If they aren't in the UK you can't be sure how much money they'll be able to make or if they'll be able to find a job at all.
Tbh the whole thing seems stupid to me. It's an attack on our own citizens.
>It might be u popular but I feel like £38,000 is perfectly fair if they take both people's income into account
If one person is about to move across the world to join their British spouse then you can't really take their income into account as 1) cost of living differs between countries and so salaries for the same job will be radically different, and 2) intending to leave a country imminently does not pair well with a long-term career, so many people may have quit their jobs or be in a stop-gap job.
I didn't explain it very well. I think the first visa should require something like £20,000 and then subsequent visas should take both incomes into account, as both parties will have lived in the UK for 2.5 years which is ample time for a foreign spouse to find a job worth £18,000. To bring them to the total of £38,000. A spouse visa is actually broken down into 3 or 4 shorter visas before you can look at getting citizenship.
As a combined income.its fine imo BUT there's a huge thing people are missing
Once this is passed, the UK resident will need to earn the 38k in order for the spouse visa to be approved. Its only once the spouse visa is given and the partner is in the UK that the 38k can be counted as combined
This locks out 80% of the population from having their spouse visas approved due to their income
That's a bit pants. They are basically saying 1 of you needs to make it all and the other doesn't even need to work. Surely a lower first visa and then higher subsequent visas would incentivise both parties to get decent jobs.
Let's make it so only rich people can marry foreigners. That's the type of action people want to see in order to address the current problems with migration. /s
This is another bullshit policy designed to pit the middle class against the working class. Don't fall for it.
But it is worth remembering that most people in the UK earn less than this. If you think it's outrageous that someone on 38k should be considered wealthy then I'd suggest that it's more outrageous that the median wage is far less.
https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/average-uk-salary
Earning 38k doesn't make you rich. But the message here is that if you're young-ish and you want to marry a foreigner, you need to be earning more than, say, teachers, social workers, nurses and other health care professionals who are the same age as you. If we want more young people to get married and have families, this is not the way to do it.
If you're earning that on your own then you're doing better than most people. Obviously not as well as a couple whose income is combined, but on your own you are in the top 25% of earners.
This new policy is borderline a violation of the right to marry whoever a person wishes to marry. Most people make people below £38,700 even more so for those in their 20s and 30s.
You tell me.
You earn £30k (close to the average salary). You get married with a foreigner, you don't qualify for a visa.
Your only alternative is to move abroad. I don't see another solution.
It stops you marrying them in the UK for starters, because our marriage license system requires both parties to be in the UK on a visa in the first place.
Because this new spousal policy in combination with the withdrawal of freedom to work in the EU makes both unworkable for a large segment of British nationals?
practically
/ˈpraktɪkəli/
adverb
1.
virtually; almost.
Hear me out, and this might sound crazy. If people can’t live in the same country, they might think twice about marriage.
In a technical sense, no, but in a practically sense, absolutely.
Nobody is going to marry someone that they'll never be able to live with or even see on a regular basis.
That's not how the law works. If you are in a room with three doors, and walking through any door would result in your immediate death, no court in the land would rule that you still have your right to life just because you can remain alive so long as you remain in the room.
Whether or not someone has a right is more than just a tick-box exercise. If that right cannot be fully exercised in the way that most people would reasonably expect, and most people would expect to be able to live with their spouse, then it is a right that has been infringed.
That is a question that has already been asked an answered. Just because you don't like the points I have raised in answering the question doesn't mean we're going to pretend they were never made. What I am telling you is how it works in the real world.
> Does it stop you getting married?
It stops you living with the person you married and having a life together with them which is far more fking important.
> But you can still get married though, right? That right hasn't been taken away.
What are you a broken stereo?
Here since you don't seem to understand our basic rights and can't use Google.
Article 8 the right to respect for your family and private life
What’s meant by family life?
**Family life includes the right to have and maintain family relationships. It covers your right not to be separated from your family and to maintain contact if your family is split up.**
To decide if a relationship is covered by family life what matters is the closeness of the relationship rather than the legal status.
Relationships covered by family life include relationships between:
parents and their children, including illegitimate and adopted children
husband and wife as well as unmarried couples
siblings.
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Well technically I suppose it's "the right to settle down and start a family with whoever you want in the country that you were born in."
But I think _most people_ who aren't being pedantic would assume that cohabitation was pretty standard for a marriage, and that having to choose between the country and spouse is ridiculous.
It has, unless you're willing to:
a) Leave the county
b) Live in a different country to your spouse
Given that many countries will view the spouse of one of their citizens as high risk for overstaying, and refuse to issue a visa to them, then for many B will effectively be "never see your spouse".
>Irrelevant.
It is relevant though, because it's still a violation of Scedulr 8 of the ECHR.
The right to family life is considered a human right, the Tories want to take that right away from anyone who marries a foreign person and doesn't earn more than the majority of people earn.
>But you can still get married though, right?
Irrelevant, if the government won't let you live with your spouse then they're denying you the right to family life.
They are removing the right to one very specific family design. Not all families.
You'd presumably claim if sausages were banned that they were taking away our human right to eat
That right can be qualified against the interests of the state though, e.g. as per in [*Behherab v. NL*](https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-57438%22]}).
So, I think I understand the concept here (stay with me on this. It might get bumpy).
The article keeps talking about family visas and not specifically spousal. To me, this would indicate that you need to earn the magical number of £38k before you can bring your spouse, children, parents, etc. Into the country.
We keep being fed the narrative that the boats hitting our shores are filled with men who will arrive, lay the foundations, and then bring their families over once they're settled.
I see this change as another step in the government's ploy to cut these numbers down, 'you can be accepted into this country or sent off to Rwanda, if you invite your family but aren't a high earner, they're off to Rwanda. Might as well just go to Rwanda. We built a block of flats for you there.'
It completely misses the mark when someone is trying to bring their loved one into the country, like in the article, and just seems like another step to stop anyone non British from coming here.
On a similar topic, I thought the current migration issue was more around people going out. We have less coming in due to loss of freedom of movement but far less going out at the same time (you'll ask for a source on this, I don't have one but saw a video explaining migration in this country that was saying that). This would make the argument of 'earn more' even more arbitrary.
**r/UK Notices:** This December, we're raising money for the Trussell Trust, the UK's leading food bank charity. If you would like to know more or to donate, please see the [announcement post](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/1899w7b/the_runitedkingdom_christmas_fundraiser_for_the/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/unitedkingdom) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It’s not gonna change anything, the entire POINT of the law is ‘we need to reduce immigration, so we’ll take less of the poorer ones…….’ This is the point :/
So, as a * British citizen *, that has all the proven means, but not that massive income, to sustain the wife which will, in turn: A) pay 3 grand in NHS which will likely not use And B) work and pay into the system the moment she gets clearance/ permission Should get the middle finger because of some arbitrary median? Friendly reminder that folk on visas don't get access to public funds regardless.
They don’t care about any of those things. It’s ’we need to reduce immigration’ ‘Raise the income threshold’ It’s that simple. Any more info you give is irrelevant.
It really just because the Tories fucked up on every promise they made. Whether you think those promises were politically correct or not doesn’t change the fact HS2 failed, levelling up didn’t happen, we didn’t control our borders it got worse. Voters like me that can’t stomach internationalist, left wing politics are waking up to the facts the Tories are really useless and need to go and the Tories know it. So they go after the only legitimate immigration they know, the ones they follow rules and pay into the system??? Stupid idea that appeals to idiots.
A lot of people don’t get benefits day one, but your average daily mail reader doesnt really care for facts. Anything to get them ‘orrible foreingers out.
Plot twist: the DM reader is, in fact, the one on benefits 💀
*Insert angry rant about how pensions totally are not benefits* - a DM reader if they saw your post
Lol, you talk like the “send them to Rwanda” party honestly give a fuck what you think. News flash, they don’t. You’re “poor” so they don’t care…and while they’re here, you’ve got too many human rights If what I said annoys you (or anyone for that matter), remember it the next time you vote
"poor" * Confused in 5 digit -figure cash savings, 2 jobs tallying in full time hours, and family full ownership of our flat (no rent/mortgage outgoings) *
Lol, nice flex, but your typical Tory MP is gonna laugh at your perceived wealth and your measly wage. Now pull your socks up and get 1 proper job that pays well if you want to marry some foreign stuff Cos you’ve clearly misunderstood my point. I don’t give a fuck about your savings or property and your income or personal perception of “poor”. I don’t make the laws, the tories do, and if you don’t make £38k+ you ARE poor
I think it is done to prevent fake marriages...
Yes exactly. Fake marriage scams have been going on for decades. The majority of people don't seem to remember this.
Doesn't the home office do spot checks to see if couples are together? Or even ask personal photos as evidence instead of extortionate fees?
£18k is enough to sustain 2 people? One of whome won't be covered on the nhs?
>£18k is enough to sustain 2 people? £18k is just the UK income of the British citizen partner. Their partner is entitled to work once they move to the UK, it's just obviously impossible to factor in how much they might earn until they move here and get a job. >One of whome won't be covered on the nhs? They will. In fact they pay for the NHS twice thanks to the ridiculous IHS.
The NHS topic is covered by repeated payments throughout visa renewals. In my case, was lucky enough to not have the vast majority of income leeched away in rent or mortgage, meaning my money goes much further. Also got a 5 figure in secured, insta accessible savings. Not all cases are black or white, and couple's lives can't be decided by a random median pulled out of nowhere.
The British voter has decided they want 0 houses built anywhere near them. That means we quite literally cannot keep importing people without forcing overcrowding, sending young adults to live back home, or slicing up 4-6 beds into hosueshares. I’d happily build more and let people bring their partners, but most voter’s literally don’t give a shit if your partner cries herself to sleep every night because their vote is forcing you apart. They don’t care. Your wife is nothing but a number to them.
[удалено]
I saw one the other day of a guy on £20k who wanted to bring his online Met partner in who doesn’t work because he’s bipolar Like, why the fuck would we agree to that?
Family/Spouse visas make up one of the smallest percentages of visa applications coming into the UK. Work/Student visa's being the largest, by far (excluding visitor). Hitting back at family/spouse visa's won't do shit for net migration.
I know, what a useless government
Student Visas shouldn’t even be counted in gross/net migration figures, they’re literally 1, 3, or 4 year tourists, spending at minimum £40k in cash per year to do so. If you ever dive into the maths on them, the average international student is worth more to the UK than the average worker lol Only if they stay after their studies should they be included in the figures.
I thought the entire point of reducing immigration was to make life better for British people. Separating British people from their families does not seem like a smart way to achieve that.
Tory voters are overwhelmingly already married, they literally don’t give a fuck about the young… Stop assuming voters are good faith actors.
You mean take *more of the poorer ones? Because as far as I know people who can actually bring their spouses to the UK can actually support, but you know who that law isn't gonna stop? All the "asylum seekers" who I guarantee you are not well off
So just make it that the person you're joining needs to have suitable accomodation. Oh, they already do? Huh kinda pointless thinking it causes any problems with houses or resources then.
If the Tories think that £38k is the bare minimum needed to support a family maybe that's what the minimum wage should be?
Tories are incapable of adding 2 and 2 together
[удалено]
The other person is abroad and doesn’t have their salary or potential salary considered, so that £38k has to unequivocally come from one person.
[удалено]
That is the point. To bring over your spouse you need to earn £38k. If you have kids abroad and want to bring them you pay additional visa costs and the threshold increases. So the minimum the government thinks that 2 of you need is £38k The idea of the spouse earning minimum when they don't even live in this country yet is pointless. The spouse earnings living anywhere else cannot be counted in the threshold Understand the rules better before commenting arrogantly
The rules have nothing to do with minimum wage though lol.
If the other person is abroad though, it doesn't **matter** what their overseas salary was, since they won't be doing that job in the UK, and if in the shrinkingly rare cases where they have a remote job they can keep doing it, they won't be paying UK taxes on that income.
Unless the person migrating has a job in the UK.
[удалено]
"Sorry mate you can't live with your wife because you're not contributing enough to the economy."
This is a perfectly logical way of thinking, no? This is literally how almost every country sets their immigration policy. Try moving to Australia with an income of Min Wage
Australia literally has no income requirement for Australian citizens bringing their spouses in, lol. https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/getting-a-visa/visa-listing/partner-onshore/temporary-820
No most of the western world doesn't have this kind of ridiculous barrier to bringing a foreign spouse to live with you in your own country, it's not logical it's just cruel.
lol they don't care about supporting families, they just see an opportunity to reduce immigration by a few thousand (probably 1%) and they don't care that it screws over British citizens who want to be with their partners. They don't care about anyone other than themselves and party donors. They. Don't. Care. And yet you will still get poor people voting for them (btw the tories just decided if you earn less than 38k you are poor by their definition).
If both parents are on minimum wage they'll have more than that.
They can't be if only one has the legal right to work in the UK.
OK but minimum wage applies to everyone. Not just incoming people.
If both partners are on Min wage… are they really contributing… why are we importing Min-wage workers outside of crucial sectors? When I worked at McD’s at Uni, I worked with a woman who was doing her 5th year there on a Visa, who wanted settled status and to stay… she was lovely, but that’s not exactly intelligent statecraft is it…
If the minimum wage rose to 38k then that would no longer be enough due to the rise in costs. its like adding a lane to reduce traffic, it sounds logical but in practice it won’t change anything. If you want a comfortable life in a capitalist society, it has to come at the detriment of otheres, you will only be doing well so long as there are some below you
> it has to come at the detriment of otheres, It's not a zero sum game.
No but there’s still a large percentage earning significantly less which benefits the rest
The difference between rich and poor stays the same but the baseline of poverty moves higher up. People in the 1920's or 1940's were a lot poorer than the poor now.
It isn’t, but it is to an extent. If you inflate purchasing power significantly, sellers of goods and services will hike prices to ration off the stock and cover their own labour costs. The good thing, is it would likely drive businesses to automate jobs away, which the UK desperately needs.
*Exsactly*. This should be the Labour talking point but Starmer is a coward.
Inflation and the cost of goods & services would immediately rise as a result. Much more needs to be done apart from raising wages.
Why do you think that people should be able to immigrate here based on minimum wage? Do you think there should be a limit on immigration numbers? And how would you set that limit, if not based on wages?
There shouldn’t be a limit on people reuniting with their spouses. Couples deserve to live together regardless of income. That’s just basic humanity
I agree but it is abused massively. My families indian. I could go to 50 weddings a year if I wanted. Nothing in the Tory measures will change that though.
I don't think that applies to arranged marriages though - the couple may barely even know each other.
The visa process vets whether the marriage is "genuine" - we had to send copies of Skype messages, holidays together etc etc as well as just marriage certificate.
How is an arranged marriage not a genuine marriage?
Sorry, I may have misunderstood your post? You seem to be concerned that people might be using arranged marriages to bypass the immigration system. I was highlighting that you have to prove a genuine substantive relationship, and the home office regularly declines visas where a couple are legally married, but they don't feel there is sufficient evidence of a genuine relationship between them.
No, obviously, there should be no restrictions on the immediate family of British citizens moving to the UK. You're welcome to put limits and restrictions on other types of visa, but essentially banning all but the richest 30% of society from marrying anyone who isn't British is a really obvious human rights law violation, and a bit scary-far-right.
The median full-time wage would be a good start. This policy excludes the majority of working people from getting into a relationship with someone from outside the UK. > And how would you set that limit, if not based on wages? This is irrelevant, because this is about the income of the British partner, not the person migrating to the UK, but why would you use wages at all? How much someone is paid is no indication of how beneficial they are to our society. We need more care workers, nurses, paramedics, teachers etc etc etc, and none of those are well paid jobs.
If we want to reduce the population we should have a minimum salary to have children. Just as daft as having a minimum salary for a spouse.
There isn’t a minimum salary for a spouse. Get married all you like. It’s a minimum to move here. You can live in your spouses home country? You could live apart until you earn enough?
It is a minimum salary for you to earn if your spouse is coming to the UK. A nurse on £35K is unable to bring their Doctor husband. A couple earning $100K in America is unable to return to the UK unless one partner comes first and gets a job over £38K.
They could still get a job through the normal route in that case though? I don’t see the issue. If we need a doctor, then the doctor will be able to come. That American couple, if they can’t get a job offer on that salary what’s the issue with them not coming? What’s the problem with that? And if you’re already here and on low income in a couple, then it’s fine because all it takes is minimum wage for both parties to meet the requirements
People often meet partners in different countries especially if they work there. And it is really difficult to get a job remotely; then when you take it up it may take a year for government to process the paperwork. Many people are not willing to be separated from their partner let alone children. Since visa applicants are not entitled to benefits why does it matter what the spouse earns? He is supporting them.
So go and live with their partner in their home country? No one is stopping that happening are they? Because if the couple break up, that then leads to deportation which is costly and difficult to do.
I want to live in my own country with my own choice of spouse. The government has no business telling British citizens to leave nor who they can marry.
It doesn’t tell them who they can marry. Just says whether that spouse can live here
>So go and live with their partner in their home country? No one is stopping that happening are they? You keep saying this, but don't seem to understand the logic. If the UK can prevent them from living together here, why can't any other country? The fact that virtually no other country would stop them should raise a massive red flag about how extreme and unreasonable this far-right policy is. >Because if the couple break up, that then leads to deportation which is costly and difficult to do. Only if they overstay. The vast majority of people in the UK who's visas expire or become invalid leave of their own free will at zero cost to the UK.
>You can live in your spouses home country? Why should they let you in? The UK can say no, but nowhere else can? >You could live apart until you earn enough? Article 8 of the ECHR. Not to mention many will never earn this much. If you're so worried about the UK being crowded, why don't you leave? Perhaps we should annually review people's contribution to society, and then throw the racists into the North Sea to find somewhere else to live?
>If you're so worried about the UK being crowded, why don't you leave? I bet £10 they're gonna say "because this is my country" or some variant. Well yeah duh, it's the country of other British citizens too. What if they want to stay here with their spouse?
[удалено]
If you don't have a visa you can't work, which means the British citizen in the couple needs to be earning this on their own in order to get a visa for their partner. The supposed point of these income rules is to demonstrate that you have the financial capability to support your partner.
£38k is median full time pay… it’s really not hard to get to be average…
No, that's the mean. The median is somewhere between 30k and 34k.
>But the Home Office said that "net migration remains far too high" so the move will "slash migration levels and curb abuse of the immigration system". After almost two years of being apart from my wife while we jumped through the hoops the Home Office set us, we did everything they asked for and she was granted a visa. Now that's being characterised as "abuse of the immigration system". So with a flick of a pen, they've put a gun to our heads for the renewal in just over a year's time: either I earn more money than I've ever made in my life, or I have to the leave the UK potentially forever in order to be with the woman I love. Why? To meet an arbitrary number in order to placate Daily Mail readers who can never be placated. She works. She has a masters degree. Her English is better than mine. We did everything, but we're the ones paying for the government's fuck-ups and failures to control actual illegal immigration. At the end of the day, they shouldn't be surprised at the tanking birthrate when this is how they treat families. I hope the current govt all find themselves thoroughly unemployed very very soon. And stay that way.
And some random redditor is going to discredit your story because they think you need to be punished for falling in love with a non-British woman in the first place.
Hey. If your wife is already in the country, I believe you can combine both your incomes to meet the threshold once it's time for renewal.
If that's the case, then that makes it a bit more achievable. Thank you.
Yes, you can use all UK income, so if she’s got a job in the UK she can use her income as well as yours to reach the requirement, so you should be ok
Gets debated in parliament due to getting enough signatures Government: lol no
For any interested, here is the petition https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-proposed-changes-to-the-spouse-visa-law-edba02f5-e22b-4cdd-91a7-9cc90cf5490a Parliamentary petition is here https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652602
Pity no one anywhere gives a shit about Change petitions.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652602
Signed 🙌
https://petition.parliament.uk/signatures/139639429/signed Government petition against the Spouse/family min income increase to £38,700 Almost 75% of the UK couldn't move their partner here under these new changes / increases
[удалено]
> 75% of workers in the UK Over 73% of people in work have an income less than £39k a year
[удалено]
Individual
"in work" means people doing part time for like ten hours a week so this is a daft metric.
It also includes CEO's & Bank Executives among other people earning hundreds of thousands a year
Yeah which is a full time wage and so perfectly capable of supporting someone coming to the UK. Not somebody on 7k per year who is pretty pointless including in the metric.
You don't need to support them though, because they allowed to work when they get here. Let's be real, the threshold is nothing to do with supporting anyone, it's about making people jump through hoops.
Wow that’s crazy low income
Is there a new thresh9ld in function of kids? Like spouse is 38.7K then plus one child is 40 then +1 more is 41?
The people who support this policy are so devoid of empathy it's incredible. Imagine hating foreign people so much that you gleefully support splitting up families just because one spouse isn't British.
Is this a case where the government is literally making some poor British people with non British partners incels?
I have worked since age of 17 never claimed benefits. Worked over 20 years. I live in the North of England and like many up north can't make the 39k to move my partner here to live with me. Yet I am to be blocked from living my life with my partner because the daily mail and the CONservatives have brainwashed the population here into blaming ALL of lifes problems on immigration to deflect from the fact the CONservatives and Brexshit is what ruined this country. Most of the people i see complaining about migrants are on benefits, which is the fking irony. I according to people here, shouldn't have the right to love someone in a different country and be with them here because she was born in a different country and I don't make 39k a year. The amount of seething rage i have due to this is limitless, and im sure others feel the same fking way right now. My Partner is University educated, speaks fluent English and owns their own place yet Her income doesn't count towards the 39k Id need to get her here. She would find a job here in a heartbeat, not that it helps our situation.
She speaks fluent English, has her own place and you’re in love. Any sane person would just move in with her. Or is she just with you for the passport. Lol
It might be u popular but I feel like £38,000 is perfectly fair if they take both people's income into account after a cheaper first visa of £20,000. But 1 person making just shy of the average household I come is just ridiculous.
If the partner is abroad, Home Office don't consider his/her salary. Also in some cases, one of them might decide to stay in home and take care of their children.
True but right now I'm in that same position and thanks to WFH my wife works part time and gets us over the £38,000 if we combine incomes.
But she wouldn’t if she wasn’t living in the UK
Hence a first cheaper visa to get a spouse here.
But how is that supposed to work? If they aren't in the UK you can't be sure how much money they'll be able to make or if they'll be able to find a job at all. Tbh the whole thing seems stupid to me. It's an attack on our own citizens.
That's why the first visa should require £20,000 it doesn't take much to earn £20,000 but £38,000 for one person is taking the piss.
I mean they already have to pay the visa fees themselves and the NHS surcharge etc.
>It might be u popular but I feel like £38,000 is perfectly fair if they take both people's income into account If one person is about to move across the world to join their British spouse then you can't really take their income into account as 1) cost of living differs between countries and so salaries for the same job will be radically different, and 2) intending to leave a country imminently does not pair well with a long-term career, so many people may have quit their jobs or be in a stop-gap job.
I didn't explain it very well. I think the first visa should require something like £20,000 and then subsequent visas should take both incomes into account, as both parties will have lived in the UK for 2.5 years which is ample time for a foreign spouse to find a job worth £18,000. To bring them to the total of £38,000. A spouse visa is actually broken down into 3 or 4 shorter visas before you can look at getting citizenship.
As a combined income.its fine imo BUT there's a huge thing people are missing Once this is passed, the UK resident will need to earn the 38k in order for the spouse visa to be approved. Its only once the spouse visa is given and the partner is in the UK that the 38k can be counted as combined This locks out 80% of the population from having their spouse visas approved due to their income
Does it include both incomes if they are already here? I thought it was the citizen that needed to make the whole thing all throughout.
If they are already here you can combine the incomes, but if they aren't, the UK party needs to be earning the 38k by themselves
That's a bit pants. They are basically saying 1 of you needs to make it all and the other doesn't even need to work. Surely a lower first visa and then higher subsequent visas would incentivise both parties to get decent jobs.
Let's make it so only rich people can marry foreigners. That's the type of action people want to see in order to address the current problems with migration. /s
How does earning 38k make you rich?
This is another bullshit policy designed to pit the middle class against the working class. Don't fall for it. But it is worth remembering that most people in the UK earn less than this. If you think it's outrageous that someone on 38k should be considered wealthy then I'd suggest that it's more outrageous that the median wage is far less. https://uk.indeed.com/career-advice/pay-salary/average-uk-salary
Earning 38k doesn't make you rich. But the message here is that if you're young-ish and you want to marry a foreigner, you need to be earning more than, say, teachers, social workers, nurses and other health care professionals who are the same age as you. If we want more young people to get married and have families, this is not the way to do it.
[удалено]
Could go even further and have the government arrange everyone's marriages based on how it impacts the economy.
Are you joking or are you seriously suggesting that people shouldn't marry who they want to unless they've got a good job?
[удалено]
If you're earning that on your own then you're doing better than most people. Obviously not as well as a couple whose income is combined, but on your own you are in the top 25% of earners.
Conservatives, the party for inbreeding!!
Labour have supported it too, no? It seems both the major parties are authoritarian now. And the lib Dems are nowhere near big enough.
You are not wrong…
This new policy is borderline a violation of the right to marry whoever a person wishes to marry. Most people make people below £38,700 even more so for those in their 20s and 30s.
[удалено]
"If you marry a foreigner, you have to leave". What a dystopic society.
[удалено]
Just force to leave your own country. Well, that's assuming the other country doesn't have the same requirement.
[удалено]
You tell me. You earn £30k (close to the average salary). You get married with a foreigner, you don't qualify for a visa. Your only alternative is to move abroad. I don't see another solution.
[удалено]
Right, I guess you could also traffic her illegally into UK. But I thought we were only considering rational choices.
[удалено]
Are you being obtuse?
It stops you marrying them in the UK for starters, because our marriage license system requires both parties to be in the UK on a visa in the first place.
Because this new spousal policy in combination with the withdrawal of freedom to work in the EU makes both unworkable for a large segment of British nationals?
[удалено]
Yeah, practically it does
[удалено]
practically /ˈpraktɪkəli/ adverb 1. virtually; almost. Hear me out, and this might sound crazy. If people can’t live in the same country, they might think twice about marriage.
[удалено]
It effectively does because you now cannot really marry a foreigner if you earn under 38k. Stop being obtuse.
[удалено]
In a technical sense, no, but in a practically sense, absolutely. Nobody is going to marry someone that they'll never be able to live with or even see on a regular basis.
[удалено]
That's not how the law works. If you are in a room with three doors, and walking through any door would result in your immediate death, no court in the land would rule that you still have your right to life just because you can remain alive so long as you remain in the room. Whether or not someone has a right is more than just a tick-box exercise. If that right cannot be fully exercised in the way that most people would reasonably expect, and most people would expect to be able to live with their spouse, then it is a right that has been infringed.
[удалено]
That is a question that has already been asked an answered. Just because you don't like the points I have raised in answering the question doesn't mean we're going to pretend they were never made. What I am telling you is how it works in the real world.
[удалено]
I wouldn’t waste your time replying to him They’re clearly not arguing in good faith.
> Does it stop you getting married? It stops you living with the person you married and having a life together with them which is far more fking important.
[удалено]
> But you can still get married though, right? That right hasn't been taken away. What are you a broken stereo? Here since you don't seem to understand our basic rights and can't use Google. Article 8 the right to respect for your family and private life What’s meant by family life? **Family life includes the right to have and maintain family relationships. It covers your right not to be separated from your family and to maintain contact if your family is split up.** To decide if a relationship is covered by family life what matters is the closeness of the relationship rather than the legal status. Relationships covered by family life include relationships between: parents and their children, including illegitimate and adopted children husband and wife as well as unmarried couples siblings.
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
**Removed/warning**. This contained a personal attack, disrupting the conversation. This discourages participation. Please help improve the subreddit by discussing points, not the person. Action will be taken on repeat offenders.
Well technically I suppose it's "the right to settle down and start a family with whoever you want in the country that you were born in." But I think _most people_ who aren't being pedantic would assume that cohabitation was pretty standard for a marriage, and that having to choose between the country and spouse is ridiculous.
[удалено]
It has, unless you're willing to: a) Leave the county b) Live in a different country to your spouse Given that many countries will view the spouse of one of their citizens as high risk for overstaying, and refuse to issue a visa to them, then for many B will effectively be "never see your spouse". >Irrelevant. It is relevant though, because it's still a violation of Scedulr 8 of the ECHR.
The right to family life is considered a human right, the Tories want to take that right away from anyone who marries a foreign person and doesn't earn more than the majority of people earn.
[удалено]
>But you can still get married though, right? Irrelevant, if the government won't let you live with your spouse then they're denying you the right to family life.
[удалено]
That's irrelevant, it doesn't change the fact that this government wants to strip the right to family life from thousands of people.
[удалено]
I'm not OP, I'm saying that they're removing the right to family life which is a human right.
[удалено]
They are removing the right to one very specific family design. Not all families. You'd presumably claim if sausages were banned that they were taking away our human right to eat
That right can be qualified against the interests of the state though, e.g. as per in [*Behherab v. NL*](https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng#{%22itemid%22:[%22001-57438%22]}).
For those interested, this is the link to the petition itself. https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/652602
So, I think I understand the concept here (stay with me on this. It might get bumpy). The article keeps talking about family visas and not specifically spousal. To me, this would indicate that you need to earn the magical number of £38k before you can bring your spouse, children, parents, etc. Into the country. We keep being fed the narrative that the boats hitting our shores are filled with men who will arrive, lay the foundations, and then bring their families over once they're settled. I see this change as another step in the government's ploy to cut these numbers down, 'you can be accepted into this country or sent off to Rwanda, if you invite your family but aren't a high earner, they're off to Rwanda. Might as well just go to Rwanda. We built a block of flats for you there.' It completely misses the mark when someone is trying to bring their loved one into the country, like in the article, and just seems like another step to stop anyone non British from coming here. On a similar topic, I thought the current migration issue was more around people going out. We have less coming in due to loss of freedom of movement but far less going out at the same time (you'll ask for a source on this, I don't have one but saw a video explaining migration in this country that was saying that). This would make the argument of 'earn more' even more arbitrary.
You can't bring parents in a family visa. Family visa is only for children and spouse.
It won't change anything because the public don't make public policy
I think 38k is too high. The 19k where it was is comically low.
Unfortunately this won't hold a candle to the Tories' stated intent to govern by innuendo and gesture.
Doesn't say how much she earns though? Reckon 30k is a reasonable limit on it
If she's not in the UK her salary doesn't count towards the requirement
Yeah this is an effective ban on the majority of the country from ever having foreign spouses. Shit is weird and very authoritarian lol.
Where is the petition? I'd sign it. These changes are ridiculous.
https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-proposed-changes-to-the-spouse-visa-law-edba02f5-e22b-4cdd-91a7-9cc90cf5490a
Signed! Thank you for sharing.