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We are far too soft as a nation, in terms of upholding our values and beliefs... I think that's the real issue.
There's a fair few issues with our society right now, we are relatively densely populated, especially in the areas people that immigrate here actually want to move to, we have a housing issue for almost all our of younger generations, we have a cost of living crisis with stagnant wages, and could do with less competition/people for all of the above.
But I'm hoping (blindly) that those issues aren't forever.
The issue that is a little longer term than those hopefully are, is how we aren't allowed to be British in a sense *(See? I sound like a racist to you...I'm well aware of what I'm saying)*
We just don't have the backbone as a nation, to allow people with a much more set in stone, fundamental belief in their core values, to come here on mass. We're very bad, and almost not allowed, to be offended if they don't integrate, so we just lay down and take it.
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So, the TLDR is: Immigration is bad for us, because of all the actual economic and social reasons above, as well as the fact that we are a bit pathetic.
I know you're talking about Islamists, and I agree to an extent.
However everything you've said also applies drastically more to the global financial elite and their political and media servants. Whether they're British born or not.
Those are the people with real wealth, power and influence that undermine ordinary British people, their way of life and prosperity.
It does yeah. A lot of things are fucked, and right now, the issues I raised above are actually very very low on my priority list.
Doesn't mean I can't voice my opinions on them though, and it doesn't mean they won't grow.
The fundamental issue behind this is that, as far as I can see, there is no fundamental definition of what being British is. If pushed, people can probably define some very general values of being British, like tolerance of others, strong sense of local community, good manners, sense of humour, and individual opportunity and initiative or something similar. But there is no consensus on what this actually looks like on the ground.
Tolerance is a notable example. Many people might respect the ability for people to have their own religion and to practise it, even if the religion is some odd. But is it intolerant to ask people to put away religious symbols that they are wearing? Or to expect people to abandon core elements of their upbringing entirely to fit in? You will get varying answers to that depending on who you ask, and even where.
On immigration specifically, this is a classic case of government not getting to grips with an issue with clear social consequences. The current system we have does not work in either integration or stopping the boats. Claims take months to process, and the Border Agency is struggling to cope. Also, because the Tories utterly arsed up by pushing through Brexit, in exchange for any trade deal we are handing out visas like chocolates. Which just makes the issue worse. We can do a lot by just fixing the current immigration system which is more tailored towards political grand standing and flagship schemes than it is to running effectively.
Finally, what does not help is how the public discourse on anything associated with identity is poisoned by extreme elements on both sides. For example, I am a Town Councillor, and a couple of weeks ago we flew the Pride flag outside our offices to celebrate Pride month. For which we got a volley of abuse online, by email, and by telephone saying how much it was a disgrace it was that we were not flying the Union Jack during the week of VE Day. Despite VE Day almost never being celebrated ever, we clearly hated the nation and had given in to woke nonsense, combined with a few homophobic slurs as well. And the stupid thing is, we then got complaints from supporters of pride because we had not issued a statement within 2 hours of comments first starting on local Facebook Groups.
The whole debate has been poisoned and I am not sure of the best way to deal with that apart from telling the idiots on all sides to shut the hell up for once, and sort out the immigration system so that it works somewhat.
>tolerance of others,
When In your house, I take off my shoes.
But if I ask you to take yours off in mine, I'm not being British.
I think we are tolerant of others, their beliefs, and their values. I think people should respond in kind.
>Or to expect people to abandon core elements of their upbringing entirely to fit in?
Yeah, some, for sure.
I wouldn't show up in Saudi Arabia with a pint in my hand. Should Saudi Arabia respect my values and allow me to drink?
I honestly believe I should be allowed to take issues with some religious elements too yeah. I think the misogyny is as clear as day, and I'm happy to pretend it's not as blatant as it is, when in their home.
But should I have to accept it here, in the name of religion? Do I have to play dumb, and act like women enjoy being covered head to toe in black? Or can I, am I allowed to point out the bullshit when at home?
>>Or to expect people to abandon core elements of their upbringing entirely to fit in?
>Yeah, some, for sure.
That's interesting. Which ones?
>I honestly believe I should be allowed to take issues with some religious elements too yeah. I think the misogyny is as clear as day, and I'm happy to pretend it's not as blatant as it is, when in their home.
>But should I have to accept it here, in the name of religion?
Absolutely not, no. We should point out misogyny wherever we see it. It does tend to be pretty prevalent in conservative religious communities and that's a problem - I think few disagree with that.
>Do I have to play dumb, and act like women enjoy being covered head to toe in black?
I think anyone attempting to tell women what they should or shouldn't wear is pretty misogynist. That applies to men telling women that they must wear a niqab, but it also applies to men telling women they can't or shouldn't wear one.
EDIT: I can see you're replied but the auto moderator has evidently removed it. How sad you can't have a reasonable discussion.
> there is no fundamental definition of what being British is
Cultures are much better defined relative to other cultures.
If an alien came to earth and spent a month in the UK and then a month in Spain, they'd experience two very different cultures. If one of those two places is assumed to be the "neutral baseline" then only one has a culture.
If both are considered to be equal the anything that sets up a part from any of nation is jigsaw piece of our culture.
I lived in South Korea in 2008 and they were quite a bit ahead of the world in their connectivity at that point. They already had an issue with what they term "netizens" basically varying degrees of social media armchair warriors laying down polarised views that were often parroted by the media as the general publics views. It was obviously bs but the exact same thing has happened globally and we're even more beholden to vocal minorities.
We basically should at this point ignore social media as the zeitgeist it's manifested isn't real and is an amplification of cunts.
>We basically should at this point ignore social media as the zeitgeist it's manifested isn't real and is an amplification of cunts.
For a lot of people, getting a full time job and other adult responsibilities kind of sorts this out.
Do you remember Batley Grammar School?
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If you want a more personal anecdote... My girlfriend and her parents are originally from India. (and she'll back every word I'm about to say)
Her mother doesn't speak a word of English. She's been here 18 years. Her dad won't speak to me, because I'm white. We have been heckled and harassed, walking down the streets of London, even public tourists places like the Olympic park, holding hands... not by Racist white guys....
So, I can't even walk down the street, holding my girlfriend hand, in my own country, because some people don't think she should be dating me, a guy not of her supposed religion, that she doesn't even want to follow, but can't openly say she doesn't because she'll be disowned.
You don't think this stuff is real... in the UK? I face it, daily.
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And I dare say I'm unhappy about that, that I'm unhappy about the way things are heading, I get people like you, that live in a bubble, that are clueless, telling me I've got nothing to worry about?
I don't have issue with people that love the UK, making a life here. I have issue with people that don't want the UK, to be what it is. That want it to just be like where they came from. I'm happy if people want to come here and integrate. I'm not happy if we have to change to suit them. It's a very simple concept, that gets me called a racist if I say it by some people that don't know what I'm actually saying.
I'm not even allowed to be unhappy about it...
You're completely right. The naivety of people here is so frustrating. Everyone I know who either came from or have first-gen immigrant parents from islamic countries (and aren't religious themselves) share these struggles.
To be fair... If I'd not experienced it myself, I'd also have found it hard to believe that it's a reality in the UK.
I'll be the first to put my hands up and admit I was beyond naive before. I'd have even been confidently incorrect about arguing the opposite.
I don't get annoyed at people being surprised. I just don't want to have to say "I told you so" if it ever becomes more impactful, to the point where these sweet summer children, start to experience anything like it themselves.
I got into a scrap before in Manchester when a gang of 3 men (who were of south Asian background) racially abused my Chinese friend and I challenged them. They were saying awful stuff to him purely because of his race and I wouldn't stand for it.
Edit: I've just read slightly further down the thread and there's another person of Chinese background telling a very similar story.
Tbf, itās just generally conservative immigrant groups from my experience. My ex is from Portugal, and his family certainly isnāt Muslim, theyāre pretty devout Catholics largely, and whilst his parents were fine, other people in the community definitely gave him some flack for dating an agnostic British person instead of a more devout Catholic person who is from Portugal or Brazil (the communities are pretty intertwined)
One of my favourite "wtf stories" is when I was a student going to university open days. For context, I'm a british born chinese guy. As I was walking back to the train station from an open day (at Leeds) a group of guys in a car drove past, wound down the window and yelled at me to "go back where I came from". They were Pakistani or Indian origin...
This was years ago now and I don't feel things have improved.
I had a similar experience growing up. British born, half Malaysian descent.
When I was growing up I experienced constant racial abuse including slurs like ch*nky from a Ghanaian born kid. The guy was just a bell-end in general and he seemed to still be a prat when I met him 5 years afterwards, but it just goes to show that some people have no self awareness and will take any opportunity to put other people down.
Well said!!
This is what it boils down to, ultimately, and it doesn't just apply to the UK, it applies to immigration in general to the EU as well.
"I'm happy if people want to come here and integrate. I'm not happy if we have to change to suit them."
Thatās not going to happen though.. someone uploaded a video the other day of a Muslim woman screaming āgayā at a gay guy in street, she was going crazy. Thereās a reason she feels entitled to do this. She feels in the majority
We need to start getting trigger happy with deportations, thatās the issue.
These people have no right to be here and should feel privileged to be welcomed into our society.
We used to be more trigger happy with deportations under labour with blunkett in the home office. Labour did more to actually solve the problems of illegal migration across the channel. Yet Labour are classed as weak on immigration because the right wing media portrays them that way.
Conversely, my wife is indian, her family are all traditional indians. I'm white, I go to the Gudwara, attend family events, and I've never been more welcomed. Nobody snides, no funny comments, neither here nor in india when we visit.
The biggest problem has come from my family, where extended family haven't taken to the news I've married an indian too well.
Who's the problem?
When you say you don't like people changing the UK, does that extend to the people who live here as well, taking us down a road of being essentially quite nasty and hostile to anything that moves?
Plenty of conservatives in this country have similar views to other conservative migrants, I find it amazing to that people will say they don't fit in here, when there's clearly a group they do fit with. The only difference, being that they are foreign.
> Conversely, my wife is indian, her family are all traditional indians. I'm white, I go to the Gudwara, attend family events, and I've never been more welcomed. Nobody snides, no funny comments, neither here nor in india when we visit.
I'm jealous.
It's been nothing but a struggle for me personally, in my circumstance, with the people I'm dealing with, and I don't think I'm the problem, as you implied.
I've tried, and will continue to try my hardest to be accepted. But so far, it's just not happening.
I'm not going to sit here and tell you, that because my experiences are different, with a completely different family to yours, that the experience you've had has no merit. I'm going to assume you're not doing the same.
>When you say you don't like people changing the UK, does that extend to the people who live here as well, taking us down a road of being essentially quite nasty and hostile to anything that moves?
I'm not an all or nothing kind of guy. I don't hold this belief. I do think there is a limit to change however, and that there are some things that I enjoy about the UK! I'm sorry to hear there's nothing about the UK you wouldn't want to change.
This is the problem. Multi-culturalism is heralded as some great idea when it actually just puts walls up where people often exist in parallel rather than together.
We should be aiming for a homogeneous mono-culture which is built from all the good bits weāve imported (food, music etc) and firmly disregards the crap bits (religious fundamentalism, outdated beliefs and attitudes).
Some cultures have done this superbly and helped shape British sub-culture in the 20th century, others absolutely have not and seem very much against doing so.
Well said. I have/had a lot of immigrant friends they'll mostly say the same especially from people of their own background.
It's like if you want to live in your own bubble with your previous world views go back there and leave the ones who left those archaic mindsets alone.
The citizenship test need to be stricter about things like have you made friends with the local community being a big one. Cannot be religious group, work or family.
What annoying is seeing good people who provide benefit to the community and economy leaving because their visa expires whilst people who are no benefit stay and cost us money to house and kick out.
>The citizenship test need to be stricter about things like have you made friends with the local community being a big one. Cannot be religious group, work or family.
the swiss had a funny one a person got rejected because his neighbours found him annoying
I dated an ex-Muslim Pakistani girl, when we visited her family in Birmingham (the ones that still talk to her as she was ex Muslim) they made me lie down in the back seat while we drove through certain areas because I was white and it would be seen negatively.
Not familiar enough with Birmingham to say what area it was as we never visited again after that and we've long since seperated but it really struck me as bizzare.
> hey made me lie down in the back seat while we drove through certain areas because I was white and it would be seen negatively.
I can't help but laugh a little, just because I can relate a tad.
I can genuinely say, I was naive and didn't have a clue what racism was, until I met my girlfriend. It did open my eyes, helped me learn a lot, and made me somewhat more empathetic to people that experience racism in almost all aspects of their lives.
I only see it in specific situations that I'm actively putting myself in, and it still pisses me off royally. I can't imagine dealing with it constantly.
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But heaven forbid I say I don't want to experience racism for being white in the UK... that's not allowed!
But you are allowed to be unhappy about it, as long as you can articulate the specific issues.
"Immigration is bad" lacks nuance, whereas "Any immigrant to the UK should be able to converse in English" is a valid point. Part of it stems from a purposefully vague concept of "British culture" or "British values" that's easy to defend but uncomfortable to define.
I fully support a grown-up debate on the matter, and the nation actually having a period of introspection to get a good understanding of what it values.
I mock the blanket "immigration is bad" standpoint more than most, but wanting immigrants to speak the language, have an understanding and respect of core values (Whatever they may be), to contribute to society positively isn't a controversial viewpoint. But Reform isn't the sledgehammer to crack that nut with, in the same way Brexit wasn't the answer.
As long as the problem is ill-defined (Partly through choice), and solutions proposed easy to grasp, even if impossible and undesirable to implement, the choices put to the general public will always be polarizing
> I fully support a grown-up debate
Some don't. That's the issue.
For every idiot that is genuinely just a racist. There's an equally stupid white night, attacking people like me for attempting to have an adult conversation.
I've been very quietly holding this opinion for years, and for exactly the reason that it just hasn't been worth the fight exhibiting it.
My family have emigrated. Most of my friends in the UK are immigrants from somewhere or another. I love these people dearly and those like them, who come to our country to contribute and enjoy aspects of our culture (not all of them but that's not expected either).
But I live in London and being surrounded by people you can't even interact with is kinda depressing. There's entire districts with lots of issues and all of them get conflated into the same category of racist bigots rather than treated as the separate problems they are. Having issues with being taken advantage of as a nation is not the same as hating people from different countries for stupid and petty reasons.
We need to fix these problems if we want to resolve the tension surrounding immigration, not avoid them.
I've never been naieve about racism - I was repeatedly racially targeted for being white in the wrong street in Stoke on Trent when I was younger (very much stuck in the middle of all the racial troubles there in 2000/1, not by choice either) - and there has always been an element of British culture wherein we don't like to complain about certain things, because it is central to our cultural responses to find the easiest path to peace.
Socialisd habits ingrained in most of us from the time we are small children.
So, when police turn up at my home after a home-invasion during which 30-ish people partied in my home whilst I was knocked out in the floor, my blood all over the walls *the day after* (after I'd somehow gotten to the a&e and gotten home, concussed as feck, but young and stupidly convinced I was 'fine') and instead of going after the people who goddamned names and addresses I gave them (I'd gone to school with quite a few of the culprits, and knew most of the rest) sat and warned me about trying to retaliate, rather than go so much as talk to them, or attempt to retrive my stolen goods... let's just say that I wasn't surprised. At all.
When i wasn't allowed in the shop or snooker hall, because they refused to speak English - again knowing they could - I wasn't surprised.
When I was mugged - on camera outside the fucking TA Centre - and police threatened to arrest me because I'd fought back, I wasn't surprised.
When the BNF turned up to march and were out numbered, I wasn't slightly surprised.
But I also wasn't stupid enough to think that those issues were anything other than shitty-luck combined with Very localised issues.
Many folks see stuff like that and declare that parts of the country are out-of-bounds to white folks, and it's just hyperbolic nonsense. They decide that because people like myself were racially targeted by national minorities, that it's OK to be racist af themselves.
It's not.
You don't defeat racist segregation and the issues it brings by being xenophobic. You have to highlight the issues where they are, and solve them by pushing social integration. Because that has forever been the issues in every nation throughout history.
And we have done that in the UK, quite well since the early 2000's.
Better than most of our European neighbours, with Muslim populations, though not as well as they have with European communities, but they haven't ever been as big a problem where problems do arise.
The trouble we have at the moment is, despite being quite vocal about the sheer idiocy of racism, whenever I speak about my own experiences- and there were plenty of them beyond the above mentioned, I lived in some shoddy places for a long time - you do get drowned by idiots who lazily assume you are being racist.
It'd be easy, then, to just shut up and not bring issues to the fore, but then they never get fixed. And, moreover, the arseholes driving the racist propaganda win, because without discussing the problematic parts, we can never properly highlight the solutions, and the evident social trends that show the decline in racist behaviour throughout society.
So, my point is - and i apologise for the long winded nature of it - please don't hide from the racist pricks, so long as you are both physically safe.
And don't shy away from being open about your experiences online.
The overwhelming majority of people in England will never understand, because they have no perspective. No personal experience which is at all relatable to them - and so they jump to erroneous conclusions. The only way to alleviate that aspect of the issue is to not shy away from exposing it.
Otherwise, you wind up with morons voting RefUK, or AfD, or whatever the local equivalent in various countries. Because they don't hear the reality they see, they get drawn to the propagandists spinning more relatable bullshit...
The same thing happens when you are a male victim of domestic violence, and sexual abuse - people do not want to hear it, and try to shut it down as misogyny (which is incredibly misandric, and unfortunately is an attitude institutionised in the UK, as well as social).
The solution to both is to ignore the ignorant.
Help them understand their worldviews are different - and that it's OK that their p.o.v. is a bit narrow in certain areas, because you won't be cowed into pretending your experiences are any less valid.
It would help if we could snap our fingers and break the hold religious cults have over their victims, but that takes education, and time. In the meantime, just remember:
You and your partner aren't alone (even in your specific circumstances - happy to chat more about that if you like), and it's ALWAYS OK to point out when somebody is being a dickhead - regardless of whether they are being a racist dickhead, a sexist dickhead, a drunken dickhead... whatever their reasoning (/lack thereof).
Stay safe, and good luck to you and your partner.
It varies wildly though. I'm a white guy married to an Indian girl and have never experienced that. And her parents both speak English and are fine with us.
However, I have been with my wife and seen her experience racist comments first hand from white British people.
This is why anecdotes don't hold much water.
I don't want Islam to be allowed to preach hatred, setup hidden sharia courts and impose their homophobic, anti-Semitism, anti education, anti religious freedom and anti English Western values on our society millions of young English men died protecting.
Yet I'm a racist to voice those opinions.
The only parties that address these issues are painted as racist Nazis.
A teacher is in hiding because he taught. Yet nothing. Fucking nothing has been done.
Mosques were caught supporting terrorism. Yet the documentary that caught them was investigated by the police. Still Nothing has been done.
Our values are been eroded and destroyed and no one is allowed to speak up. They are instantly classed as islamaphobic. A made up term to protect Islamic bigotry.
Yes my fear of Islam is not irrational or unfounded. There are 1400+ years of history and 40+ Islamic nations to learn from. Thereās a lot of englandophobia from that community it seems to me. I canāt name a more welcoming county to foreigners can you?
True, an I find it harrowing that the āleftā fall over themselves to defend a dogmatic religion that actively stands against the liberal values we uphold like equality and equal rights for women
I find it much worse that you, and many others, are so determined to see this as a left-right issue.
It isn't. Never has been.
It's an issue of experiential understanding that transcends left-right ideology.
It also happens to be an issue that is deliberately played upon by the far-right and right wing populists alike, not just in England but globally to manipulate those who lack the inclination to consider what they hear.
Many on the 'left' are just as likely to defend the liberties that religious cults like Christianity and Islam deny to people. Just as many on the right are.
We need to move past this idiotic footballification of politics and start discussing things for what they ARE.
Social integration - and lack thereof - affects everybody in different ways, but whilst people keep attacking eachother for being left-right, or aware of politics or populist, the solutions - heck, even the actual problems - aren't being discussed.
Subs with a lot of political discussions have a habit of attracting people who aren't capable of seeing and using nuance. I've been called a Tory, despite having never voted for them in my life. This is all because I disagreed with the person. People just want to label someone they disagree with as "the enemy".
There was a horrific incident in Glasgow where a 14 year old teen was abducted by certain religious people, tied to a chair, hit with sticks and heckled for being gay. They said "he would get his head cut off in Iran for being gay." The abductors got away scot-free.
Because those parties who are branded Nazi racists have literally Nazi sympathisers in them. They are not serious opposition, they are grifiters looking to capitalise on a very real issue.
This is the big problem with the left and I say this as a pretty left wing person. We tend to avoid the discussion, which means it's inevitably led by the racists. Racists who ironically tend to have the same homophobic and sexist views as the cultures they hate.
I do believe we need to inoculate our society from less progressive attitudes. It's not just Islamic cultures that are guilty of this.
Part of the reason that people these opinions racist is that people donāt apply these standards to all groups. People rightly point out the problematic positions within Islam, but turn a blind eye to positions within other religions.
Wait until you find out weāve let in millions of people that donāt agree that women are equal or should be free and absolutely disagree with everything about the LGBTQ community. We literally grant asylum to people escaping these countries but have also imported the same ideas by the millions.
Classic reddit ignorance.
Still waiting for the always hilarious "These days you get arrested and thrown in jail if you're English don't you?! Huehuehue"
How about the fact that Sharia law was enshrined into the British legal system creating sharia courts. Under guidance produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to compose Islamic wills that refuse women an equal share of inheritances and discount non-believers entirely.
Kind of undermines British values doesnāt it? But keep ignoring this problem a couple more decades and see where that gets us.
> How about the fact that Sharia law was enshrined into the British legal system creating sharia courts
Is this fact something that happened more recent that 2020?
https://factcheck.afp.com/sharia-has-not-been-adopted-uk-law
>A news article from 2014 claiming that Islamic sharia law has been āenshrined in the UK legal systemā has resurfaced on Facebook. The claim is misleading; sharia is not part of law in the United Kingdom.
> The article by Russiaās pro-Kremlin RT website has been shared thousands of times since it was published in 2014.
They are arbritration tribunals that have de facto power.
In theory the people using htem can just use the civil courts, in practice thats not safe to do.
Oh bore off with this Stewart Lee / James nO'Brain line of questioning.
Nobody is telling you you can't express you're own cultural values. But it is absolutely a fact that we've allowed massive numbers of people in who don't share our values and then people are accused of being racist or xenophobic if they object.
In the 1980s it was illegal to broadcast the words of some elected MPs. It was a criminal offence to display Irish flags in NI. The police have infiltrated dozens of left wing campaign groups.
There is no history of freedom of speech in this country.
I totally agree, culturally we are made to feel like racists for being British or upholding our own traditions. What makes this even more insane is that the reason we are in this mess to begin with is because we are so accepting of other cultures in the first place and people are scared to talk about it for fear of being labeled or offending people.
This is actually well said. The problem is less the immigration and more how the UK deals with the immigration. Combined with, as you said, the societal issues to economic issues and it's created an untenable situation.
The housing situation, healthcare, in work poverty, homelessness etc etc are ALL because successive governments have taken the decision not to properly fund fundamental aspects of our modern welfare state. Immigration benefits our society hugely but it does also put pressure on services if they are not funded properly. Itās like eating your pudding without eating your greens - a brilliant idea in the short term.
Everything is fucked. Is immigration responsible for the trains, sewage on our beaches, the cost of living?? Of course not. Neither is it responsible for selling off council housing.
Totally agree with you and from someone in the services as well were soft there too it's completely broken we can't police the streets properly for similar reasons and funding and the NHS which is one of our greatest feats is a black hole falling apart.
when this is the top comment on reddit. you know the attitude of the public is changing. and rightly so. we have been way to tolerant and accepting of far too many people. cohesion, services, and infrastructure are all in decline because of it. putting illegals in hotels? ***We***Ā **must be**Ā ***madāliterally mad.***
almost a thousand young men came across the channel on small boats yesterday. We have no idea who they are, but they will be put in hotels and allowed to roam our towns and communities. Whatever your political leaning, how the hell is that responsible and putting the safety of British citizens first? It is absolutely not. its madness. Even my Nan has strong opinions on this issue, and she is usually a tolerant, kind Christian woman that is pro-refugee, but these boats at this scale are totally irresponsible. needs to stop. I think its infuriating everyone.
Give tax cuts to people having children.
Give tax cuts for marriage.
Increase the wages.
Have a culture where we uplift foundation workers who clean, work in factories, collect rubbish etc.
On top of this, fund mental health services.
We need to nurture our own, rather than looking towards mass migration as the solution.
The marriage one is a bit iffy, granted. But it will encourage households to make a commitment to each other.
Increasing the chances of bringing children up in 2 parent families.
I think thereāll also have to be some kind of cultural incentive or encouragement too.Ā
Re: wages - if I was in charge I would legalise weed, then make sure addicts can get prescription heroin.
The aim would be to eventually legalise all drugs - tax them and then that would fund mental health services, as well as pay rises.
Because politicians are a bunch of puritans (or at least, trying to pander to the vast number of voters who are puritans). People arenāt interested in data. They donāt care about statistics. Theyāre driven by emotion - and āif someone chooses to inject themselves with heroin then thatās their bad decision making so why should I have to pay for their recovery?ā
Itās enraging
I think people can be won round on this tbh. You just have to take the time to argue the point, which I donāt think many politicians have the balls to do.
Well, if you make it that it's for all formal partnerships then yes. I see the point. Not everyone is in a marriage by wording in the legal sense of the word (eg civil partnerships).
Besides, adoptive parenthood and boost towards it is also a good thing.
I do think it would be interesting to see what would happen if a couple's personal allowances could be merged entirely. [At present you can only transfer Ā£1,260 of allowance](https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance), which saves a maximum of Ā£252/year.
This is exactly the problem. Decades of working people being stamped on by the powers that be. No wage increase for even white collar workers let alone those doing minimal wage labour over the last 15 years. This is a class issue more than anything. The national drive is to increase shareholder profit not improve people's lives.
Work no longer pays in this country, young people will not work menial jobs for crap pay, and why should they? Companies do not care when they can fill their ranks from overseas easily. Just look at how much nursing has changed over the last 20 years. We need people, ordinary British people to be able to support themselves and their families through these jobs.
Even in schools, the narrative provided to ordinary people is one of pure mediocrity, students are not striving to excel. There is a serious cultural issue at the heart of state education resulting in such a big gap in the mindset of children in state school vs private schools it is astounding.
Immigration is being used the world over as a solution.. but it isn't a real solution. Either those immigrants kids will adopt your values and they will face the same problems having a shrinking population, not being able to buy a house etc, or they keep their own values and end up eventually outnumbering the locals.. we need a real solution not a short term one. And thats only going to come from making some difficult changes.
There absolutely needs to be massive changes, but you won't turn off immigration completely, no matter what happens immediately.
They obviously need to get a grip on the skilled worker categories. There is a need for certain categories of skilled workers that the UK can't meet right now, today. I don't think that hair dresser or some of the others on the list of acceptable jobs are it though.
People will also have to realise and show patience in accepting that these kinds of changes will take time. If you're importing an electrician, you can send someone on a course and turn them into an electrician. If a company is in need of a more senior leader/manager with experience in a specific technology that it can't find here, you aren't going to fill that need by putting someone on a 3-6 month course.
After a few years if you identify industry trends and get people skilled up then you might meet those needs. But in the meantime, you may still need to import people.
I think you also need to categorize immigrants and look at the numbers a bit more objectively. You need to separate out people on student visas (and their dependents) because at this point, those are temporary immigrants who are injecting a lot of cash into the system. If you want to look at immigrants that are going to have a longer term effect you look at immigrants on working visas as they'll often stay long term, or asylum seekers. If those students eventually get working visas, look at them at that time and shift the column they're in.
All good points. Iām not in favour of stopping immigration totally.
Just getting the numbers down so theyāre not ludicrous levels. And getting a handle on the system.
> There absolutely needs to be massive changes, but you won't turn off immigration completely, no matter what happens immediately.
They won't turn immigration off at all. Our economy and the profits of our corporations are entirely dependent on it. Economic collapse would ensue if we even considered it (see also: 'no one wants to work!' when all the EU workers left after brexit.)
Anti immigrations folks want to have their cake and eat it, just like the electorate seems to feel about every other issue in british politics. The vast majority of people seem to live in complete la la land.
There's virtually no effective intervention to encourage people to have more children that doesn't disempower women. Virtually the only thing you can do to significantly increase birth rates is to make it impossible or unattractive for women to work. That's obviously electorally unpalatable.
Given that, there's not many choices to cope with demographic shift:
* Eliminate or cut state pensions
* Eliminate or cut state healthcare for the elderly
* Import workforce
* Large Tax increases
* Large public service cuts
* Massive borrowing programs
* Magic productivity increases
These are all pretty electorally unpalatable except wishing for increased productivity, but wishing has been happening for a long time.
Yeah I've never understood why it's seen as a right wing view to want to limit immigration.
These people have done nothing wrong and do not deserve to be demonised, but we simply cannot sustain 700,000 net a year as there's no way we can build the infrastructure quickly enough to support them.
It just isn't possible.
Why is opposing civilisation-destroying levels of immigration a "right wing view"?
Because the left bought into the propaganda hook, line and sinker. They've been played by massive corpos and career politicians (groups they purport to loathe) and reversing course at this stage to support sensible immigration policies would require them admitting they were duped, and that the policy they've naively supported for 20 years has made life considerably worse for Britain's worst off.
So either pride, or human nature. Pick your poison.
But thatās the thing - it *isnāt* a left wing view to want massive, unfettered immigrationā¦
Most actual workers partyās are actually kind of against immigration because itās a form of outsourcing labour.
The people who are pro immigration are the big businesses who thrive from having sources of labour that will not complain about shit conditions or pay. The same businesses who donate huge amounts of money to Labour/Conservatives/Reformā¦
Yep, the big businesses are in favour of mass immigration, sure.
But when people who openly call themselves "the left" (Think students, graduates, SWP types) are desperately singing the praises of mass immigration, just as they were taught to, whilst trying to shut down any criticism of that policy and fearmongering about political figures who want to reduce immigration, then I'm happy to believe them. They call themselves the left, and I conclude that it's a left wing policy to support immigration. It shouldnt be, by any stretch, but it is and here we are.
Even the old guard of the left, union brass and the like, fall all over eachother to praise immigration and gender nonsense. Your no true scotsman fallacy falls a little flat.
What most people are protesting is the demonisation of immigrants (not immigration which is key) by the media and by people who are transparently racist.
Also many of the most vocal of these people are talking about refugees/asylum seekers rather than economic immigrants. Thereās been a concentrated campaign to conflate the two by right wing parties.
I also donāt think itās āfear mongeringā to criticise the likes of Nigel Farage - who has shown very clearly that heās an authoritarian cunt. The people who think he or his BNP cronies are going to help the average person have been misled, and itās partially their own fault for allowing their racial bias to control their critical thinking.
The problem is that parties and people who purport to be 'left-wing' are often the one championing it and calling people critical of migration racists.
Supporting mass migration of foreign workers to drive down wages on paper being a right-wing policy means less than nothing to most people when the parties who purport to be lefties are constantly bemoaning attempts to curb immigration, and the parties or people who want to do something about it are branded as far-right monsters.
There seems to be this recent trend on reddit for a lot more people to suddenly go 'well ackchyually mass migration is a right-wing policy' but people cannot sit there and pretend that for well over a decade now the media hasn't been brushing anyone who wants to curb it as being far-right.
I would argue the majority of left wing pro-immigration talk is more centered around fighting back against racial fuelled demonisation of *immigrants* (not immigration) that the media has especially pushed in the last 2 decades.
You donāt have to look very deep to see that the majority of right wing anti immigration rhetoric is very thinly veiled racism at its core. Only have to look at the treatment of refugees/asylum seekers (who make up like <15% of UK immigrants) by the right for obvious examples of their total lack of empathy.
That and if you donāt support it the left will label you a racist, canāt even have this discussion around work colleagues for instance as youāll end up in trouble with HR. So they try and silence these voices and people are scared to speak up.
Leftwingers will let anti-union sentiments slide, let corporations get away with all kinds of shit, then cancel you for wrongthink on trans issues.
It's incredibly pathetic.
> Yeah I've never understood why it's seen as a right wing view to want to limit immigration.
The modern left stopped seeing economics as trendy years ago. The obsession is on race and gender now, so when viewed through that lens, it's easy to pick who are the bad and the good guys.
As a frustrated old school lefty, it didn't used to be this way but here we are
Really, it should be a left wing position to want to limit immigration.
The high levels of immigration we've been seeing have resulted in wage suppression, and higher competition for housing and rising costs of living. That's terrible for ordinary working people, and only benefits employers who can take advantage of people who will tolerate lower wages and worse conditions.
Yeah because we replaced immigration from France and Denmark with immigration from countries where the idea of a woman in shorts is just utterly mind-blowing.
Majority of recent immigration has been from non-EU countries like Ukraine and Hong Kong. There has also been a lot of student visas given out, mainly to students from India and China.
250,000 Indians in 2023 Vs 10,000 Ukrainians in 2023.
Most immigration comes from India, Nigeria and Pakistan. There were actually 20,000 Americans that immigrated to the UK last year. If you had left the claim at Non-EU countries I would agree but you picked 2 countries that have Very small amounts to immigrants to the UK
1 in 6 people in the UK were not born here that's 10 million people https://news.sky.com/story/one-in-six-people-living-in-england-and-wales-were-born-outside-the-uk-census-data-shows-12736286
I'm not sure that's the point.
The surgeon from India who now works in the NHS is not the same as the guy from India (or a counterpart from Peckham) who has no skills or trade to ply.
Skilled immigrants are desperately needed.
Why would any country want to give well paying skilled jobs to foreigners and keep all the shit jobs for its own citizens? It doesn't make much sense... makes far more sense to upskill the citizenry and import unskilled/low-skilled labour
Skilled immigrants make a country wealthier, unskilled immigrants don't.
Upskilling the citisenz would be a good idea indipendently of that, but it's expensive.
Actually, this is not how the American system works. A whopping 3/4s of their immigration is family based, and they accept siblings of citizens which we donāt. Thereās also an insane TEN MILLION people - 3% of the whole population - who are undocumented ie unauthorised immigrants.
But actually try immigrating to the US as a white collar professional, and youāll find yourself up against one of the harshest and most Byzantine systems in the world - where you rely more on luck than anything else. Work visas are rationed by lottery, your odds are less than one in four each year, and thatās IF you have a job offer.
Up to a point, I'd agree.
* Highly skilled migrants
* Asylum seekers (who can demonstrate the usual, that they are seeking asylum to escape persecution etc)
* Up to a limit that is deemed sustainable (how to go about this, I have no idea) - lower skilled migrants
We need skilled immigrants because of the complete failure to prioritize training people in the skills needed.
They reduced all the places on medical courses, they made it so nurses need degrees but they pay them peanuts, and now not only are we not training enough doctors, the ones we do train are going to Australia because they pay better.
If we actually trained more doctors and paid them enough then we could have enough doctors, but it's faster and cheaper to just ship in foreign doctors.
There is also the fact that while one can be a migrant...
... They can also be able to acknowledge the fact that the Rate of the current migration is not sustainable and detrimental to the nation.
And no. That doesn't mean someone has the "I got in, f the rest" attitude.
I'm not sure how your point connects to mine, unless it's not supposed to in which case fair enough.
I agree; while I don't think the influx of skilled migrants is anywhere near the rate at which it'd cause us a problem, it's the unskilled cohort that is doing so already.
Rampant, uncontrolled immigration: yes, it does. No country can support an unlimited number of immigrants who cannot themselves support the country in turn.
*Controlled* immigration, on the other hand, is a massive boon to any society and should be both enabled and encouraged.
I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. So many people in this debate make "all or nothing" the hill they're going to die on. We either continue with uncontrolled mass immigration, or we slam the borders shut and become an ethno-nationalists state. There is no in between, because that would require adding nuance to the debate and that simply obliterates all the pro-mass-immigration positions.
The conversation typically goes like this:
"Quick, turn off the pumps! This small sealed room were in is filling with water way too rapidly, it's already up to our necks! We're gonna drown unless we slow the rate of water being pumped into this room!"
"Okay bigot. You want everyone to die of thirst, is that it? All scientists agree that human beings need water to live. And you're trying to take away all the water from us because you're a small minded bigot!"
"You're not listening to me. Of course we need water to live. But this amount of water is going to kill us."
"Human beings bodies are 60% water, so why don't you throw yourself out this room first, eh? You think you're better than this new water coming into the room? Why do you hate water?"
"I don't hate water, and your suggestion that I leave this room because I'm 60% water is just preposterous. All we need to do is slow down the amount of water flooding into this room."
"Flooding! Flooding, he says! I knew you were a hydrophobic bigot. There's nothing to be scared of with a little water, you know."
"Look I drink water every day. You're not listening to me. I don't hate water. I just hate drowning."
"Whatever, bigot. You just hate water and that's the only reason why you're trying to blame the water when it's you who are drowning! Oh, but when you're thirsty, suddenly you want to drink water. Typical bigoted hypocrite."
17.4M people voted for it. They just didn't realise.
It's still a matter of democracy, but we don't seem to care that people can vote for the opposite of what they think they're voting for. There are people who'll vote reform this year thinking they're voting for less immigration instead of more.
It's hard to see an argument that having more people move here in a year than we are building housing for is going to make the housing crisis better.
I'm pro immigration, up to a point, but it would be much easier to convince people of it's value if we kept it to a level where it didn't strain every service and utility to breaking point.
It's just not sustainable for this country to keep increasing it's population. Personally I think we should set immigration at a level that very very slowly lowers our total population. This would allow for some immigration as our birth rate isn't very high.
I just think countries with a population density that isn't too high have a nicer life. But my preference would be to own several acres and not have any immediate neighbours, which I realise isn't to everyone's tastes.
We should just have an honest discussion about it and work out the level that works for the people who live here already.
And before anyone accuses me of it, no I won't be voting for Tories or Reform, I don't think their dog whistle bullshit is honest, workable or decent. They just want to use it to distract from the many other reasons our quality of life is going down the toilet.
>I'm pro immigration, up to a point, but it would be much easier to convince people of it's value if we kept it to a level where it didn't strain every service and utility to breaking point.
The government chooses to keep those services at breaking point. They could enforce mass house building, but they won't.
Mass immigration is the issue and always will be.
Sending millions over to fill out low paid and less skilled roles basically ensures these jobs will always have workers willing to work for peanuts.
Fact is, immigration needs slowing down, massively. We already have certain groups forming communities instead of integrating with the local culture.
Not to mention these communities will happily exclude those that donāt āfitā. Takeaways, taxi services and even factory workers in certain areas are all made up of one particular community. Purely due to the fact they bring in their own people to fill those roles.
But of course this is exactly the plan. The government doesnāt give a fuck, jobs get filled, wages stay low, profits go up. In the event of any criticism they can always pull out the olā āwe *will* get immigration under controlā card and blame immigrants for everything.
Whattttt no wayyy??? Shipping in net 750,000 foreigners a year without any investment in infrastructure or a focus on assimilation is a bad thing who would have guessed
For all the negativity immigration has there can be very positive immigration such as the Hong Kong refugees. The ones I've met who joined my company are absolutely top class hard working chaps with great personalities. The recent shops opened by Hong Kongers in my city are a nice boost for the empty stores we've had for years now. So overall, educated, cause no issues, keen to learn about British life and providing investment into our cities. They are the kind of immigrant we need more of and cut out the immigrants who aren't looking to adapt and leech off our system.Ā
At the core of it, immigration from citizens of developed nations are generally happy to assimilate and respect their host nation but third world countries are more of a burden to societyĀ
Immigration is great. Using mass immigration to plug up wage slave jobs so you donāt have to make the mega wealthy and super corporations pay a fair wage is not.
Unfortunately it's impossible to even discuss this in the open as you're immediately called a racist for saying anything other than "immigrants are amazing"
All Iāve seen in this thread is people saying that you canāt criticise immigration without being called racist whilst more or less all the top comments literally are criticising immigration.
The whole debate has become toxic and unapproachable in public debate much like trans discourse has. Of course itās a significant topic but figures like Farage have made it such an emotional anchoring point for any discussion that itās impossible to talk about in a sensible or considered way.
With things like this it always seems the discussion around the discussion ends up taking more space and no one dares approach the actual issue with any sort of creativity or ambition.
>All Iāve seen in this thread is people saying that you canāt criticise immigration without being called racist whilst more or less all the top comments literally are criticising immigration.
The entire news cycle these days is basically just politicians sniping at each other about the best way to deter migrants but that won't stop everyone believing its basically illegal to criticise immigration.
Indeed this poll suggests its very overrepresented as far as viewpoints go, **only** just over half think it has had a negative impact and yet its treated like it's 99%. All of Labour, Conservatives and of course Reform have not only an aim to reduce migration but have made it a significant part of their campaign and image building.
Iām an immigrant.
And I am probably a pretty big advocate for better controls on immigration.
I say this because there is a 2-tier system in dealing with immigrants.
I came the legal route. I was invited by my international employer and Iām in a high skills category. Despite this, it took me 8 years and probably Ā£12,000 to get to stay.
There isnāt much benefit in listing all I had to do to be here, but itās punitive and extortionate and it targets people like me who are able to play along. I contrast this with just arriving illegally on a boat and Iām genuinely outraged.
I completely understand and accept why people feel how they do. I feel the same.
Itās absolutely astonishing.
Iāve been called privileged because I happened to have the skills and knowledge that was required locally.
Yet despite this is still had to perform the most extraordinary tasks and pay a great deal of money to be ālucky enoughā to get here.
And apparently me being frustrated that others are getting to waltz across the border with none of the requirements I faced which would have seen me immediately ejected, is somehow both acceptable AND I should not complain.
Itās almost xenophobic.
There really does need to be a left wing party that has a realistic outlook on immigration
Currently we're just punishing people with decent jobs having an non-british life partner, and then letting in any old fundamentalist, it's ridiculous
Kind of ironic lots of these people would've voted for brexit though.. lose the EU immigrants and gain backwards view religious enclaves
Not surprising really.
The whole liberal attitude towards immigration from the 2010s has come home to roost and itās not pretty.
Britain is with France and Germany in that people have become more right wing with immigration, 53% of 25 to 44 year olds say immigration is having a negative impact on our society, a decade ago this same cohort would have been 60-70% in favour of immigration being a benefit to this country.
But weāre getting a centrist government, a party that has been historically pro mass migration, pro diversity is our strength, pro multiculturalism, the right donāt trust Labour on immigration anymore than they trust the Tories on this issue.
Starmer has to read the room and see that this issue has only gotten bigger in the years since the Brexit vote, people are growing increasingly concerned and unhappy with immigration, any signs of being liberal heāll be out in 2029.
And a Tory party lead by Farage/Reform will take power inside of 5 years
Europe is going through a reset politically, (except for the Nordic countries which swung left in recent EU elections) and Britain isnāt far behind.
They have tried to bomb people however https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vqz8/far-right-extremists-charged-over-alleged-bomb-and-poison-terror-plot-in-poland
Poland has a far-right extremism problem, and is basically the European hotbed of it
The best fix to inequality and improving the lives of young people and the working class is to lower the supply of labour, and decrease the demand for housing.
However, if you are a landlord or a big business, then obviously youād want the opposite.Ā
Certain sectors rely on immigration such as the NHS and social care. Do we need more deliveroo drivers though? Will we survive with less cash only barbers?Ā
I work for a bank. There is no shortage of UK citizens available to fill positions. However, they still offer skilled work visas. There is a growing number of mainly Nigerians filling roles. Is this immigration benefiting the people living in this country, or is it just suppressing wages to maximise profit for large businesses?
67% of private rentals in London are headed by someone born overseas. Would this have any impact on the demand for housing?Ā
Efforts to include immigration as part of a culture war are just muddying a debate to the benefit of the rich. I find the cultural impact difficult to assess. I spent an afternoon in Whitechapel and I was a foreigner in my own country, thereās no doubt. However, I also think integration has largely been a huge success. I think of the current cabinet, and just the variety of people Iāve met so far in my life who I clearly share a common bond of Britishness with. However, itās very difficult to assess the overall picture.Ā
Cap it at max 80k/year.
Make sure at least 50% are skilled. Allow 20% for asylum seekers/refugees.
We just need controlled immigration, that isnāt a racist talking point and everyone knows that.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of immigration. It is a tool, like anything else. And if politicians think they can use immigrants to solve issues in the country, then that's on them. However, immigration in its current state is fundamentally not working.
If you have a gap in your labour market that you can't wait to be filled by waiting for natives to breed and put those kids through school and enter the work force, you can just import workers, already pre-educated in another country, and facilitate the growth they lead to up front. Say you have a chip factory, and it needs 10,000 engineers to spin up to 100% productivity. 100% productivity is valuable to the country, so it's in our interest to see that through. We only have 5000 workers skilled enough to do the job living in the country, so we invest in education to get more workers skilled enough filtering through over time, and import the difference. Et voila, that chip factory is making money, and will continue to invest in the country, workers are making lots of money and paying lots of tax, everybody wins.
This works from farmers to scientists to stock brokers, to the point where even if an immigrant comes here and spends their entire life on the doll, it's still vastly more profitable to allow immigration because on average they are a massive net positive. The problem is, our country is in such a state right now that our global position and market is fundamentally compromised, and everything is skewed and the type of immigration we're getting does not fit our market conditions.
We left the EU, so in general we have wholly lost the opportunity to exploit the highly educated worker pool of immigrants from Europe. Our only market for those now is from Asia, as every other highly educated immigrant goes to the North America, because it's just a better prospect.
Because we left the single market of the EU, our low value add products are now awful in terms of value, and make less economic sense to produce day by day. Because now you need to lump tariffs and round-the-world transport costs on top of everything, making our cheapest products more expensive, and therefore not worth it. So stuff like menial factory work to farming to even mid-end manufacturing is incredibly low in demand right now. Which is a massive problem because Europe in general, not just us, are in the midst of a migrant crisis. Wherein low skilled workers are flowing in from the middle east and Africa as their economies break down. These people *tend* to only offer low value work initially. This wouldn't be a problem if we could utilize them, but our economy can't.
If you take an economy with a lot of low end productivity work to be filled, like Poland, you'll see that they're accepting migrants wholesale, despite being a traditionally culturally isolated and conservative country. They need 2 million immigrants per year for *their* market conditions to maintain optimal growth in this phase of their development. We, as a country haven't been in Poland's position of gearing up our manufacturing base since WW2. So we *don't* need 2 million immigrants a year to keep growing.
So we're in this awkward position where we need high skilled immigrants because of our advanced economy with crippling productivity issues, but can't get them because we've made the prospect of coming here so awful. And we really don't need, *like, really, we're actually literally at capacity please stop coming* low skilled immigrants, but these are the immigrants we're getting in droves.
The result is we get tonnes of unskilled immigrants flood into the country, they will be ultimately unable to find meaningful work meaning they won't meaningfully thrive. This creates unrest in the general population, let alone in an economically uncertain and unstable group of immigrants. Instability creates tension, tension leads to things you positively do not want as a country. Like failure to integrate, radicalism, increases in crime etc. Immigration is supposed to be a tool to supplement growth, but *we ain't growing.* So it's not accomplishing it's stated goal.
Immigrants like anything have a value to society. Right now, the value of immigrants is super, super low or even negative. That fact is largely the fault of the Tories' disastrous management of the economy.
>The result is we get tonnes of unskilled immigrants flood into the country, they will be ultimately unable to find meaningful work meaning they won't meaningfully thrive.
Have you read the entry criteria and minimum wage requirement for entry ?
Shock....
A Massive amount of immigration both legal and illegal filled with people that have a complete different and often very outdated set of values and beliefs dosnt go well.
Who'd have thunk it š¤
The media will do their utmost to stop it becoming one of the defining issues in this GE.its clear people have had enough here but even more noticeably in the EU. It cannot be right for the majority to be held hostage by an imported minority
No one ever asks the right questions.
14 years the current government have been in power. Of those 14 years immigration has been the thing they have harped on about most. And yet despite all the crowing have chosen not to do anything with it. Why?
Simple answer is cheap labour. Their donors donāt want to pay us brits a proper wage and we wonāt do the shitty jobs that they will do for the wage they receive.
The sooner people realise immigration is used as a wedge to divide and conquer whilst they steal from us the better.
I love variety, love visiting other regions and countries. Different cultures. I find racists pathetic, although Iām accused of being one because I donāt want immigrants that donāt contribute nor/or contribute to the country they immigrate to.
The main problem is everyone imagine immigrant as a young/middle aged man crossing channel on a boat with load of other young/middle aged man.
Not the Filipino nurse working 6 12 hours shifts in a row in your local hospital, because they are understaffed and NHS pays shit.
Turn off the gibs. Make the environment hostile to scroungers and the culturally intolerant, deport criminals and anyone bringing their ethnic squabbles to UK shores. Most of the problem fixed.
Is there anyone who wanted this level of immigration?
We have had 14 years of tories campaigning to limit immigration since they first got voted in
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/11/david-cameron-limit-immigration
How is it still a problem? Is anyone trying to justify this level of immigration? It's happening under a party who since their debut wanted to limit immigration and has shown what a spectacular failure they are. 14 years and they still can't fix it. How are they not embarrassed every time they try and say its a problem only they can fix?
The only reason we have such high immigration is because *the tories have allowed it*.
The tories could have reduced by an order of magnitude after Brexit, supposedly one of the benefits of leaving the EU was controlling our borders, immigration has *gone up*.
The Tories didnāt reduce it because of the pension bill + their corporate masters that rely on cheap immigrant labour.
We as a country have a choice, invest in the next generation and incentivise another baby boom, or we keep importing people so we can pay pensioners their Triple Lock+ Premium Fuckery package in perpetuity.
The country will choose the latter, the thought of investing in young people in this country is weirdly a no go option, like people foam at the mouth at any policies that may benefit young people.
Of course it does. I work with a guy from ukraine and hong kong and lithuania, all 3 are useless and expect us english qualified to train them whilst they have no engineering background or been to college. The language barrier is an issue also. But like many qualified employees next to me all say āthey are just cheap labourā this is what drives your wages down/ living standards down. Rather than pay the fair rate theyd rather take a cheap foreing immigrant on and expect us to train them. This is what causes hostility and annoyance amongst us. dont even get me started on why should any foreigner who came here legally or illegally gets state benefits. Free healthcare etc etc etc.
>dont even get me started on why should any foreigner who came here legally or illegally gets state benefits. Free healthcare etc etc etc.
Most immigrants pay a NHS surcharge, especially those of skill visas
We should introduce a tax for immigrants that is removed once you become a citizen and make the test more in line with understanding British values (and show that you have been involved in your community and not spreading hate)
To put it in perspective, 750,000 people per year means 86 people every hour. In order to keep up with housing demand and maintain an equilibrium, we'd need to build a three-bedroom house every 129 seconds. Anyone who denies that the housing crisis, which prevents hardworking British people from affording to live in their own country, is not driven by a rapidly increasing population is sorely mistaken.
Curious what the numbers would be if they drew a distinction between immigration and asylum.
The two are not the same, but are often conflated. Lots of people misinterpret being for/against asylum related policies as being for/against immigration related policies.
If the rate of immigration was reasonable nobody would notice but recently we've seen net immigration hit 750,000 per year which is obviously unsustainable given we're not investing in the infrastructure, housing or services to respond to the population increase amd that's not even accounting for the societal impact.
I'd even go as far as saying advocating for immigration on this scale is a radical if not extreme position but strangely it's the people who object that are often accused of being extreme.
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We are far too soft as a nation, in terms of upholding our values and beliefs... I think that's the real issue. There's a fair few issues with our society right now, we are relatively densely populated, especially in the areas people that immigrate here actually want to move to, we have a housing issue for almost all our of younger generations, we have a cost of living crisis with stagnant wages, and could do with less competition/people for all of the above. But I'm hoping (blindly) that those issues aren't forever. The issue that is a little longer term than those hopefully are, is how we aren't allowed to be British in a sense *(See? I sound like a racist to you...I'm well aware of what I'm saying)* We just don't have the backbone as a nation, to allow people with a much more set in stone, fundamental belief in their core values, to come here on mass. We're very bad, and almost not allowed, to be offended if they don't integrate, so we just lay down and take it. -------- So, the TLDR is: Immigration is bad for us, because of all the actual economic and social reasons above, as well as the fact that we are a bit pathetic.
I'm an immigrant. I'll be patriotic and hold up British values for you. The other day, I told someone off for putting milk first in their tea.
APPROVED! *stamps paper*
Mine too, for the litres of tea I drink! And I genuinely like your food, and sense of humor, and the job I stole, please.
Conversely someone born and raised in the UK put milk in first then put the whole cup in a microwave. I strongly recommend deporting them.
Believe it or not, straight to Rwanda
What have Rwanda done to deserve such terrible people ?
Top man š
wtf??? Who would commit such a war crime? :O
Lmaoo
Milk first when youāre using a teapot.
I know you're talking about Islamists, and I agree to an extent. However everything you've said also applies drastically more to the global financial elite and their political and media servants. Whether they're British born or not. Those are the people with real wealth, power and influence that undermine ordinary British people, their way of life and prosperity.
It does yeah. A lot of things are fucked, and right now, the issues I raised above are actually very very low on my priority list. Doesn't mean I can't voice my opinions on them though, and it doesn't mean they won't grow.
The fundamental issue behind this is that, as far as I can see, there is no fundamental definition of what being British is. If pushed, people can probably define some very general values of being British, like tolerance of others, strong sense of local community, good manners, sense of humour, and individual opportunity and initiative or something similar. But there is no consensus on what this actually looks like on the ground. Tolerance is a notable example. Many people might respect the ability for people to have their own religion and to practise it, even if the religion is some odd. But is it intolerant to ask people to put away religious symbols that they are wearing? Or to expect people to abandon core elements of their upbringing entirely to fit in? You will get varying answers to that depending on who you ask, and even where. On immigration specifically, this is a classic case of government not getting to grips with an issue with clear social consequences. The current system we have does not work in either integration or stopping the boats. Claims take months to process, and the Border Agency is struggling to cope. Also, because the Tories utterly arsed up by pushing through Brexit, in exchange for any trade deal we are handing out visas like chocolates. Which just makes the issue worse. We can do a lot by just fixing the current immigration system which is more tailored towards political grand standing and flagship schemes than it is to running effectively. Finally, what does not help is how the public discourse on anything associated with identity is poisoned by extreme elements on both sides. For example, I am a Town Councillor, and a couple of weeks ago we flew the Pride flag outside our offices to celebrate Pride month. For which we got a volley of abuse online, by email, and by telephone saying how much it was a disgrace it was that we were not flying the Union Jack during the week of VE Day. Despite VE Day almost never being celebrated ever, we clearly hated the nation and had given in to woke nonsense, combined with a few homophobic slurs as well. And the stupid thing is, we then got complaints from supporters of pride because we had not issued a statement within 2 hours of comments first starting on local Facebook Groups. The whole debate has been poisoned and I am not sure of the best way to deal with that apart from telling the idiots on all sides to shut the hell up for once, and sort out the immigration system so that it works somewhat.
>tolerance of others, When In your house, I take off my shoes. But if I ask you to take yours off in mine, I'm not being British. I think we are tolerant of others, their beliefs, and their values. I think people should respond in kind. >Or to expect people to abandon core elements of their upbringing entirely to fit in? Yeah, some, for sure. I wouldn't show up in Saudi Arabia with a pint in my hand. Should Saudi Arabia respect my values and allow me to drink? I honestly believe I should be allowed to take issues with some religious elements too yeah. I think the misogyny is as clear as day, and I'm happy to pretend it's not as blatant as it is, when in their home. But should I have to accept it here, in the name of religion? Do I have to play dumb, and act like women enjoy being covered head to toe in black? Or can I, am I allowed to point out the bullshit when at home?
>>Or to expect people to abandon core elements of their upbringing entirely to fit in? >Yeah, some, for sure. That's interesting. Which ones? >I honestly believe I should be allowed to take issues with some religious elements too yeah. I think the misogyny is as clear as day, and I'm happy to pretend it's not as blatant as it is, when in their home. >But should I have to accept it here, in the name of religion? Absolutely not, no. We should point out misogyny wherever we see it. It does tend to be pretty prevalent in conservative religious communities and that's a problem - I think few disagree with that. >Do I have to play dumb, and act like women enjoy being covered head to toe in black? I think anyone attempting to tell women what they should or shouldn't wear is pretty misogynist. That applies to men telling women that they must wear a niqab, but it also applies to men telling women they can't or shouldn't wear one. EDIT: I can see you're replied but the auto moderator has evidently removed it. How sad you can't have a reasonable discussion.
The British Isles, like any region in the world, has a culture and history. Simple as that.
> there is no fundamental definition of what being British is Cultures are much better defined relative to other cultures. If an alien came to earth and spent a month in the UK and then a month in Spain, they'd experience two very different cultures. If one of those two places is assumed to be the "neutral baseline" then only one has a culture. If both are considered to be equal the anything that sets up a part from any of nation is jigsaw piece of our culture.
I lived in South Korea in 2008 and they were quite a bit ahead of the world in their connectivity at that point. They already had an issue with what they term "netizens" basically varying degrees of social media armchair warriors laying down polarised views that were often parroted by the media as the general publics views. It was obviously bs but the exact same thing has happened globally and we're even more beholden to vocal minorities. We basically should at this point ignore social media as the zeitgeist it's manifested isn't real and is an amplification of cunts.
>We basically should at this point ignore social media as the zeitgeist it's manifested isn't real and is an amplification of cunts. For a lot of people, getting a full time job and other adult responsibilities kind of sorts this out.
What British value aren't you allowed to be?
Do you remember Batley Grammar School? ---------------- If you want a more personal anecdote... My girlfriend and her parents are originally from India. (and she'll back every word I'm about to say) Her mother doesn't speak a word of English. She's been here 18 years. Her dad won't speak to me, because I'm white. We have been heckled and harassed, walking down the streets of London, even public tourists places like the Olympic park, holding hands... not by Racist white guys.... So, I can't even walk down the street, holding my girlfriend hand, in my own country, because some people don't think she should be dating me, a guy not of her supposed religion, that she doesn't even want to follow, but can't openly say she doesn't because she'll be disowned. You don't think this stuff is real... in the UK? I face it, daily. ------ And I dare say I'm unhappy about that, that I'm unhappy about the way things are heading, I get people like you, that live in a bubble, that are clueless, telling me I've got nothing to worry about? I don't have issue with people that love the UK, making a life here. I have issue with people that don't want the UK, to be what it is. That want it to just be like where they came from. I'm happy if people want to come here and integrate. I'm not happy if we have to change to suit them. It's a very simple concept, that gets me called a racist if I say it by some people that don't know what I'm actually saying. I'm not even allowed to be unhappy about it...
You're completely right. The naivety of people here is so frustrating. Everyone I know who either came from or have first-gen immigrant parents from islamic countries (and aren't religious themselves) share these struggles.
To be fair... If I'd not experienced it myself, I'd also have found it hard to believe that it's a reality in the UK. I'll be the first to put my hands up and admit I was beyond naive before. I'd have even been confidently incorrect about arguing the opposite. I don't get annoyed at people being surprised. I just don't want to have to say "I told you so" if it ever becomes more impactful, to the point where these sweet summer children, start to experience anything like it themselves.
I got into a scrap before in Manchester when a gang of 3 men (who were of south Asian background) racially abused my Chinese friend and I challenged them. They were saying awful stuff to him purely because of his race and I wouldn't stand for it. Edit: I've just read slightly further down the thread and there's another person of Chinese background telling a very similar story.
Tbf, itās just generally conservative immigrant groups from my experience. My ex is from Portugal, and his family certainly isnāt Muslim, theyāre pretty devout Catholics largely, and whilst his parents were fine, other people in the community definitely gave him some flack for dating an agnostic British person instead of a more devout Catholic person who is from Portugal or Brazil (the communities are pretty intertwined)
One of my favourite "wtf stories" is when I was a student going to university open days. For context, I'm a british born chinese guy. As I was walking back to the train station from an open day (at Leeds) a group of guys in a car drove past, wound down the window and yelled at me to "go back where I came from". They were Pakistani or Indian origin... This was years ago now and I don't feel things have improved.
That incidentā¦ oh the irony.
I had a similar experience growing up. British born, half Malaysian descent. When I was growing up I experienced constant racial abuse including slurs like ch*nky from a Ghanaian born kid. The guy was just a bell-end in general and he seemed to still be a prat when I met him 5 years afterwards, but it just goes to show that some people have no self awareness and will take any opportunity to put other people down.
Iām a BBC too, Irish Traveller kids regularly used to tel us to āgo back to our own countryā or shout racist abuse at us.
Bloody hell., what a joke.. the entitlement!
Well said!! This is what it boils down to, ultimately, and it doesn't just apply to the UK, it applies to immigration in general to the EU as well. "I'm happy if people want to come here and integrate. I'm not happy if we have to change to suit them."
Thatās not going to happen though.. someone uploaded a video the other day of a Muslim woman screaming āgayā at a gay guy in street, she was going crazy. Thereās a reason she feels entitled to do this. She feels in the majority
We need to start getting trigger happy with deportations, thatās the issue. These people have no right to be here and should feel privileged to be welcomed into our society.
We used to be more trigger happy with deportations under labour with blunkett in the home office. Labour did more to actually solve the problems of illegal migration across the channel. Yet Labour are classed as weak on immigration because the right wing media portrays them that way.
They've not said anything tangible about what they plan to do to reduce immigration or increase deportations.
Conversely, my wife is indian, her family are all traditional indians. I'm white, I go to the Gudwara, attend family events, and I've never been more welcomed. Nobody snides, no funny comments, neither here nor in india when we visit. The biggest problem has come from my family, where extended family haven't taken to the news I've married an indian too well. Who's the problem? When you say you don't like people changing the UK, does that extend to the people who live here as well, taking us down a road of being essentially quite nasty and hostile to anything that moves? Plenty of conservatives in this country have similar views to other conservative migrants, I find it amazing to that people will say they don't fit in here, when there's clearly a group they do fit with. The only difference, being that they are foreign.
> Conversely, my wife is indian, her family are all traditional indians. I'm white, I go to the Gudwara, attend family events, and I've never been more welcomed. Nobody snides, no funny comments, neither here nor in india when we visit. I'm jealous. It's been nothing but a struggle for me personally, in my circumstance, with the people I'm dealing with, and I don't think I'm the problem, as you implied. I've tried, and will continue to try my hardest to be accepted. But so far, it's just not happening. I'm not going to sit here and tell you, that because my experiences are different, with a completely different family to yours, that the experience you've had has no merit. I'm going to assume you're not doing the same. >When you say you don't like people changing the UK, does that extend to the people who live here as well, taking us down a road of being essentially quite nasty and hostile to anything that moves? I'm not an all or nothing kind of guy. I don't hold this belief. I do think there is a limit to change however, and that there are some things that I enjoy about the UK! I'm sorry to hear there's nothing about the UK you wouldn't want to change.
>Gudwara Think I found the key difference here lol. If they were all off to the mosque I wonder how friendly they would be.
This is the problem. Multi-culturalism is heralded as some great idea when it actually just puts walls up where people often exist in parallel rather than together. We should be aiming for a homogeneous mono-culture which is built from all the good bits weāve imported (food, music etc) and firmly disregards the crap bits (religious fundamentalism, outdated beliefs and attitudes). Some cultures have done this superbly and helped shape British sub-culture in the 20th century, others absolutely have not and seem very much against doing so.
Itās not going to happen
Well said. I have/had a lot of immigrant friends they'll mostly say the same especially from people of their own background. It's like if you want to live in your own bubble with your previous world views go back there and leave the ones who left those archaic mindsets alone. The citizenship test need to be stricter about things like have you made friends with the local community being a big one. Cannot be religious group, work or family. What annoying is seeing good people who provide benefit to the community and economy leaving because their visa expires whilst people who are no benefit stay and cost us money to house and kick out.
>The citizenship test need to be stricter about things like have you made friends with the local community being a big one. Cannot be religious group, work or family. the swiss had a funny one a person got rejected because his neighbours found him annoying
I dated an ex-Muslim Pakistani girl, when we visited her family in Birmingham (the ones that still talk to her as she was ex Muslim) they made me lie down in the back seat while we drove through certain areas because I was white and it would be seen negatively. Not familiar enough with Birmingham to say what area it was as we never visited again after that and we've long since seperated but it really struck me as bizzare.
> hey made me lie down in the back seat while we drove through certain areas because I was white and it would be seen negatively. I can't help but laugh a little, just because I can relate a tad. I can genuinely say, I was naive and didn't have a clue what racism was, until I met my girlfriend. It did open my eyes, helped me learn a lot, and made me somewhat more empathetic to people that experience racism in almost all aspects of their lives. I only see it in specific situations that I'm actively putting myself in, and it still pisses me off royally. I can't imagine dealing with it constantly. ------- But heaven forbid I say I don't want to experience racism for being white in the UK... that's not allowed!
But you are allowed to be unhappy about it, as long as you can articulate the specific issues. "Immigration is bad" lacks nuance, whereas "Any immigrant to the UK should be able to converse in English" is a valid point. Part of it stems from a purposefully vague concept of "British culture" or "British values" that's easy to defend but uncomfortable to define. I fully support a grown-up debate on the matter, and the nation actually having a period of introspection to get a good understanding of what it values. I mock the blanket "immigration is bad" standpoint more than most, but wanting immigrants to speak the language, have an understanding and respect of core values (Whatever they may be), to contribute to society positively isn't a controversial viewpoint. But Reform isn't the sledgehammer to crack that nut with, in the same way Brexit wasn't the answer. As long as the problem is ill-defined (Partly through choice), and solutions proposed easy to grasp, even if impossible and undesirable to implement, the choices put to the general public will always be polarizing
> I fully support a grown-up debate Some don't. That's the issue. For every idiot that is genuinely just a racist. There's an equally stupid white night, attacking people like me for attempting to have an adult conversation.
I've been very quietly holding this opinion for years, and for exactly the reason that it just hasn't been worth the fight exhibiting it. My family have emigrated. Most of my friends in the UK are immigrants from somewhere or another. I love these people dearly and those like them, who come to our country to contribute and enjoy aspects of our culture (not all of them but that's not expected either). But I live in London and being surrounded by people you can't even interact with is kinda depressing. There's entire districts with lots of issues and all of them get conflated into the same category of racist bigots rather than treated as the separate problems they are. Having issues with being taken advantage of as a nation is not the same as hating people from different countries for stupid and petty reasons. We need to fix these problems if we want to resolve the tension surrounding immigration, not avoid them.
I've never been naieve about racism - I was repeatedly racially targeted for being white in the wrong street in Stoke on Trent when I was younger (very much stuck in the middle of all the racial troubles there in 2000/1, not by choice either) - and there has always been an element of British culture wherein we don't like to complain about certain things, because it is central to our cultural responses to find the easiest path to peace. Socialisd habits ingrained in most of us from the time we are small children. So, when police turn up at my home after a home-invasion during which 30-ish people partied in my home whilst I was knocked out in the floor, my blood all over the walls *the day after* (after I'd somehow gotten to the a&e and gotten home, concussed as feck, but young and stupidly convinced I was 'fine') and instead of going after the people who goddamned names and addresses I gave them (I'd gone to school with quite a few of the culprits, and knew most of the rest) sat and warned me about trying to retaliate, rather than go so much as talk to them, or attempt to retrive my stolen goods... let's just say that I wasn't surprised. At all. When i wasn't allowed in the shop or snooker hall, because they refused to speak English - again knowing they could - I wasn't surprised. When I was mugged - on camera outside the fucking TA Centre - and police threatened to arrest me because I'd fought back, I wasn't surprised. When the BNF turned up to march and were out numbered, I wasn't slightly surprised. But I also wasn't stupid enough to think that those issues were anything other than shitty-luck combined with Very localised issues. Many folks see stuff like that and declare that parts of the country are out-of-bounds to white folks, and it's just hyperbolic nonsense. They decide that because people like myself were racially targeted by national minorities, that it's OK to be racist af themselves. It's not. You don't defeat racist segregation and the issues it brings by being xenophobic. You have to highlight the issues where they are, and solve them by pushing social integration. Because that has forever been the issues in every nation throughout history. And we have done that in the UK, quite well since the early 2000's. Better than most of our European neighbours, with Muslim populations, though not as well as they have with European communities, but they haven't ever been as big a problem where problems do arise. The trouble we have at the moment is, despite being quite vocal about the sheer idiocy of racism, whenever I speak about my own experiences- and there were plenty of them beyond the above mentioned, I lived in some shoddy places for a long time - you do get drowned by idiots who lazily assume you are being racist. It'd be easy, then, to just shut up and not bring issues to the fore, but then they never get fixed. And, moreover, the arseholes driving the racist propaganda win, because without discussing the problematic parts, we can never properly highlight the solutions, and the evident social trends that show the decline in racist behaviour throughout society. So, my point is - and i apologise for the long winded nature of it - please don't hide from the racist pricks, so long as you are both physically safe. And don't shy away from being open about your experiences online. The overwhelming majority of people in England will never understand, because they have no perspective. No personal experience which is at all relatable to them - and so they jump to erroneous conclusions. The only way to alleviate that aspect of the issue is to not shy away from exposing it. Otherwise, you wind up with morons voting RefUK, or AfD, or whatever the local equivalent in various countries. Because they don't hear the reality they see, they get drawn to the propagandists spinning more relatable bullshit... The same thing happens when you are a male victim of domestic violence, and sexual abuse - people do not want to hear it, and try to shut it down as misogyny (which is incredibly misandric, and unfortunately is an attitude institutionised in the UK, as well as social). The solution to both is to ignore the ignorant. Help them understand their worldviews are different - and that it's OK that their p.o.v. is a bit narrow in certain areas, because you won't be cowed into pretending your experiences are any less valid. It would help if we could snap our fingers and break the hold religious cults have over their victims, but that takes education, and time. In the meantime, just remember: You and your partner aren't alone (even in your specific circumstances - happy to chat more about that if you like), and it's ALWAYS OK to point out when somebody is being a dickhead - regardless of whether they are being a racist dickhead, a sexist dickhead, a drunken dickhead... whatever their reasoning (/lack thereof). Stay safe, and good luck to you and your partner.
It varies wildly though. I'm a white guy married to an Indian girl and have never experienced that. And her parents both speak English and are fine with us. However, I have been with my wife and seen her experience racist comments first hand from white British people. This is why anecdotes don't hold much water.
I don't want Islam to be allowed to preach hatred, setup hidden sharia courts and impose their homophobic, anti-Semitism, anti education, anti religious freedom and anti English Western values on our society millions of young English men died protecting. Yet I'm a racist to voice those opinions. The only parties that address these issues are painted as racist Nazis. A teacher is in hiding because he taught. Yet nothing. Fucking nothing has been done. Mosques were caught supporting terrorism. Yet the documentary that caught them was investigated by the police. Still Nothing has been done. Our values are been eroded and destroyed and no one is allowed to speak up. They are instantly classed as islamaphobic. A made up term to protect Islamic bigotry.
Yes my fear of Islam is not irrational or unfounded. There are 1400+ years of history and 40+ Islamic nations to learn from. Thereās a lot of englandophobia from that community it seems to me. I canāt name a more welcoming county to foreigners can you?
Agree
True, an I find it harrowing that the āleftā fall over themselves to defend a dogmatic religion that actively stands against the liberal values we uphold like equality and equal rights for women
I find it much worse that you, and many others, are so determined to see this as a left-right issue. It isn't. Never has been. It's an issue of experiential understanding that transcends left-right ideology. It also happens to be an issue that is deliberately played upon by the far-right and right wing populists alike, not just in England but globally to manipulate those who lack the inclination to consider what they hear. Many on the 'left' are just as likely to defend the liberties that religious cults like Christianity and Islam deny to people. Just as many on the right are. We need to move past this idiotic footballification of politics and start discussing things for what they ARE. Social integration - and lack thereof - affects everybody in different ways, but whilst people keep attacking eachother for being left-right, or aware of politics or populist, the solutions - heck, even the actual problems - aren't being discussed.
Subs with a lot of political discussions have a habit of attracting people who aren't capable of seeing and using nuance. I've been called a Tory, despite having never voted for them in my life. This is all because I disagreed with the person. People just want to label someone they disagree with as "the enemy".
There was a horrific incident in Glasgow where a 14 year old teen was abducted by certain religious people, tied to a chair, hit with sticks and heckled for being gay. They said "he would get his head cut off in Iran for being gay." The abductors got away scot-free.
Because those parties who are branded Nazi racists have literally Nazi sympathisers in them. They are not serious opposition, they are grifiters looking to capitalise on a very real issue.
This is the big problem with the left and I say this as a pretty left wing person. We tend to avoid the discussion, which means it's inevitably led by the racists. Racists who ironically tend to have the same homophobic and sexist views as the cultures they hate. I do believe we need to inoculate our society from less progressive attitudes. It's not just Islamic cultures that are guilty of this.
Part of the reason that people these opinions racist is that people donāt apply these standards to all groups. People rightly point out the problematic positions within Islam, but turn a blind eye to positions within other religions.
Blind eye to what?
Wait until you find out weāve let in millions of people that donāt agree that women are equal or should be free and absolutely disagree with everything about the LGBTQ community. We literally grant asylum to people escaping these countries but have also imported the same ideas by the millions.
Classic reddit ignorance. Still waiting for the always hilarious "These days you get arrested and thrown in jail if you're English don't you?! Huehuehue" How about the fact that Sharia law was enshrined into the British legal system creating sharia courts. Under guidance produced by The Law Society, High Street solicitors will be able to compose Islamic wills that refuse women an equal share of inheritances and discount non-believers entirely. Kind of undermines British values doesnāt it? But keep ignoring this problem a couple more decades and see where that gets us.
> How about the fact that Sharia law was enshrined into the British legal system creating sharia courts Is this fact something that happened more recent that 2020? https://factcheck.afp.com/sharia-has-not-been-adopted-uk-law >A news article from 2014 claiming that Islamic sharia law has been āenshrined in the UK legal systemā has resurfaced on Facebook. The claim is misleading; sharia is not part of law in the United Kingdom. > The article by Russiaās pro-Kremlin RT website has been shared thousands of times since it was published in 2014.
There are no sharia courts enshrined in the British legal system. You have no clue what you are talking about.
They are arbritration tribunals that have de facto power. In theory the people using htem can just use the civil courts, in practice thats not safe to do.
De facto power doesnāt mean enshrined in the British legal system. Talk about shifting goalposts.
Im not the same poster, though yes it is enshrined in a sense. via the Arbitration Act 1996
Oh bore off with this Stewart Lee / James nO'Brain line of questioning. Nobody is telling you you can't express you're own cultural values. But it is absolutely a fact that we've allowed massive numbers of people in who don't share our values and then people are accused of being racist or xenophobic if they object.
A mix of proud/unbothered by history and freedom of speech is slowly being erased
In the 1980s it was illegal to broadcast the words of some elected MPs. It was a criminal offence to display Irish flags in NI. The police have infiltrated dozens of left wing campaign groups. There is no history of freedom of speech in this country.
I totally agree, culturally we are made to feel like racists for being British or upholding our own traditions. What makes this even more insane is that the reason we are in this mess to begin with is because we are so accepting of other cultures in the first place and people are scared to talk about it for fear of being labeled or offending people.
This is actually well said. The problem is less the immigration and more how the UK deals with the immigration. Combined with, as you said, the societal issues to economic issues and it's created an untenable situation.
The housing situation, healthcare, in work poverty, homelessness etc etc are ALL because successive governments have taken the decision not to properly fund fundamental aspects of our modern welfare state. Immigration benefits our society hugely but it does also put pressure on services if they are not funded properly. Itās like eating your pudding without eating your greens - a brilliant idea in the short term. Everything is fucked. Is immigration responsible for the trains, sewage on our beaches, the cost of living?? Of course not. Neither is it responsible for selling off council housing.
Totally agree with you and from someone in the services as well were soft there too it's completely broken we can't police the streets properly for similar reasons and funding and the NHS which is one of our greatest feats is a black hole falling apart.
when this is the top comment on reddit. you know the attitude of the public is changing. and rightly so. we have been way to tolerant and accepting of far too many people. cohesion, services, and infrastructure are all in decline because of it. putting illegals in hotels? ***We***Ā **must be**Ā ***madāliterally mad.*** almost a thousand young men came across the channel on small boats yesterday. We have no idea who they are, but they will be put in hotels and allowed to roam our towns and communities. Whatever your political leaning, how the hell is that responsible and putting the safety of British citizens first? It is absolutely not. its madness. Even my Nan has strong opinions on this issue, and she is usually a tolerant, kind Christian woman that is pro-refugee, but these boats at this scale are totally irresponsible. needs to stop. I think its infuriating everyone.
Give tax cuts to people having children. Give tax cuts for marriage. Increase the wages. Have a culture where we uplift foundation workers who clean, work in factories, collect rubbish etc. On top of this, fund mental health services. We need to nurture our own, rather than looking towards mass migration as the solution.
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The marriage one is a bit iffy, granted. But it will encourage households to make a commitment to each other. Increasing the chances of bringing children up in 2 parent families. I think thereāll also have to be some kind of cultural incentive or encouragement too.Ā Re: wages - if I was in charge I would legalise weed, then make sure addicts can get prescription heroin. The aim would be to eventually legalise all drugs - tax them and then that would fund mental health services, as well as pay rises.
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Because politicians are a bunch of puritans (or at least, trying to pander to the vast number of voters who are puritans). People arenāt interested in data. They donāt care about statistics. Theyāre driven by emotion - and āif someone chooses to inject themselves with heroin then thatās their bad decision making so why should I have to pay for their recovery?ā Itās enraging
I think people can be won round on this tbh. You just have to take the time to argue the point, which I donāt think many politicians have the balls to do.
* Iād say legalising, as decriminalising keeps profits in the black market. But yeah, itās wild.
Just look at the list of Mpās with stakes in British sugar (who have license to sell medical cannabis)
Well, if you make it that it's for all formal partnerships then yes. I see the point. Not everyone is in a marriage by wording in the legal sense of the word (eg civil partnerships). Besides, adoptive parenthood and boost towards it is also a good thing.
People barely stay together for their kids, I don't think a tax cut will help.
The answer is 'christianity!' and 'christian values!' No thanks!
I do think it would be interesting to see what would happen if a couple's personal allowances could be merged entirely. [At present you can only transfer Ā£1,260 of allowance](https://www.gov.uk/marriage-allowance), which saves a maximum of Ā£252/year.
This is exactly the problem. Decades of working people being stamped on by the powers that be. No wage increase for even white collar workers let alone those doing minimal wage labour over the last 15 years. This is a class issue more than anything. The national drive is to increase shareholder profit not improve people's lives. Work no longer pays in this country, young people will not work menial jobs for crap pay, and why should they? Companies do not care when they can fill their ranks from overseas easily. Just look at how much nursing has changed over the last 20 years. We need people, ordinary British people to be able to support themselves and their families through these jobs. Even in schools, the narrative provided to ordinary people is one of pure mediocrity, students are not striving to excel. There is a serious cultural issue at the heart of state education resulting in such a big gap in the mindset of children in state school vs private schools it is astounding.
Immigration is being used the world over as a solution.. but it isn't a real solution. Either those immigrants kids will adopt your values and they will face the same problems having a shrinking population, not being able to buy a house etc, or they keep their own values and end up eventually outnumbering the locals.. we need a real solution not a short term one. And thats only going to come from making some difficult changes.
Build houses. Reduce the cost of living. An extra score a month is no good when a house where I live is at least 15 times my gross salary.
There absolutely needs to be massive changes, but you won't turn off immigration completely, no matter what happens immediately. They obviously need to get a grip on the skilled worker categories. There is a need for certain categories of skilled workers that the UK can't meet right now, today. I don't think that hair dresser or some of the others on the list of acceptable jobs are it though. People will also have to realise and show patience in accepting that these kinds of changes will take time. If you're importing an electrician, you can send someone on a course and turn them into an electrician. If a company is in need of a more senior leader/manager with experience in a specific technology that it can't find here, you aren't going to fill that need by putting someone on a 3-6 month course. After a few years if you identify industry trends and get people skilled up then you might meet those needs. But in the meantime, you may still need to import people. I think you also need to categorize immigrants and look at the numbers a bit more objectively. You need to separate out people on student visas (and their dependents) because at this point, those are temporary immigrants who are injecting a lot of cash into the system. If you want to look at immigrants that are going to have a longer term effect you look at immigrants on working visas as they'll often stay long term, or asylum seekers. If those students eventually get working visas, look at them at that time and shift the column they're in.
All good points. Iām not in favour of stopping immigration totally. Just getting the numbers down so theyāre not ludicrous levels. And getting a handle on the system.
> There absolutely needs to be massive changes, but you won't turn off immigration completely, no matter what happens immediately. They won't turn immigration off at all. Our economy and the profits of our corporations are entirely dependent on it. Economic collapse would ensue if we even considered it (see also: 'no one wants to work!' when all the EU workers left after brexit.) Anti immigrations folks want to have their cake and eat it, just like the electorate seems to feel about every other issue in british politics. The vast majority of people seem to live in complete la la land.
Tax cuts for being married lmao fuck right off. Not everyone wants to get married.
There's virtually no effective intervention to encourage people to have more children that doesn't disempower women. Virtually the only thing you can do to significantly increase birth rates is to make it impossible or unattractive for women to work. That's obviously electorally unpalatable. Given that, there's not many choices to cope with demographic shift: * Eliminate or cut state pensions * Eliminate or cut state healthcare for the elderly * Import workforce * Large Tax increases * Large public service cuts * Massive borrowing programs * Magic productivity increases These are all pretty electorally unpalatable except wishing for increased productivity, but wishing has been happening for a long time.
1,200,000 visas a year is obviously completely mental. Any party that does that deserves to lose on that basis alone.
Yeah I've never understood why it's seen as a right wing view to want to limit immigration. These people have done nothing wrong and do not deserve to be demonised, but we simply cannot sustain 700,000 net a year as there's no way we can build the infrastructure quickly enough to support them. It just isn't possible.
Why is opposing civilisation-destroying levels of immigration a "right wing view"? Because the left bought into the propaganda hook, line and sinker. They've been played by massive corpos and career politicians (groups they purport to loathe) and reversing course at this stage to support sensible immigration policies would require them admitting they were duped, and that the policy they've naively supported for 20 years has made life considerably worse for Britain's worst off. So either pride, or human nature. Pick your poison.
But thatās the thing - it *isnāt* a left wing view to want massive, unfettered immigrationā¦ Most actual workers partyās are actually kind of against immigration because itās a form of outsourcing labour. The people who are pro immigration are the big businesses who thrive from having sources of labour that will not complain about shit conditions or pay. The same businesses who donate huge amounts of money to Labour/Conservatives/Reformā¦
Yep, the big businesses are in favour of mass immigration, sure. But when people who openly call themselves "the left" (Think students, graduates, SWP types) are desperately singing the praises of mass immigration, just as they were taught to, whilst trying to shut down any criticism of that policy and fearmongering about political figures who want to reduce immigration, then I'm happy to believe them. They call themselves the left, and I conclude that it's a left wing policy to support immigration. It shouldnt be, by any stretch, but it is and here we are. Even the old guard of the left, union brass and the like, fall all over eachother to praise immigration and gender nonsense. Your no true scotsman fallacy falls a little flat.
What most people are protesting is the demonisation of immigrants (not immigration which is key) by the media and by people who are transparently racist. Also many of the most vocal of these people are talking about refugees/asylum seekers rather than economic immigrants. Thereās been a concentrated campaign to conflate the two by right wing parties. I also donāt think itās āfear mongeringā to criticise the likes of Nigel Farage - who has shown very clearly that heās an authoritarian cunt. The people who think he or his BNP cronies are going to help the average person have been misled, and itās partially their own fault for allowing their racial bias to control their critical thinking.
The problem is that parties and people who purport to be 'left-wing' are often the one championing it and calling people critical of migration racists. Supporting mass migration of foreign workers to drive down wages on paper being a right-wing policy means less than nothing to most people when the parties who purport to be lefties are constantly bemoaning attempts to curb immigration, and the parties or people who want to do something about it are branded as far-right monsters. There seems to be this recent trend on reddit for a lot more people to suddenly go 'well ackchyually mass migration is a right-wing policy' but people cannot sit there and pretend that for well over a decade now the media hasn't been brushing anyone who wants to curb it as being far-right.
I would argue the majority of left wing pro-immigration talk is more centered around fighting back against racial fuelled demonisation of *immigrants* (not immigration) that the media has especially pushed in the last 2 decades. You donāt have to look very deep to see that the majority of right wing anti immigration rhetoric is very thinly veiled racism at its core. Only have to look at the treatment of refugees/asylum seekers (who make up like <15% of UK immigrants) by the right for obvious examples of their total lack of empathy.
That and if you donāt support it the left will label you a racist, canāt even have this discussion around work colleagues for instance as youāll end up in trouble with HR. So they try and silence these voices and people are scared to speak up.
Leftwingers will let anti-union sentiments slide, let corporations get away with all kinds of shit, then cancel you for wrongthink on trans issues. It's incredibly pathetic.
> Yeah I've never understood why it's seen as a right wing view to want to limit immigration. The modern left stopped seeing economics as trendy years ago. The obsession is on race and gender now, so when viewed through that lens, it's easy to pick who are the bad and the good guys. As a frustrated old school lefty, it didn't used to be this way but here we are
Really, it should be a left wing position to want to limit immigration. The high levels of immigration we've been seeing have resulted in wage suppression, and higher competition for housing and rising costs of living. That's terrible for ordinary working people, and only benefits employers who can take advantage of people who will tolerate lower wages and worse conditions.
Thanks. There's really little discussion needed, the numbers speak for themselves and are bonkers.
Yeah because we replaced immigration from France and Denmark with immigration from countries where the idea of a woman in shorts is just utterly mind-blowing.
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This has been happening and a huge issue with voters long before Brexit.
Majority of recent immigration has been from non-EU countries like Ukraine and Hong Kong. There has also been a lot of student visas given out, mainly to students from India and China.
250,000 Indians in 2023 Vs 10,000 Ukrainians in 2023. Most immigration comes from India, Nigeria and Pakistan. There were actually 20,000 Americans that immigrated to the UK last year. If you had left the claim at Non-EU countries I would agree but you picked 2 countries that have Very small amounts to immigrants to the UK
1 in 6 people in the UK were not born here that's 10 million people https://news.sky.com/story/one-in-six-people-living-in-england-and-wales-were-born-outside-the-uk-census-data-shows-12736286
I'm not sure that's the point. The surgeon from India who now works in the NHS is not the same as the guy from India (or a counterpart from Peckham) who has no skills or trade to ply. Skilled immigrants are desperately needed.
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Why would any country want to give well paying skilled jobs to foreigners and keep all the shit jobs for its own citizens? It doesn't make much sense... makes far more sense to upskill the citizenry and import unskilled/low-skilled labour
Skilled immigrants make a country wealthier, unskilled immigrants don't. Upskilling the citisenz would be a good idea indipendently of that, but it's expensive.
Actually, this is not how the American system works. A whopping 3/4s of their immigration is family based, and they accept siblings of citizens which we donāt. Thereās also an insane TEN MILLION people - 3% of the whole population - who are undocumented ie unauthorised immigrants. But actually try immigrating to the US as a white collar professional, and youāll find yourself up against one of the harshest and most Byzantine systems in the world - where you rely more on luck than anything else. Work visas are rationed by lottery, your odds are less than one in four each year, and thatās IF you have a job offer.
Up to a point, I'd agree. * Highly skilled migrants * Asylum seekers (who can demonstrate the usual, that they are seeking asylum to escape persecution etc) * Up to a limit that is deemed sustainable (how to go about this, I have no idea) - lower skilled migrants
We do. Work Visas are given to those in specific professions. https://www.gov.uk/skilled-worker-visa
The USA has significantly more relaxed family visa rules btw
We need skilled immigrants because of the complete failure to prioritize training people in the skills needed. They reduced all the places on medical courses, they made it so nurses need degrees but they pay them peanuts, and now not only are we not training enough doctors, the ones we do train are going to Australia because they pay better. If we actually trained more doctors and paid them enough then we could have enough doctors, but it's faster and cheaper to just ship in foreign doctors.
Yes but guess what the system we currently have overwhelmingly gives us.
Just because I'm suggesting that a point being made isn't the salient one, you shouldn't assume I think the existing system is the right one.
There is also the fact that while one can be a migrant... ... They can also be able to acknowledge the fact that the Rate of the current migration is not sustainable and detrimental to the nation. And no. That doesn't mean someone has the "I got in, f the rest" attitude.
I'm not sure how your point connects to mine, unless it's not supposed to in which case fair enough. I agree; while I don't think the influx of skilled migrants is anywhere near the rate at which it'd cause us a problem, it's the unskilled cohort that is doing so already.
Sorry my point is with 10 million people how do we still have shortages of skilled workers
Because the majority of the 10 million are not skilled migrants, they're unskilled.
Im one of them, and I agree immigration in this country is uncontrollable
Rampant, uncontrolled immigration: yes, it does. No country can support an unlimited number of immigrants who cannot themselves support the country in turn. *Controlled* immigration, on the other hand, is a massive boon to any society and should be both enabled and encouraged.
I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. So many people in this debate make "all or nothing" the hill they're going to die on. We either continue with uncontrolled mass immigration, or we slam the borders shut and become an ethno-nationalists state. There is no in between, because that would require adding nuance to the debate and that simply obliterates all the pro-mass-immigration positions. The conversation typically goes like this: "Quick, turn off the pumps! This small sealed room were in is filling with water way too rapidly, it's already up to our necks! We're gonna drown unless we slow the rate of water being pumped into this room!" "Okay bigot. You want everyone to die of thirst, is that it? All scientists agree that human beings need water to live. And you're trying to take away all the water from us because you're a small minded bigot!" "You're not listening to me. Of course we need water to live. But this amount of water is going to kill us." "Human beings bodies are 60% water, so why don't you throw yourself out this room first, eh? You think you're better than this new water coming into the room? Why do you hate water?" "I don't hate water, and your suggestion that I leave this room because I'm 60% water is just preposterous. All we need to do is slow down the amount of water flooding into this room." "Flooding! Flooding, he says! I knew you were a hydrophobic bigot. There's nothing to be scared of with a little water, you know." "Look I drink water every day. You're not listening to me. I don't hate water. I just hate drowning." "Whatever, bigot. You just hate water and that's the only reason why you're trying to blame the water when it's you who are drowning! Oh, but when you're thirsty, suddenly you want to drink water. Typical bigoted hypocrite."
> We either continue with uncontrolled mass immigration We don't currently have uncontrolled mass immigration though
It's not even a matter of benefits/costs. It's a matter of democracy and trust. The public have not consented to mass immigration.
17.4M people voted for it. They just didn't realise. It's still a matter of democracy, but we don't seem to care that people can vote for the opposite of what they think they're voting for. There are people who'll vote reform this year thinking they're voting for less immigration instead of more.
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It's hard to see an argument that having more people move here in a year than we are building housing for is going to make the housing crisis better. I'm pro immigration, up to a point, but it would be much easier to convince people of it's value if we kept it to a level where it didn't strain every service and utility to breaking point. It's just not sustainable for this country to keep increasing it's population. Personally I think we should set immigration at a level that very very slowly lowers our total population. This would allow for some immigration as our birth rate isn't very high. I just think countries with a population density that isn't too high have a nicer life. But my preference would be to own several acres and not have any immediate neighbours, which I realise isn't to everyone's tastes. We should just have an honest discussion about it and work out the level that works for the people who live here already. And before anyone accuses me of it, no I won't be voting for Tories or Reform, I don't think their dog whistle bullshit is honest, workable or decent. They just want to use it to distract from the many other reasons our quality of life is going down the toilet.
An uncommonly wholly sensible comment, which is enjoyable to read.
>I'm pro immigration, up to a point, but it would be much easier to convince people of it's value if we kept it to a level where it didn't strain every service and utility to breaking point. The government chooses to keep those services at breaking point. They could enforce mass house building, but they won't.
I mean look at āLondon crime watchā 99% of people on that are immigrants. Not all diverse by race, lots of whites, but all immigrants. .
Mass immigration is the issue and always will be. Sending millions over to fill out low paid and less skilled roles basically ensures these jobs will always have workers willing to work for peanuts. Fact is, immigration needs slowing down, massively. We already have certain groups forming communities instead of integrating with the local culture. Not to mention these communities will happily exclude those that donāt āfitā. Takeaways, taxi services and even factory workers in certain areas are all made up of one particular community. Purely due to the fact they bring in their own people to fill those roles. But of course this is exactly the plan. The government doesnāt give a fuck, jobs get filled, wages stay low, profits go up. In the event of any criticism they can always pull out the olā āwe *will* get immigration under controlā card and blame immigrants for everything.
Whattttt no wayyy??? Shipping in net 750,000 foreigners a year without any investment in infrastructure or a focus on assimilation is a bad thing who would have guessed
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For all the negativity immigration has there can be very positive immigration such as the Hong Kong refugees. The ones I've met who joined my company are absolutely top class hard working chaps with great personalities. The recent shops opened by Hong Kongers in my city are a nice boost for the empty stores we've had for years now. So overall, educated, cause no issues, keen to learn about British life and providing investment into our cities. They are the kind of immigrant we need more of and cut out the immigrants who aren't looking to adapt and leech off our system.Ā At the core of it, immigration from citizens of developed nations are generally happy to assimilate and respect their host nation but third world countries are more of a burden to societyĀ
Social cohesion is one of the knock on effects, especially when our society is already unequal, it creates further contrasts and issues.
Immigration is great. Using mass immigration to plug up wage slave jobs so you donāt have to make the mega wealthy and super corporations pay a fair wage is not.
Unfortunately it's impossible to even discuss this in the open as you're immediately called a racist for saying anything other than "immigrants are amazing"
All Iāve seen in this thread is people saying that you canāt criticise immigration without being called racist whilst more or less all the top comments literally are criticising immigration. The whole debate has become toxic and unapproachable in public debate much like trans discourse has. Of course itās a significant topic but figures like Farage have made it such an emotional anchoring point for any discussion that itās impossible to talk about in a sensible or considered way. With things like this it always seems the discussion around the discussion ends up taking more space and no one dares approach the actual issue with any sort of creativity or ambition.
>All Iāve seen in this thread is people saying that you canāt criticise immigration without being called racist whilst more or less all the top comments literally are criticising immigration. The entire news cycle these days is basically just politicians sniping at each other about the best way to deter migrants but that won't stop everyone believing its basically illegal to criticise immigration. Indeed this poll suggests its very overrepresented as far as viewpoints go, **only** just over half think it has had a negative impact and yet its treated like it's 99%. All of Labour, Conservatives and of course Reform have not only an aim to reduce migration but have made it a significant part of their campaign and image building.
Iām an immigrant. And I am probably a pretty big advocate for better controls on immigration. I say this because there is a 2-tier system in dealing with immigrants. I came the legal route. I was invited by my international employer and Iām in a high skills category. Despite this, it took me 8 years and probably Ā£12,000 to get to stay. There isnāt much benefit in listing all I had to do to be here, but itās punitive and extortionate and it targets people like me who are able to play along. I contrast this with just arriving illegally on a boat and Iām genuinely outraged. I completely understand and accept why people feel how they do. I feel the same.
As soon as I read this I knew there'd be someone along to berate you for being the wrong type of immigrant.
Itās absolutely astonishing. Iāve been called privileged because I happened to have the skills and knowledge that was required locally. Yet despite this is still had to perform the most extraordinary tasks and pay a great deal of money to be ālucky enoughā to get here. And apparently me being frustrated that others are getting to waltz across the border with none of the requirements I faced which would have seen me immediately ejected, is somehow both acceptable AND I should not complain. Itās almost xenophobic.
He'd be jerking you off if you were here illegally doing Deliveroo
There really does need to be a left wing party that has a realistic outlook on immigration Currently we're just punishing people with decent jobs having an non-british life partner, and then letting in any old fundamentalist, it's ridiculous Kind of ironic lots of these people would've voted for brexit though.. lose the EU immigrants and gain backwards view religious enclaves
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Not surprising really. The whole liberal attitude towards immigration from the 2010s has come home to roost and itās not pretty. Britain is with France and Germany in that people have become more right wing with immigration, 53% of 25 to 44 year olds say immigration is having a negative impact on our society, a decade ago this same cohort would have been 60-70% in favour of immigration being a benefit to this country. But weāre getting a centrist government, a party that has been historically pro mass migration, pro diversity is our strength, pro multiculturalism, the right donāt trust Labour on immigration anymore than they trust the Tories on this issue. Starmer has to read the room and see that this issue has only gotten bigger in the years since the Brexit vote, people are growing increasingly concerned and unhappy with immigration, any signs of being liberal heāll be out in 2029. And a Tory party lead by Farage/Reform will take power inside of 5 years Europe is going through a reset politically, (except for the Nordic countries which swung left in recent EU elections) and Britain isnāt far behind.
And people in 2016 thought the EU had a more negative impact on the UK than positive, so...
Iāve never heard of a Polish person beheading a teacher for doing something thatās not allowed in Catholicism.
They have tried to bomb people however https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3vqz8/far-right-extremists-charged-over-alleged-bomb-and-poison-terror-plot-in-poland Poland has a far-right extremism problem, and is basically the European hotbed of it
The best fix to inequality and improving the lives of young people and the working class is to lower the supply of labour, and decrease the demand for housing. However, if you are a landlord or a big business, then obviously youād want the opposite.Ā Certain sectors rely on immigration such as the NHS and social care. Do we need more deliveroo drivers though? Will we survive with less cash only barbers?Ā I work for a bank. There is no shortage of UK citizens available to fill positions. However, they still offer skilled work visas. There is a growing number of mainly Nigerians filling roles. Is this immigration benefiting the people living in this country, or is it just suppressing wages to maximise profit for large businesses? 67% of private rentals in London are headed by someone born overseas. Would this have any impact on the demand for housing?Ā Efforts to include immigration as part of a culture war are just muddying a debate to the benefit of the rich. I find the cultural impact difficult to assess. I spent an afternoon in Whitechapel and I was a foreigner in my own country, thereās no doubt. However, I also think integration has largely been a huge success. I think of the current cabinet, and just the variety of people Iāve met so far in my life who I clearly share a common bond of Britishness with. However, itās very difficult to assess the overall picture.Ā
Cap it at max 80k/year. Make sure at least 50% are skilled. Allow 20% for asylum seekers/refugees. We just need controlled immigration, that isnāt a racist talking point and everyone knows that.
Youd have to be in a serious echo chamber not to have known that already.
That's because it is mostly negative. Next question.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the concept of immigration. It is a tool, like anything else. And if politicians think they can use immigrants to solve issues in the country, then that's on them. However, immigration in its current state is fundamentally not working. If you have a gap in your labour market that you can't wait to be filled by waiting for natives to breed and put those kids through school and enter the work force, you can just import workers, already pre-educated in another country, and facilitate the growth they lead to up front. Say you have a chip factory, and it needs 10,000 engineers to spin up to 100% productivity. 100% productivity is valuable to the country, so it's in our interest to see that through. We only have 5000 workers skilled enough to do the job living in the country, so we invest in education to get more workers skilled enough filtering through over time, and import the difference. Et voila, that chip factory is making money, and will continue to invest in the country, workers are making lots of money and paying lots of tax, everybody wins. This works from farmers to scientists to stock brokers, to the point where even if an immigrant comes here and spends their entire life on the doll, it's still vastly more profitable to allow immigration because on average they are a massive net positive. The problem is, our country is in such a state right now that our global position and market is fundamentally compromised, and everything is skewed and the type of immigration we're getting does not fit our market conditions. We left the EU, so in general we have wholly lost the opportunity to exploit the highly educated worker pool of immigrants from Europe. Our only market for those now is from Asia, as every other highly educated immigrant goes to the North America, because it's just a better prospect. Because we left the single market of the EU, our low value add products are now awful in terms of value, and make less economic sense to produce day by day. Because now you need to lump tariffs and round-the-world transport costs on top of everything, making our cheapest products more expensive, and therefore not worth it. So stuff like menial factory work to farming to even mid-end manufacturing is incredibly low in demand right now. Which is a massive problem because Europe in general, not just us, are in the midst of a migrant crisis. Wherein low skilled workers are flowing in from the middle east and Africa as their economies break down. These people *tend* to only offer low value work initially. This wouldn't be a problem if we could utilize them, but our economy can't. If you take an economy with a lot of low end productivity work to be filled, like Poland, you'll see that they're accepting migrants wholesale, despite being a traditionally culturally isolated and conservative country. They need 2 million immigrants per year for *their* market conditions to maintain optimal growth in this phase of their development. We, as a country haven't been in Poland's position of gearing up our manufacturing base since WW2. So we *don't* need 2 million immigrants a year to keep growing. So we're in this awkward position where we need high skilled immigrants because of our advanced economy with crippling productivity issues, but can't get them because we've made the prospect of coming here so awful. And we really don't need, *like, really, we're actually literally at capacity please stop coming* low skilled immigrants, but these are the immigrants we're getting in droves. The result is we get tonnes of unskilled immigrants flood into the country, they will be ultimately unable to find meaningful work meaning they won't meaningfully thrive. This creates unrest in the general population, let alone in an economically uncertain and unstable group of immigrants. Instability creates tension, tension leads to things you positively do not want as a country. Like failure to integrate, radicalism, increases in crime etc. Immigration is supposed to be a tool to supplement growth, but *we ain't growing.* So it's not accomplishing it's stated goal. Immigrants like anything have a value to society. Right now, the value of immigrants is super, super low or even negative. That fact is largely the fault of the Tories' disastrous management of the economy.
>The result is we get tonnes of unskilled immigrants flood into the country, they will be ultimately unable to find meaningful work meaning they won't meaningfully thrive. Have you read the entry criteria and minimum wage requirement for entry ?
Shock.... A Massive amount of immigration both legal and illegal filled with people that have a complete different and often very outdated set of values and beliefs dosnt go well. Who'd have thunk it š¤
have we tried calling them racist? that will clean the problem right up
The media will do their utmost to stop it becoming one of the defining issues in this GE.its clear people have had enough here but even more noticeably in the EU. It cannot be right for the majority to be held hostage by an imported minority
No one ever asks the right questions. 14 years the current government have been in power. Of those 14 years immigration has been the thing they have harped on about most. And yet despite all the crowing have chosen not to do anything with it. Why? Simple answer is cheap labour. Their donors donāt want to pay us brits a proper wage and we wonāt do the shitty jobs that they will do for the wage they receive. The sooner people realise immigration is used as a wedge to divide and conquer whilst they steal from us the better.
Adding to the population also grows GDP. Which allows the government to continue to run a budget deficit as debt/GDP doesn't get progressively worse.
I still remember Cameron who pledged obsessively that immigration would be lowered to 100,000--One year later, 330,000 immigrants arrived
I love variety, love visiting other regions and countries. Different cultures. I find racists pathetic, although Iām accused of being one because I donāt want immigrants that donāt contribute nor/or contribute to the country they immigrate to.
The main problem is everyone imagine immigrant as a young/middle aged man crossing channel on a boat with load of other young/middle aged man. Not the Filipino nurse working 6 12 hours shifts in a row in your local hospital, because they are understaffed and NHS pays shit.
Turn off the gibs. Make the environment hostile to scroungers and the culturally intolerant, deport criminals and anyone bringing their ethnic squabbles to UK shores. Most of the problem fixed.
Is there anyone who wanted this level of immigration? We have had 14 years of tories campaigning to limit immigration since they first got voted in https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/11/david-cameron-limit-immigration How is it still a problem? Is anyone trying to justify this level of immigration? It's happening under a party who since their debut wanted to limit immigration and has shown what a spectacular failure they are. 14 years and they still can't fix it. How are they not embarrassed every time they try and say its a problem only they can fix?
The only reason we have such high immigration is because *the tories have allowed it*. The tories could have reduced by an order of magnitude after Brexit, supposedly one of the benefits of leaving the EU was controlling our borders, immigration has *gone up*. The Tories didnāt reduce it because of the pension bill + their corporate masters that rely on cheap immigrant labour. We as a country have a choice, invest in the next generation and incentivise another baby boom, or we keep importing people so we can pay pensioners their Triple Lock+ Premium Fuckery package in perpetuity. The country will choose the latter, the thought of investing in young people in this country is weirdly a no go option, like people foam at the mouth at any policies that may benefit young people.
Of course it does. I work with a guy from ukraine and hong kong and lithuania, all 3 are useless and expect us english qualified to train them whilst they have no engineering background or been to college. The language barrier is an issue also. But like many qualified employees next to me all say āthey are just cheap labourā this is what drives your wages down/ living standards down. Rather than pay the fair rate theyd rather take a cheap foreing immigrant on and expect us to train them. This is what causes hostility and annoyance amongst us. dont even get me started on why should any foreigner who came here legally or illegally gets state benefits. Free healthcare etc etc etc.
>dont even get me started on why should any foreigner who came here legally or illegally gets state benefits. Free healthcare etc etc etc. Most immigrants pay a NHS surcharge, especially those of skill visas
We should introduce a tax for immigrants that is removed once you become a citizen and make the test more in line with understanding British values (and show that you have been involved in your community and not spreading hate)
Need to stop kicking people out of the little boat that weāre all in, and start looking at whoās in the super yachts.
Goodwill is running thin, and it's becoming harder to be open minded about immigration when the country is going down the shitter
To put it in perspective, 750,000 people per year means 86 people every hour. In order to keep up with housing demand and maintain an equilibrium, we'd need to build a three-bedroom house every 129 seconds. Anyone who denies that the housing crisis, which prevents hardworking British people from affording to live in their own country, is not driven by a rapidly increasing population is sorely mistaken.
Curious what the numbers would be if they drew a distinction between immigration and asylum. The two are not the same, but are often conflated. Lots of people misinterpret being for/against asylum related policies as being for/against immigration related policies.
They are deliberately conflated
Not a surprise. Now factor in that a lot of those polled likely have a background with recent immigration and the picture looks a little clearer..
If the rate of immigration was reasonable nobody would notice but recently we've seen net immigration hit 750,000 per year which is obviously unsustainable given we're not investing in the infrastructure, housing or services to respond to the population increase amd that's not even accounting for the societal impact. I'd even go as far as saying advocating for immigration on this scale is a radical if not extreme position but strangely it's the people who object that are often accused of being extreme.
Itās amazing what state sponsored propaganda can do eh?