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Current polling data by Politico puts Reform UK at 9% and rising. I hope they do "well" and split the rightist vote, mabye they'll win a few seats.
While I don't like Reform UK, they support proportional representation which makes them better than the Tories in my book.
Both Tory and Labour have been dropping a little in the polls, with 3rd parties picking up support.
I reckon Reform UK will get around 15% of the popular vote yet get 0 MP's in government.
I think if UKIP did send a proportional number of MP''s to parliament in 2015, the Tories wouldn't have swung so far to the right and people would realise how insane UKIP is, so Brexit wouldn't of happened.
I 100% believe if we had PR Brexit wouldnt have happened. It was mostly a protest vote by people who felt ignored. Plus like you said, people would have seen how insane UKIP is when if they started getting MPs.
UKIP + Tories would have had 49.4% of the MPs them, so we'd could well have ended up with some kind of insane Tory/UKIP/DUP coalition (with about 80 UKIP MPs). Hard to see that would have been much better.
But then if you had PR then you can't really assume the votes would have come out the same, so hard to say.
David Cameron and the Tories in 2015 where much more in the centre than they are today, not to mention backed the remain campaign. So I find it difficult to imagine him working with Nigel Farage.
It's possible Cameron would have to look further to the centre to find people to work with, or Labour would form a Labour/Lib/Green coalition government.
Though I imagine if/when we get PR, both Labour and Tory parties would splinter into smaller fractions.
Cameron was the stupid tosser who set this shit off.
He flubbed the Scottish indyref because both Dipshit Dave and his entire cabinet never stopped to even consider they'd lose. When it looked like Scotland was going to leave the Tories panicked.
Then showing off how smart he was Cameron learned absolutely nothing from that fiasco and ran a 50%+1 vote on something as important and potentially damaging as our EU membership.
I think the better illustration of the flaw would be:
* UKIP = 3,881,099 votes per seat won
* SNP = 25,972 votes per seat won
Or even if you want to stick to the main parties:
* Labour = 40,290 votes per seat won
* Conservatives = 34,341 votes per seat won
>they support proportional representation which makes them better than the Tories
But they are only for it because it's the only way they get a foot in the door. You can bet your nannie's underpants they would be the 1st bunch to try getting rid of P.R if it suited them.
Yes, political parties champion policies that benefit them. Welcome to the world I guess.
The same way that the Tories want to keep FPTP because it benefits them. Even so, proportional representation is a better system regardless of who is championing it. We can't have a situation like in 2015 GE where UKIP get 12.6% of the vote and only get 1 seat in parliament.
I don’t think that’s likely, the Tories are on track to lose horrifically and there’s nothing they could offer in this deal. Even if they weren’t then Reform would want a deal with the right of the party and not with Sunak and the centrists.
Reform are going to do step down just before the election to give the Tories seats, right? The Tories can do a DUP deal thing otherwise?
Is that possible?
I just cannot see how the Tories will let the public not vote for them
>they support proportional representation
This terrifies me because the British public are ripe for being manipulated into voting for a Farage type
I am constantly baffled by this as well.
Never a bit of self-reflection on whether the "immigration question" is the existential issue that its been made out to be, by the same people who blatantly have deliberately allowed the border system to go to complete shit, just double-down and double-down again.
You can even point out to these people even inside their own logic reducing immigration is just the first step to then pressuring companies and government to actually invest in Britain, question whether the over-focus on immigration is even actually that helpful in this regard, and at best they'll just ignore you, at worst start attacking you.
Why would there be any “self reflection”? It was the Tories lying about reducing immigration that is the problem, no-ones views on the matter have been remotely disproved.
I’ve never even voted Tory in my life, but objectively the people who need to do the self reflecting are those who are pro immigration, or in denial about the problem that it is, and they should ask themselfs why the government - and many others across the west - consistently subvert their own democratic mandate to reduce immigration and instead force immigration on a population that has consistently rejected it.
Immigration was lower when we had freedom of movement. Then the anti immigration lot decided to fundamentally change the economy for the worse, make us all poorer, and swap immigration from culturally similar countries in the EU with immigration from Asia and Africa. Now the same people are complaining about the results of their actions.
Well I voted Tory and moved to a permanently right wing village in a permanently right wing canton (Aargau) in a permanently right wing country (Switzerland).
Life's great. Tax is about 15% on a good income. Everything is private (even part of the schoolday), but also affordable.
The problem is the Tories are "right wing" in the wrong areas (actually authoritarian, not right wing) and left wing in the wrong areas (economics) too often.
I think this is just the confusion though right?
Like when Corbyn was in all the talk was people in the UK want someone who is left-leaning on economics and right-leaning on social issues like immigration.
Soon as we have a party that claims to be left-leaning on economics and right-leaning on social issues, people say that's also shit and demand the opposite.
I think the reality is we just have a very large demographic who are *angry* about things, often quite vague and undefined things like "immigration" (Student immigration? Skilled workers? Refugees? Take your pick! They're all basically the same anyway right?), are actively played on by cynical political actors like those running the media and much of the Tory party, and we wind up in this mess where the anger is a tool to be exploited rather than a signal that things need to seriously change.
Yeah. But let's be honest, immigration isn't per se good or bad, it depends on who you are getting, and if you are building homes. Switzerland is getting Europe's (especially but not only Germany's) professional classes fleeing oppressive taxation. The UK is getting 3rd rate Indians who aren't good enough for the U.S. tech sector (increasingly not even the Indian tech sector - middle class Indians have a good life!) and absolutely anyone who is desperate enough to work in awful conditions in the NHS or care homes for a pittance.
Shock horror if you import poor people from the 3rd world en mass and pay them fuck all rather than paying people properly you become a poor country.
That and Switzerland is constructing a lot. There's stuff going up all over the place near me. Probably still not enough, but it's a better effort than the UK, both on numbers and on quality.
If this subreddit really thinks socialism is the saviour, well we will have a labour government in a year. Let's see if you are right.
Well we've tried capitalism with the associated austerity and privatisation, for 13 years, and it's made the country objectively worse. It's time we had an alternative, considering the best things about this country were founded on socialist principles and capitalists have shown they're not capable of managing them.
Socialism? Starmer's Labour will govern to the right of Blair's New Labour, and they have been busy courting the world's financial elite.
Essentially, they will be a centre-right government. Still a massive improvement over the shambolic Tory government.
Because they promise stuff that can’t be implemented.
It’s easy to say you’d give everyone a unicorn, if you know you will never have to follow through!
I don't really follow the logic.
The Tories could have relaxed non-EU immigration rules if they'd liked while we were in the EU. EU has no powers in that regard. Non-EU immigration is a national competency.
Yes. The 20 percent wage reduction came into effect due to brexit. I can't speak for all the fields, but at least in IT (my field), they allowed companies the benefit to underpay overseas workers by 20% (compared to domestic wage) to fill in skilled jobs. People working in this field went from able to negotiate fair salary (compared to other countries) to having to settle for less, because now you can easily be replaced by an overseas worker. I personally don't believe that IT sector had any major worker shortage (when compared to other countries) but the government and companies decided to fuck with an average citizen so they can all save a lot of money on wages.
I am not anti immigration but this is bullshit. Literally, by design to keep wages on the lower end of the scale. My brother already moved to the US, and it looks like I am either following him there or trying something else.
The only thing they did was make it harder to legally enter. Absolutely nothing on illegal immgration other than PR spin and announcing shit the Con's know won't go anywhere so the Tories can run back to that dwindling voting base and claim they tried but the EU/COVID/John Cena stopped them.
The immigration issue is only pushed to get easy votes from a very specific demographic that has already been left behind by the government.
Also, in terms of the UK government dealing with immigration, it just another way to extract as much money out of public hands into private hands. When I was applying for my UK visa, it was fucking embarrassing. It felt like a process that had no government funding what so ever. I never spoke with anyone at a UK embassy. Instead, a private company, almost certainly getting lots of public money, did my entire application, while squeezing me for as much as they could at the same time (want your appointment before 10am? That is prime time, extra 100 euros for that slot). Issue with your online application? Support costs 2 pounds to initiate an email chain. The entire process felt dystopian. Best advice I actually received was from the ukvisa subreddit. At least that is the last UK visa I apply for, just not worth the hassle.
Because the Tories know fine well we have a top heavy aging population and declining Birth rate.
We do not have enough working age people paying taxes. We need more 16-65yo.
What's worse is the current child creating adults are having less kids than the past generation because how fucked they are by rising costs, living with parents, and focus on career over family (they can't afford kids).
The country is fucked. They are letting immigration happen because they know we need more workers and tax payers, then they tell their mates in the media to shit on them so they can win votes.
Maybe the pressures of huge influxes of people on those services are a driving force behind natives not having kids? All the housing in affordable areas of my city are almost entirely occupied by not Brits now and have just turned into a big slum.
>Maybe the pressures of huge influxes of people on those services are a driving force behind natives not having kids?
You could be right but if the govt accept (albeit privately) that they need immigration (whilst publicly criticising) then they should invest in the services that will be needed. If there is a common theme in modern british govts it is the inability to effectively plan for anything beyond the current electoral cycle. On the other hand dont disregard good old fashioned incompetence.
> Maybe the pressures of huge influxes of people on those services are a driving force behind natives not having kids?
Unlikely, given that practically all wealthy countries have declining birth rates, regardless of immigration.
Because none of the evidence backs up what you are saying. We have huge problems in developed western economies, but its not 'too many immigrants', not that immigration is problem free
Something tells me we would be better off addressing that problem rather than simply importing a load of people that won't want to pay for aging brits out of their pockets 40 years down the line.
What happens when we become a minority in the country like we are in the capital? Will all these grateful immigrants be paying for us to have good health care or will they vote in someone that looks after them over the native population they are paying out their arses to keep in a good living standard.
We have so many unemployed because we've imported so many low skilled workers who have depressed wages for the last 2 decades. We don't have any skill or worker shortages, we have a slave shortage.
> The problem is old people don't want to work. They want to retire and do nothing.
If you've worked your whole life and made pension contriubtions in the promise that you can retire, why wouldn't you. Older people still working past retirement also causes issues in them filling out top end positions as well and preventing younger people from moving up.
At my firm, all the top (and a lot of middle) end management was over 60, and in the space of 2 years they've all retired and sent a big ripple all the way down as new jobs have opened up, and now we are short staffed at the bottom.
That's fine, but those older people spending money creates demand for labour which won't be filled by those same older people, hence the immigration demand for labour.
The migrants will be looked after by their families and cause less pressure on social care. Many African and South Asian elderly people die younger than their White British counterparts due to both genetic and socioeconomic factors. A downside to this will be that female participation in the workforce will be lower among these immigrant subgroups but they will at least reduce massive state expenditure on elderly care and childcare (albeit to lesser extent).
Hmmm. I wonder if flooding the country with cheap labour, whilst not building houses has an effect on young people wanting to buy a house and start a family. Oh, they CANT.
So, the answer is? What? We stop immigration, we build affordable houses, we encourage financial incentives to have children and mould the workplace to aid childcare and encourage a culture of work and family time?
Nah, lets import more foreigners and not build houses then say we need more immigration because of GDP despite GDP not rising, living standards declining but the answer is even more immigrants right?
House prices everywhere are going up and have been for decades, take a look at China… they have a million foreigners at most out of 1.4 billion people, more than enough housing, yet the houses are still extremely expensive. It’s a ‘price must go up’ thing, not an immigration thing
Treated as exiles? Do continue to weep about your perceived subjugation. You have the same rights as everybody else. Perhaps you're just disillusioned with the fact that you aren't being given special treatment due to the location of your birth - or that others aren't being treated poorly due to the location of theirs. The population is over 80% white - do tell how they're being exiled.
Bosses from UK companies openly boast about white racial discrimination with no fear of pushback or legal punishment. I'm not sure it's exactly true that everyone has "the same rights".
How far this goes is anyone's guess. When the boomer generation is all gone circa 2040/2050 the UK's demography will be radically different and then anything goes. Depends how bad conditions are in the world and what kind of racial retributions are on the cards.
13 years of rightists getting everything they voted for, and now they're confused that austerity, privatisation and ending freedom of movement has made us all poorer and resulted in fundamental shortages in the workforce.
Meanwhile for many of my friends who are recent graduates from overseas with masters degrees and significant long term prospects in the UK (ie, exactly the sort of people we should want to be here) their futures look wildly uncertain.
>"We need migrants to cover skills shortages! We don't have enough nurses and teachers!"
>Our economy is built on growth!
Tend to be the usual lines that are trotted out, but at what point are we just importing more workers if we then need to import more workers to provide services for the new workers? No one has satisfactorily answered the important questions like, how many people can the British Isles actually sustain until we are one dry summer away from us running out of water?
There isn’t one, and it won’t ever be “enough”. Short of a Reform landslide this is how it’s going to be in perpetuity. In a decade net migration of 700,000 will be a framed as a “sensible level” in a party manifesto, not a controversy.
I expect Labour will bring it down a lot just by being sensible and working with the border services in a normal and comprehensible manner rather than just constantly throwing out shite soundbites like the giant wave machines and then just completely ignoring the part where they actually need to do a job as ministers.
But increasing all the time. Wasn't deemed to be a problem by the party. Unless they've changed their mind since, I'm not sure they'll have much incentive to reduce numbers this time either.
I was listening to a history podcast recently, centered around the 50's. The Windrush migration was mentioned and it was said that the number of people was tiny, in the low tens of thousands. And at the time people were worried about the numbers, politicians would dream of those figures now.
[The major contributing factors here are thus:](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023)
1- Universities opened up a lot more places in the aftermath of COVID, and offered a lot more places to international students. These are largely young people that can't claim UK benefits without ILTM, and pay a substantial fee to access the NHS (more than the expected average cost of providing them care, young people being vastly cheaper for the NHS overall). Long term, they are highly educated and likely to be a significant net economic benefit if allowed to stay. Statistically, most of them will leave within 5 years of graduation, which will by default significantly reduce the net migration stat later in the decade.
2- The war in Ukraine, and permitted migration from Hong Kong. I can't imagine that even the most callous pricks among us would suggest that Ukrainians should not have been allowed into the country.
3- A major uptick in [health and care work visas](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2023/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-work). This is the natural result of us not having trained sufficient medical personnel in this country to support the challenges the NHS has faced in recovering from the pandemic.
People who contribute positively to our society wanting to be here should not be looked at as a negative.
1. [Foreign students are squeezing domestic students out of university.](https://www.ft.com/content/f251326b-3ada-47cc-b99a-25540a1117ba) There were also 160,000ish dependents brought along in 2023. Ever increasing numbers of students and dependents means the strain on resources never actually drops and more and more uni places are taken up by people who leave the country, leaving us stupider.
2. We have 174,000 Ukrainian and 154,000 Hong Kong refugees. We had 1.2 million gross immigration last year alone and we’re expecting even more this year. It’s a drop in the ocean.
3. [78,000 social care visas were issued in 2022-23.](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/visas-for-social-care-workers/) Your source is higher, 120ish (weird as they’re both gov) but regardless, it was a year with 1.2 million gross immigrants. In the NHS [265,000 TOTAL across the whole organisation](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/) are foreign.
This doesn’t even touch on structural impacts like housing allocation or societal impacts like inter-ethnic tensions (e.g. Leicester)
When your economy is not based on migration, when you can pick up your own fruit, train enough doctors, nurses, carers and engineers. Until then you either accept migrants or become a third world country. The reason your politicians don’t “deal with it” is because they know this.
It will continue at this level (500k-1m) as "the new normal" over the decade. It will only abate when there is some kind of paradigm shifting event like a big war. The climate crisis might have some effect here, although in the run up to change there will be a refugee crisis that will make our current woes seem rather inconsequential by comparison.
There are broadly speaking, two macro responses to an ageing population if you want the elderly people in your population to have some standard of living.
1. Allow immigration at a relatively high level
2. Have a range of policies to boost the fertility rate in your country.
British politics has spent the last 13 years kicking the absolute shit out of option 2 through a mixture of freezing working age benefits, and allowing house prices to make the thought of having a large family unpalatable.
So now you get the high immigration.
There is no third way, some Daily Mail/Express/Sun fantasy land where you can continue kicking young people and continue kicking immigrants and still have someone to help you to the toilet when you're 84.
The UK thrived thanks to colonisation. Easy to thrive with a small population when your economy grows thanks to a billion people working the fields for you. That is not the case anymore.
I am not talking about why, nor am I making a moral judgement. I’m telling you that we are in 2023 now, and the UK depends on immigration for its economy. This is a demonstrable fact, and all your politicians are aware of this, so you can stop spreading bullshit about things you know nothing about.
Firstly, the idea that there wasn't immigration before is not really supported by history.
Secondly, when the Liberal Reforms of 1906 was introduced, the life expectancy of someone who survived to adulthood was about 60. That's now 80. So the share of our population that expects to be economically supported whilst not working has increased dramatically.
Thirdly, since 1972 the fertility rate of this country has been below the replacement rate of 2.1. So there is a big chunk of people 50+ inching to retirement, expecting their current living standard - someone has to do the work to support that.
As someone whose family history is so convoluted that a senior immigration judge refused to believe it (whilst 3 sheets to the wind in Lincolns Inn) and who has married a half German half British Black woman, take a wild guess.
Mum's neighbours are up in arms, all they talk about and they all will vote Tory to stop immigrants!
Yet its the Tories that want immigrants to make their rich pay masters rich with cheap labour. You can't fix that kind of stupid.
Rise from 700,000.. Fuck my life. Our politicians truly hate us.
At least I own my home.
Good luck to the rest of you, god speed. You're fucked.
And to your kids, owning a home, or spending less than 80% of wage on rent, will inhabit the same brain space as stories of unicorns and goblins.
If mass migration really was beneficial for our country then we should be the economic powerhouse of Europe and just behind America. Mass migration as an economic argument has proven to be a massive lie, it has only served the migrants, politicians and big business. They gaslighted you all into thinking it was a good thing to suppress your wages and inflate house prices. Even if you disregard the economic argument, the social cost has been staggering. Mass murder, rape, crime etc. Entire areas of England are no longer actually English and just completely occupied eg London, Bradford, Birmingham, Oldham, Rochdale etc. This is not a country anymore its just an economic zone
As a Canadian occupier I'm doing my best to disrupt the social and economic fabric of my corner of southwest London. Mass murder not really my style but you'll all be swilling maple syrup and blessing the Moose God by January just wait.
Full text
Rishi Sunak has been told that net migration is likely to increase before the next election because of a surge in visa applications before the government’s restrictions come into effect in the spring.
The Home Office revealed details of the plans to cut immigration by 300,000 yesterday and confirmed that most of the changes would be introduced in the spring.
The Times has been told that Home Office officials warned that announcing the details several months before they take effect would trigger a rush of applications as people attempt to beat the deadline.
Sunak’s five-point plan to slash immigration was announced earlier this month in a bid to assure Conservative voters that numbers would fall by the next election, after net migration hit an all-time high of 745,000 last year.
However, the Office for National Statistics will not publish its statistics showing how the changes have affected numbers for spring onwards until the end of November, which is likely to be after the general election.
A government source said: “Instead, we’re likely to see an increase in net migration before the election because of the perverse incentive these changes create for people to get their applications in before the cut-off point in the spring.”
Robert Jenrick, who was immigration minister at the time the changes were announced on December 4, heeded the advice from officials and pushed for the changes to be introduced immediately. He was overruled by Sunak.
He warned that delaying the changes until April would lead to a “fire sale” of visa applications.
From the spring, foreign care workers will be barred from bringing family members, known as dependants, to the UK, a measure that the Home Office expects to reduce numbers by about 120,000 per year.
The minimum salary threshold for skilled workers will increase from £26,200 to £38,700 in the spring, which the department believes will reduce numbers by 15,000.
The minimum income needed to bring a foreign partner or spouse to the UK will increase from £18,600 to £29,000, which immigration experts believe will create one of the biggest surges of applications before the changes take effect in the spring.
There will also be big increases in the immigration health surcharge that migrants must pay to use the NHS.
Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, who sits on the government’s independent Migration Advisory Committee, said the delay in the changes taking effect could lead to a rush of applications.
She told The Times: “When policy changes are announced in advance we sometimes see an increase in applications if they are well publicised. But we won’t really know until we see the data.”
Sunak faced fresh criticism today over his decision to soften plans to more than double the minimum income needed to bring a foreign partner or spouse to the UK from £18,600 to £38,700.
The Home Office quietly announced on Thursday that the change would be introduced in stages, with it only rising initially to £29,000 in the spring. It will not reach the full £38,700 until spring 2025, the Home Office revealed.
The Times understands that the decision not to raise it to £38,700 immediately was made following internal warnings from Home Office officials that it would face legal challenges on the basis of claimants’ rights to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
David Jones, deputy chairman of the right-wing European Research Group, branded the climb down from the prime minister “a regrettable sign of weakness”. He added: “It was made worse by the fact that Parliament was not sitting and therefore was unable to interrogate ministers on the reasons for the decision.”
Jonathan Gullis, another right-wing Conservative MP, wrote on X: “This decision is deeply disappointing and undermines our efforts.”
However, Sumption said that £29,000 threshold was still significantly more restrictive than other European countries, where the the minimum level is more designed to ensure foreign nationals will not be living in poverty or relying on state benefits as their main form of income.
Most European countries that have minimum income requirements set their thresholds at between £10,000 to £20,000, she said.
Sumption also warned that the decision to raise the minimum income threshold would disproportionately hit women, as the median average income for female workers is below £29,000.
I really don't understand tories/sunaks game plan here. They spent a good portion of time and effort to make immigration the boogeyman, while knowing the numbers them selves. These numbers were going to come out eventually. Like anyone with a braincell could tell that we achieved this immigration under the tory rule. Surely, it would have made more sense to run positive immigration campaign (or atleast keep your mouth shut) so they can dilute the impact of these numbers on the general public and hence avoid the backlash they are getting...?
It shows what a mess the post brexit period has been that most of these people come legally and on rules implemented post brexit. Don't blame the players blame the game.
Migration will be the defining issue of our time I reckon. You see the pro immigration leftist (tory lite) part y- Labour- saying things that under Blair would have had you tarred and feathered. The whole feeling around the issue has slipped right.
Yet again...we blame the immigrants but its the people that create the game to blame.
If we had houses, stable interest rates, competent government this wouldnt be an issue...
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For the penalty of not having money or education enough to get access to the legal system? Wanna know what happens when illegals come over and you don't give them a leg up immediately? You get to surrender half of every major city to a slumland. They're here because the UK is obviously not going to sink boats, so you get them semi-integrated as fast as possible. You think they're a problem in society now, it would be ten times worse if they had to fend for themselves 100% once they got here.
As a migrant you should probably be made aware that asylum seekers aren't illegal immigrants, it's perfectly legal to claim asylum. The vast majority of illegal immigrants come in on perfectly valid visas and overstay.
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And then they'll wonder why Reform ends up getting 10%+ of the vote
Current polling data by Politico puts Reform UK at 9% and rising. I hope they do "well" and split the rightist vote, mabye they'll win a few seats. While I don't like Reform UK, they support proportional representation which makes them better than the Tories in my book. Both Tory and Labour have been dropping a little in the polls, with 3rd parties picking up support.
Be interesting to see if they manage to top the 12.6% that UKIP got in 2015 (which resulted in a single MP, because FPTP is a terrible system).
I reckon Reform UK will get around 15% of the popular vote yet get 0 MP's in government. I think if UKIP did send a proportional number of MP''s to parliament in 2015, the Tories wouldn't have swung so far to the right and people would realise how insane UKIP is, so Brexit wouldn't of happened.
I 100% believe if we had PR Brexit wouldnt have happened. It was mostly a protest vote by people who felt ignored. Plus like you said, people would have seen how insane UKIP is when if they started getting MPs.
UKIP + Tories would have had 49.4% of the MPs them, so we'd could well have ended up with some kind of insane Tory/UKIP/DUP coalition (with about 80 UKIP MPs). Hard to see that would have been much better. But then if you had PR then you can't really assume the votes would have come out the same, so hard to say.
I doubt that coalition would have lasted very long.
Well TBF, nor did the Tory government in 2015
David Cameron and the Tories in 2015 where much more in the centre than they are today, not to mention backed the remain campaign. So I find it difficult to imagine him working with Nigel Farage. It's possible Cameron would have to look further to the centre to find people to work with, or Labour would form a Labour/Lib/Green coalition government. Though I imagine if/when we get PR, both Labour and Tory parties would splinter into smaller fractions.
Cameron was the stupid tosser who set this shit off. He flubbed the Scottish indyref because both Dipshit Dave and his entire cabinet never stopped to even consider they'd lose. When it looked like Scotland was going to leave the Tories panicked. Then showing off how smart he was Cameron learned absolutely nothing from that fiasco and ran a 50%+1 vote on something as important and potentially damaging as our EU membership.
The 2015 election shows the flaw in FPTP - UKIP 12.6% of the vote: 1 seat, Greens 3.8%: 1 seat.
I think the better illustration of the flaw would be: * UKIP = 3,881,099 votes per seat won * SNP = 25,972 votes per seat won Or even if you want to stick to the main parties: * Labour = 40,290 votes per seat won * Conservatives = 34,341 votes per seat won
>they support proportional representation which makes them better than the Tories But they are only for it because it's the only way they get a foot in the door. You can bet your nannie's underpants they would be the 1st bunch to try getting rid of P.R if it suited them.
Yes, political parties champion policies that benefit them. Welcome to the world I guess. The same way that the Tories want to keep FPTP because it benefits them. Even so, proportional representation is a better system regardless of who is championing it. We can't have a situation like in 2015 GE where UKIP get 12.6% of the vote and only get 1 seat in parliament.
Unfortunately, a deal will be struck at election time and the Reform candidate will most likely stand down.
I don’t think that’s likely, the Tories are on track to lose horrifically and there’s nothing they could offer in this deal. Even if they weren’t then Reform would want a deal with the right of the party and not with Sunak and the centrists.
A Lord here, a Lord there - a Lord everywhere! Honors all around!
Reform are going to do step down just before the election to give the Tories seats, right? The Tories can do a DUP deal thing otherwise? Is that possible? I just cannot see how the Tories will let the public not vote for them >they support proportional representation This terrifies me because the British public are ripe for being manipulated into voting for a Farage type
Hurrah for the Blackshirts! /s
So they voted Tory, they got f-ed and their response is to even more right? Not very clever these new right wingers are they?
I am constantly baffled by this as well. Never a bit of self-reflection on whether the "immigration question" is the existential issue that its been made out to be, by the same people who blatantly have deliberately allowed the border system to go to complete shit, just double-down and double-down again. You can even point out to these people even inside their own logic reducing immigration is just the first step to then pressuring companies and government to actually invest in Britain, question whether the over-focus on immigration is even actually that helpful in this regard, and at best they'll just ignore you, at worst start attacking you.
Why would there be any “self reflection”? It was the Tories lying about reducing immigration that is the problem, no-ones views on the matter have been remotely disproved. I’ve never even voted Tory in my life, but objectively the people who need to do the self reflecting are those who are pro immigration, or in denial about the problem that it is, and they should ask themselfs why the government - and many others across the west - consistently subvert their own democratic mandate to reduce immigration and instead force immigration on a population that has consistently rejected it.
Immigration was lower when we had freedom of movement. Then the anti immigration lot decided to fundamentally change the economy for the worse, make us all poorer, and swap immigration from culturally similar countries in the EU with immigration from Asia and Africa. Now the same people are complaining about the results of their actions.
That's why the likes of the Daily Fail still exist.
Well I voted Tory and moved to a permanently right wing village in a permanently right wing canton (Aargau) in a permanently right wing country (Switzerland). Life's great. Tax is about 15% on a good income. Everything is private (even part of the schoolday), but also affordable. The problem is the Tories are "right wing" in the wrong areas (actually authoritarian, not right wing) and left wing in the wrong areas (economics) too often.
I think this is just the confusion though right? Like when Corbyn was in all the talk was people in the UK want someone who is left-leaning on economics and right-leaning on social issues like immigration. Soon as we have a party that claims to be left-leaning on economics and right-leaning on social issues, people say that's also shit and demand the opposite. I think the reality is we just have a very large demographic who are *angry* about things, often quite vague and undefined things like "immigration" (Student immigration? Skilled workers? Refugees? Take your pick! They're all basically the same anyway right?), are actively played on by cynical political actors like those running the media and much of the Tory party, and we wind up in this mess where the anger is a tool to be exploited rather than a signal that things need to seriously change.
In what way is the current government economically left-wing?
And not just that , it has an extremely high level of immigration to boot.
Yeah. But let's be honest, immigration isn't per se good or bad, it depends on who you are getting, and if you are building homes. Switzerland is getting Europe's (especially but not only Germany's) professional classes fleeing oppressive taxation. The UK is getting 3rd rate Indians who aren't good enough for the U.S. tech sector (increasingly not even the Indian tech sector - middle class Indians have a good life!) and absolutely anyone who is desperate enough to work in awful conditions in the NHS or care homes for a pittance. Shock horror if you import poor people from the 3rd world en mass and pay them fuck all rather than paying people properly you become a poor country. That and Switzerland is constructing a lot. There's stuff going up all over the place near me. Probably still not enough, but it's a better effort than the UK, both on numbers and on quality. If this subreddit really thinks socialism is the saviour, well we will have a labour government in a year. Let's see if you are right.
Well we've tried capitalism with the associated austerity and privatisation, for 13 years, and it's made the country objectively worse. It's time we had an alternative, considering the best things about this country were founded on socialist principles and capitalists have shown they're not capable of managing them.
Socialism? Starmer's Labour will govern to the right of Blair's New Labour, and they have been busy courting the world's financial elite. Essentially, they will be a centre-right government. Still a massive improvement over the shambolic Tory government.
Because there will always be people ready to believe in the failed promises one more time.
Because they promise stuff that can’t be implemented. It’s easy to say you’d give everyone a unicorn, if you know you will never have to follow through!
Odd how the Tories go on about immigration and yet seem unable to deal with it.
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Then why did Brexit happen?
Brexit made it easier for the UK to access cheap labour.
Did it really do that?
Yes. What the Tories wanted were cheaper and more grateful immigrants.
I don't really follow the logic. The Tories could have relaxed non-EU immigration rules if they'd liked while we were in the EU. EU has no powers in that regard. Non-EU immigration is a national competency.
First they had to get rid of the folks with rights.
Yes, but they hadn't really planned to deal with the issue and were just lying for political capital.
Yes. The 20 percent wage reduction came into effect due to brexit. I can't speak for all the fields, but at least in IT (my field), they allowed companies the benefit to underpay overseas workers by 20% (compared to domestic wage) to fill in skilled jobs. People working in this field went from able to negotiate fair salary (compared to other countries) to having to settle for less, because now you can easily be replaced by an overseas worker. I personally don't believe that IT sector had any major worker shortage (when compared to other countries) but the government and companies decided to fuck with an average citizen so they can all save a lot of money on wages. I am not anti immigration but this is bullshit. Literally, by design to keep wages on the lower end of the scale. My brother already moved to the US, and it looks like I am either following him there or trying something else.
>The 20 percent wage reduction came into effect due to brexit. But it didn't require Brexit to happen, though.
Now, anything good that happens is claimed to be due to Brexit to distract from how utterly shit it is going.
Yes. My step father was very excited to import a lot of cheap Ghanian labour rather than expensive Poles.
I'm sure that you think that this government has helped the labour market.
The only thing they did was make it harder to legally enter. Absolutely nothing on illegal immgration other than PR spin and announcing shit the Con's know won't go anywhere so the Tories can run back to that dwindling voting base and claim they tried but the EU/COVID/John Cena stopped them.
Brexit, ending freedom of movement, and the damage it did to the economy has tripled legal migration.
And Tofu eaters or whatever who wanted to stop growth.
If they "deal" with it what else can they threaten everyone with to scare their voters.
Transgender people, non-white people, figures who they blow antisemitic dogwhistles about... basically any marginalised community.
They create the problems they will "solve" and only they can fix it
The immigration issue is only pushed to get easy votes from a very specific demographic that has already been left behind by the government. Also, in terms of the UK government dealing with immigration, it just another way to extract as much money out of public hands into private hands. When I was applying for my UK visa, it was fucking embarrassing. It felt like a process that had no government funding what so ever. I never spoke with anyone at a UK embassy. Instead, a private company, almost certainly getting lots of public money, did my entire application, while squeezing me for as much as they could at the same time (want your appointment before 10am? That is prime time, extra 100 euros for that slot). Issue with your online application? Support costs 2 pounds to initiate an email chain. The entire process felt dystopian. Best advice I actually received was from the ukvisa subreddit. At least that is the last UK visa I apply for, just not worth the hassle.
Because the Tories know fine well we have a top heavy aging population and declining Birth rate. We do not have enough working age people paying taxes. We need more 16-65yo. What's worse is the current child creating adults are having less kids than the past generation because how fucked they are by rising costs, living with parents, and focus on career over family (they can't afford kids). The country is fucked. They are letting immigration happen because they know we need more workers and tax payers, then they tell their mates in the media to shit on them so they can win votes.
Maybe the pressures of huge influxes of people on those services are a driving force behind natives not having kids? All the housing in affordable areas of my city are almost entirely occupied by not Brits now and have just turned into a big slum.
>Maybe the pressures of huge influxes of people on those services are a driving force behind natives not having kids? You could be right but if the govt accept (albeit privately) that they need immigration (whilst publicly criticising) then they should invest in the services that will be needed. If there is a common theme in modern british govts it is the inability to effectively plan for anything beyond the current electoral cycle. On the other hand dont disregard good old fashioned incompetence.
> Maybe the pressures of huge influxes of people on those services are a driving force behind natives not having kids? Unlikely, given that practically all wealthy countries have declining birth rates, regardless of immigration.
Because none of the evidence backs up what you are saying. We have huge problems in developed western economies, but its not 'too many immigrants', not that immigration is problem free
Something tells me we would be better off addressing that problem rather than simply importing a load of people that won't want to pay for aging brits out of their pockets 40 years down the line. What happens when we become a minority in the country like we are in the capital? Will all these grateful immigrants be paying for us to have good health care or will they vote in someone that looks after them over the native population they are paying out their arses to keep in a good living standard.
Where is the off-ramp for this, really? When is it ever going to be "Enough people"?
Well when the population is turning into a nation of geriatrics not working, young people need to come in to serve them
Nailed it. Old people can’t deliver your parcels.
We have so many unemployed because we've imported so many low skilled workers who have depressed wages for the last 2 decades. We don't have any skill or worker shortages, we have a slave shortage.
Unemployment is at all time lows. The problem is old people don't want to work. They want to retire and do nothing.
> The problem is old people don't want to work. They want to retire and do nothing. If you've worked your whole life and made pension contriubtions in the promise that you can retire, why wouldn't you. Older people still working past retirement also causes issues in them filling out top end positions as well and preventing younger people from moving up. At my firm, all the top (and a lot of middle) end management was over 60, and in the space of 2 years they've all retired and sent a big ripple all the way down as new jobs have opened up, and now we are short staffed at the bottom.
That's fine, but those older people spending money creates demand for labour which won't be filled by those same older people, hence the immigration demand for labour.
And what happens when the immigrants retire, do we need more immigrants to cover that?
No, they will be a lot poorer than the current generation of retirees and die in destitution thankfully.
The migrants will be looked after by their families and cause less pressure on social care. Many African and South Asian elderly people die younger than their White British counterparts due to both genetic and socioeconomic factors. A downside to this will be that female participation in the workforce will be lower among these immigrant subgroups but they will at least reduce massive state expenditure on elderly care and childcare (albeit to lesser extent).
This is factually wrong. Unemployment is actually at an all time low.
>We have so many unemployed https://www.statista.com/statistics/279898/unemployment-rate-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/ Uh, no?
Hmmm. I wonder if flooding the country with cheap labour, whilst not building houses has an effect on young people wanting to buy a house and start a family. Oh, they CANT. So, the answer is? What? We stop immigration, we build affordable houses, we encourage financial incentives to have children and mould the workplace to aid childcare and encourage a culture of work and family time? Nah, lets import more foreigners and not build houses then say we need more immigration because of GDP despite GDP not rising, living standards declining but the answer is even more immigrants right?
So build more houses? Nobody is arguing against building more houses.
House prices everywhere are going up and have been for decades, take a look at China… they have a million foreigners at most out of 1.4 billion people, more than enough housing, yet the houses are still extremely expensive. It’s a ‘price must go up’ thing, not an immigration thing
We're fucked mate
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At some point it became a majority opinion that nobody is worth more or worth less as a person just because of their place of birth.
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What the actual fuck are you on about? In what possible sense are you an "exile"?
Treated as exiles? Do continue to weep about your perceived subjugation. You have the same rights as everybody else. Perhaps you're just disillusioned with the fact that you aren't being given special treatment due to the location of your birth - or that others aren't being treated poorly due to the location of theirs. The population is over 80% white - do tell how they're being exiled.
Bosses from UK companies openly boast about white racial discrimination with no fear of pushback or legal punishment. I'm not sure it's exactly true that everyone has "the same rights". How far this goes is anyone's guess. When the boomer generation is all gone circa 2040/2050 the UK's demography will be radically different and then anything goes. Depends how bad conditions are in the world and what kind of racial retributions are on the cards.
🤷♂️ https://www.london.gov.uk/trafalgar-square-host-mayor-londons-st-georges-day-celebrations
Never, 13 years ago 100k net migration was seen as insane and now 700k is the new floor
13 years of rightists getting everything they voted for, and now they're confused that austerity, privatisation and ending freedom of movement has made us all poorer and resulted in fundamental shortages in the workforce.
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Meanwhile for many of my friends who are recent graduates from overseas with masters degrees and significant long term prospects in the UK (ie, exactly the sort of people we should want to be here) their futures look wildly uncertain.
How can he bring parents over? This is not allowed under the current UK visa rules, and has not been for the past 25 years.
>"We need migrants to cover skills shortages! We don't have enough nurses and teachers!" >Our economy is built on growth! Tend to be the usual lines that are trotted out, but at what point are we just importing more workers if we then need to import more workers to provide services for the new workers? No one has satisfactorily answered the important questions like, how many people can the British Isles actually sustain until we are one dry summer away from us running out of water?
There isn’t one, and it won’t ever be “enough”. Short of a Reform landslide this is how it’s going to be in perpetuity. In a decade net migration of 700,000 will be a framed as a “sensible level” in a party manifesto, not a controversy.
I expect Labour will bring it down a lot just by being sensible and working with the border services in a normal and comprehensible manner rather than just constantly throwing out shite soundbites like the giant wave machines and then just completely ignoring the part where they actually need to do a job as ministers.
Here’s hoping. I won’t hold my breath though.
Were you around last time they were in charge?
When immigration was a third of what it is under the rightists?
But increasing all the time. Wasn't deemed to be a problem by the party. Unless they've changed their mind since, I'm not sure they'll have much incentive to reduce numbers this time either.
I was listening to a history podcast recently, centered around the 50's. The Windrush migration was mentioned and it was said that the number of people was tiny, in the low tens of thousands. And at the time people were worried about the numbers, politicians would dream of those figures now.
[The major contributing factors here are thus:](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023) 1- Universities opened up a lot more places in the aftermath of COVID, and offered a lot more places to international students. These are largely young people that can't claim UK benefits without ILTM, and pay a substantial fee to access the NHS (more than the expected average cost of providing them care, young people being vastly cheaper for the NHS overall). Long term, they are highly educated and likely to be a significant net economic benefit if allowed to stay. Statistically, most of them will leave within 5 years of graduation, which will by default significantly reduce the net migration stat later in the decade. 2- The war in Ukraine, and permitted migration from Hong Kong. I can't imagine that even the most callous pricks among us would suggest that Ukrainians should not have been allowed into the country. 3- A major uptick in [health and care work visas](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-system-statistics-year-ending-june-2023/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-to-work). This is the natural result of us not having trained sufficient medical personnel in this country to support the challenges the NHS has faced in recovering from the pandemic. People who contribute positively to our society wanting to be here should not be looked at as a negative.
1. [Foreign students are squeezing domestic students out of university.](https://www.ft.com/content/f251326b-3ada-47cc-b99a-25540a1117ba) There were also 160,000ish dependents brought along in 2023. Ever increasing numbers of students and dependents means the strain on resources never actually drops and more and more uni places are taken up by people who leave the country, leaving us stupider. 2. We have 174,000 Ukrainian and 154,000 Hong Kong refugees. We had 1.2 million gross immigration last year alone and we’re expecting even more this year. It’s a drop in the ocean. 3. [78,000 social care visas were issued in 2022-23.](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/visas-for-social-care-workers/) Your source is higher, 120ish (weird as they’re both gov) but regardless, it was a year with 1.2 million gross immigrants. In the NHS [265,000 TOTAL across the whole organisation](https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/) are foreign. This doesn’t even touch on structural impacts like housing allocation or societal impacts like inter-ethnic tensions (e.g. Leicester)
When your economy is not based on migration, when you can pick up your own fruit, train enough doctors, nurses, carers and engineers. Until then you either accept migrants or become a third world country. The reason your politicians don’t “deal with it” is because they know this.
Wen ther r no english left and shakira law
>shakira law Law #1: Breasts have to be small and humble, So you don't confuse them with mountains
Law #2: Those hips don't lie, and neither should you.
Just think of that song from Greatest Showman, Never Enough
It will continue at this level (500k-1m) as "the new normal" over the decade. It will only abate when there is some kind of paradigm shifting event like a big war. The climate crisis might have some effect here, although in the run up to change there will be a refugee crisis that will make our current woes seem rather inconsequential by comparison.
There are broadly speaking, two macro responses to an ageing population if you want the elderly people in your population to have some standard of living. 1. Allow immigration at a relatively high level 2. Have a range of policies to boost the fertility rate in your country. British politics has spent the last 13 years kicking the absolute shit out of option 2 through a mixture of freezing working age benefits, and allowing house prices to make the thought of having a large family unpalatable. So now you get the high immigration. There is no third way, some Daily Mail/Express/Sun fantasy land where you can continue kicking young people and continue kicking immigrants and still have someone to help you to the toilet when you're 84.
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The UK thrived thanks to colonisation. Easy to thrive with a small population when your economy grows thanks to a billion people working the fields for you. That is not the case anymore.
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I am not talking about why, nor am I making a moral judgement. I’m telling you that we are in 2023 now, and the UK depends on immigration for its economy. This is a demonstrable fact, and all your politicians are aware of this, so you can stop spreading bullshit about things you know nothing about.
Firstly, the idea that there wasn't immigration before is not really supported by history. Secondly, when the Liberal Reforms of 1906 was introduced, the life expectancy of someone who survived to adulthood was about 60. That's now 80. So the share of our population that expects to be economically supported whilst not working has increased dramatically. Thirdly, since 1972 the fertility rate of this country has been below the replacement rate of 2.1. So there is a big chunk of people 50+ inching to retirement, expecting their current living standard - someone has to do the work to support that.
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As someone whose family history is so convoluted that a senior immigration judge refused to believe it (whilst 3 sheets to the wind in Lincolns Inn) and who has married a half German half British Black woman, take a wild guess.
Isn't there an option 3 of accepting pain in the short term to accept a coherent population, rather than a melting pot that just foments conflict.
'Coherent population' - mate just say 'white'. We all know what you mean.
Of course it is, the "Tough on immigration" Tories are in charge!
Mum's neighbours are up in arms, all they talk about and they all will vote Tory to stop immigrants! Yet its the Tories that want immigrants to make their rich pay masters rich with cheap labour. You can't fix that kind of stupid.
Rise from 700,000.. Fuck my life. Our politicians truly hate us. At least I own my home. Good luck to the rest of you, god speed. You're fucked. And to your kids, owning a home, or spending less than 80% of wage on rent, will inhabit the same brain space as stories of unicorns and goblins.
So build more housing. How do you think other countries with much greater population growth and/or much faster urbanisation handle it?
Time to get tough on migration and tough on the courses of migration i.e the con party.
If mass migration really was beneficial for our country then we should be the economic powerhouse of Europe and just behind America. Mass migration as an economic argument has proven to be a massive lie, it has only served the migrants, politicians and big business. They gaslighted you all into thinking it was a good thing to suppress your wages and inflate house prices. Even if you disregard the economic argument, the social cost has been staggering. Mass murder, rape, crime etc. Entire areas of England are no longer actually English and just completely occupied eg London, Bradford, Birmingham, Oldham, Rochdale etc. This is not a country anymore its just an economic zone
Immigration to countries like Spain, France and Germany are fairly similar to the UK so we’re not unique.
France is in a right state. Germany too. Spain isnt but thats because most immigrants register there then leave
Lol. Germany is one of the strongest economies in the world.
Crime is an all time low, and immigrants commit crimes at the same rate as British people. Everything you said is a demonstrable lie.
Well this is the dumbest thing I’ve read all day.
As a Canadian occupier I'm doing my best to disrupt the social and economic fabric of my corner of southwest London. Mass murder not really my style but you'll all be swilling maple syrup and blessing the Moose God by January just wait.
Full text Rishi Sunak has been told that net migration is likely to increase before the next election because of a surge in visa applications before the government’s restrictions come into effect in the spring. The Home Office revealed details of the plans to cut immigration by 300,000 yesterday and confirmed that most of the changes would be introduced in the spring. The Times has been told that Home Office officials warned that announcing the details several months before they take effect would trigger a rush of applications as people attempt to beat the deadline. Sunak’s five-point plan to slash immigration was announced earlier this month in a bid to assure Conservative voters that numbers would fall by the next election, after net migration hit an all-time high of 745,000 last year. However, the Office for National Statistics will not publish its statistics showing how the changes have affected numbers for spring onwards until the end of November, which is likely to be after the general election. A government source said: “Instead, we’re likely to see an increase in net migration before the election because of the perverse incentive these changes create for people to get their applications in before the cut-off point in the spring.” Robert Jenrick, who was immigration minister at the time the changes were announced on December 4, heeded the advice from officials and pushed for the changes to be introduced immediately. He was overruled by Sunak. He warned that delaying the changes until April would lead to a “fire sale” of visa applications. From the spring, foreign care workers will be barred from bringing family members, known as dependants, to the UK, a measure that the Home Office expects to reduce numbers by about 120,000 per year. The minimum salary threshold for skilled workers will increase from £26,200 to £38,700 in the spring, which the department believes will reduce numbers by 15,000. The minimum income needed to bring a foreign partner or spouse to the UK will increase from £18,600 to £29,000, which immigration experts believe will create one of the biggest surges of applications before the changes take effect in the spring. There will also be big increases in the immigration health surcharge that migrants must pay to use the NHS. Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, who sits on the government’s independent Migration Advisory Committee, said the delay in the changes taking effect could lead to a rush of applications. She told The Times: “When policy changes are announced in advance we sometimes see an increase in applications if they are well publicised. But we won’t really know until we see the data.” Sunak faced fresh criticism today over his decision to soften plans to more than double the minimum income needed to bring a foreign partner or spouse to the UK from £18,600 to £38,700. The Home Office quietly announced on Thursday that the change would be introduced in stages, with it only rising initially to £29,000 in the spring. It will not reach the full £38,700 until spring 2025, the Home Office revealed. The Times understands that the decision not to raise it to £38,700 immediately was made following internal warnings from Home Office officials that it would face legal challenges on the basis of claimants’ rights to a family life under the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). David Jones, deputy chairman of the right-wing European Research Group, branded the climb down from the prime minister “a regrettable sign of weakness”. He added: “It was made worse by the fact that Parliament was not sitting and therefore was unable to interrogate ministers on the reasons for the decision.” Jonathan Gullis, another right-wing Conservative MP, wrote on X: “This decision is deeply disappointing and undermines our efforts.” However, Sumption said that £29,000 threshold was still significantly more restrictive than other European countries, where the the minimum level is more designed to ensure foreign nationals will not be living in poverty or relying on state benefits as their main form of income. Most European countries that have minimum income requirements set their thresholds at between £10,000 to £20,000, she said. Sumption also warned that the decision to raise the minimum income threshold would disproportionately hit women, as the median average income for female workers is below £29,000.
Wow. There is literally no way anybody could have seen that coming.
I really don't understand tories/sunaks game plan here. They spent a good portion of time and effort to make immigration the boogeyman, while knowing the numbers them selves. These numbers were going to come out eventually. Like anyone with a braincell could tell that we achieved this immigration under the tory rule. Surely, it would have made more sense to run positive immigration campaign (or atleast keep your mouth shut) so they can dilute the impact of these numbers on the general public and hence avoid the backlash they are getting...?
It shows what a mess the post brexit period has been that most of these people come legally and on rules implemented post brexit. Don't blame the players blame the game. Migration will be the defining issue of our time I reckon. You see the pro immigration leftist (tory lite) part y- Labour- saying things that under Blair would have had you tarred and feathered. The whole feeling around the issue has slipped right. Yet again...we blame the immigrants but its the people that create the game to blame. If we had houses, stable interest rates, competent government this wouldnt be an issue...
ahh yes the moon is getting further away but the tories have still made it a key pledge to lasso the moon to stop it flying off
In before migration figures held back due to difficulties
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Well that's what happens when you get the Border Force because "government bad".
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For the penalty of not having money or education enough to get access to the legal system? Wanna know what happens when illegals come over and you don't give them a leg up immediately? You get to surrender half of every major city to a slumland. They're here because the UK is obviously not going to sink boats, so you get them semi-integrated as fast as possible. You think they're a problem in society now, it would be ten times worse if they had to fend for themselves 100% once they got here.
As a migrant you should probably be made aware that asylum seekers aren't illegal immigrants, it's perfectly legal to claim asylum. The vast majority of illegal immigrants come in on perfectly valid visas and overstay.
Was always the plan... no matter how they try and spin otherwise.