Immigration the last thing in the Tories' armour?

[North Cardiff Blue]

You would probably get filled in by some lass from Duffryn :)

Serious question though and hope for a serious answer and discourse with minimum mudslinging…

What are the first fundamental things that a new Labour government should do to get the UK back on track?

Naive maybe, but one of the things that I would look at is the legalisation and taxation of cannabis and possibly other illegal drugs.

Use this money to invest in infrastructure and well paying jobs to go along with it.

Its policies are shown in Wales, slower speeds, free prescriptions, long lockdowns work from home, close City Centres and roads, longer NHS waiting lists, more empty shops, reduced services waste money on dopey gimmicks, then ask for more money, so they would probably borrow more.

One term and they will be gone, bookmark this, we will really know what misery is like.

[North Cardiff Blue]

Almost everybody is cheap labour in the UK economy. I earn the median full time wage and its a struggle to live on as a single person who wants some semblance of a life and a bit of dignity. All these tropes and memes of 15 years ago no longer work because half of the countries that people used to move to the UK from have closed the gap.

It's a cycle the UK economy has got used to cheap labour, they could always coax people from the EU, one thing to come out of Brexit is the power of the workers and unions, they wouldn't have had all the recent strikes and forced wage increases if employers could have brought in cheaper overseas workers from the EU.

Unfortunately, that has happened in the care industry, we seem to have given up and let people stay at home on the dole because they don't fancy care workers jobs and ported foreign workers on less wages than Europeans.

[North Cardiff Blue]

'There will be less working people to pay the pensions of an increasing retiree cohort who are living significantly longer'

Tough sell that, hence why they lied through their teeth.

Massive problem, we won't have a state pension in the long term, they will freeze it and make it worth far less and apply some sort of pension benefits for the people who have no other retirement income.

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Massive problem, we won't have a state pension in the long term, they will freeze it and make it worth far less and apply some sort of pension benefits for the people who have no other retirement income.

A means tested state benefit is the only way

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Its policies are shown in Wales, slower speeds, free prescriptions, long lockdowns work from home, close City Centres and roads, longer NHS waiting lists, more empty shops, reduced services waste money on dopey gimmicks, then ask for more money, so they would probably borrow more.

One term and they will be gone, bookmark this, we will really know what misery is like.

You think what we have now isn't misery for millions of people ?

For the rich tories misery is only being able to afford 3 overseas holidays a year instead of 4

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Students who don't even take the course, bringing in their families, either immediately or at later dates, and care workers doing the same, they don't add value as they pay no or little tax but take out ten times more in services.

Farming and fruit picking look like the next big loophole the country has got too used to cheap foreign labour and too many politician's mates friends and families are making a fortune, so are in no rush to stop the loopholes.

For a long time British people have wanted cheap fruit and veg and chicken and frozen stuff

As cheap as possible

To do this the food industry had had to employ cheap labour to do these jobs as the brits don't want to do it

Same as care and cleaning , driving buses , etc

Very important jobs but we needed overseas labour to do it

The economy goes down the pipes ? .......let's blame the immigrants !

I am afraid your average brit is thick as mince when it comes to the cause of all this

[Doucas]

Students who don't even take the course, bringing in their families, either immediately or at later dates, and care workers doing the same, they don't add value as they pay no or little tax but take out ten times more in services.

Farming and fruit picking look like the next big loophole the country has got too used to cheap foreign labour and too many politician's mates friends and families are making a fortune, so are in no rush to stop the loopholes.

Read that again, slowly.

[Jordi Culé]

Its policies are shown in Wales, slower speeds, free prescriptions, long lockdowns work from home, close City Centres and roads, longer NHS waiting lists, more empty shops, reduced services waste money on dopey gimmicks, then ask for more money, so they would probably borrow more.

One term and they will be gone, bookmark this, we will really know what misery is like.

For what it’s worth...

I don’t think Starmer’s Labour Government will look like anything Drakeford has done in Wales? There’s other examples of Labour (?) influenced devolved areas that piiss all over Drakeford’s version which promote the economy and which is better implemented and producing results.

Andy Burnham in Manchester.

[goats]

UK paid Rwanda an extra £100m for asylum deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67656220

£240 million so far….just insane amount with not one person deported. With net migration over 600,000 ( can’t imagine how bad it is where all these people are coming from to want to live in this depressing wet rip off shithole called the uk but hey ho) this year something has to be done? Do they not just police the channel better? Use the army etc? How much would a few more surveillance boats cost to stop the flow?

[pipster]

Immigration is a big thing for lots of people in the UK. I'm not going to say whether that's right or wrong.

However, in 13 years of Tory government they've done nothing to address this. Brexit was fought largely over immigration, yet leaving the EU did nothing (as predicted) to address this.

Is immigration something that the political right have no desire to do anything about but want to use to gain votes?

It was first a 'thing' when a Mr T Blair said "go find them from anywhere and let them in", it started then and has got worse ever since.

If you agree that illegal immigration is a problem - what would you do to solve the problem ?
As yet neither Labour or Conservative have been able to fix it (We arent the only country to not solve the problem either)

[pipster]

For a long time British people have wanted cheap fruit and veg and chicken and frozen stuff

As cheap as possible

To do this the food industry had had to employ cheap labour to do these jobs as the brits don't want to do it

Same as care and cleaning , driving buses , etc

Very important jobs but we needed overseas labour to do it

The economy goes down the pipes ? .......let's blame the immigrants !

I am afraid your average brit is thick as mince when it comes to the cause of all this

As Dorcas said - read that again very very slowly - you are describing yourself

[caerkid]

UK paid Rwanda an extra £100m for asylum deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67656220

£240 million so far….just insane amount with not one person deported.

A quarter of a billion pound spent , more planned to be spent, and no result for either the policy itself ,or the wider impact it is supposed to have.

The word scandal has lost a lot of meaning in politics but I think even the shameless shower we have in government now must be a bit worried about this one. If it wasn't such a collossal waste of public money it would be funny to see how long they keep trying to dig up.

[ninian opinian]

UK paid Rwanda an extra £100m for asylum deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67656220

£240 million so far….just insane amount with not one person deported. With net migration over 600,000 ( can’t imagine how bad it is where all these people are coming from to want to live in this depressing wet rip off shithole called the uk but hey ho) this year something has to be done? Do they not just police the channel better? Use the army etc? How much would a few more surveillance boats cost to stop the flow?

Apparently Cruella spent money behind Sunaks back. And now she may have broken the ministerial code again. Blimey I didn’t see that coming.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-b2345537.html

[Eric the Half a Bee]

UK paid Rwanda an extra £100m for asylum deal https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67656220

£240 million so far….just insane amount with not one person deported. With net migration over 600,000 ( can’t imagine how bad it is where all these people are coming from to want to live in this depressing wet rip off shithole called the uk but hey ho) this year something has to be done? Do they not just police the channel better? Use the army etc? How much would a few more surveillance boats cost to stop the flow?

And you've made the mistake of assuming most of those 600,000 are coming in on boats.

Some immigration stats might be of help here. In 2022 the vast majority of immigration into the UK came from non-EU countries. Immigration to the UK from the EU has nosedived since Brexit (surprise, surprise). Of non-EU immigration:

39% came to the UK to study
25% came to the UK to work with visas
19% came to the UK for humanitarian reasons (this was up significantly from previous years due to the war in Ukraine)
8% were asylum seekers (76,000)

Around 40,000 arrived in boats and 90% of them were granted asylum status.

[goats]

And you've made the mistake of assuming most of those 600,000 are coming in on boats.

Some immigration stats might be of help here. In 2022 the vast majority of immigration into the UK came from non-EU countries. Immigration to the UK from the EU has nosedived since Brexit (surprise, surprise). Of non-EU immigration:

39% came to the UK to study
25% came to the UK to work with visas
19% came to the UK for humanitarian reasons (this was up significantly from previous years due to the war in Ukraine)
8% were asylum seekers (76,000)

Around 40,000 arrived in boats and 90% of them were granted asylum status.

No, no way that many can arrive in boats…surely foreign students are just temporary why count them? They can support themselves.
So, where do we put the 40 k arriving in boats? When we already have 1000’s waiting for housing here who’ve lived here their whole lives?

[pipster]

But surely the Conservatives cannot claim to be the party to sort out immigration when they've failed to do so in 13 years and, hopefully, people will see through this.

Who do you blame for the 13 years previous to that ? when Tony and Gordon were in power

[pipster]

Some people say that immigration is just used for cheap labour in these areas but if the UK workforce is not interested , not trained or simply not capable of filling these jobs then we have no choice

Sir Marcus Rose said that, when arguing to stay in the EU, then quickly realised he was arguing for cheap labour that would keep his wage bill down and hence the wages of the every day working man and woman.

So Sludge - are you for cheap labour or against it ?

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Sir Marcus Rose said that, when arguing to stay in the EU, then quickly realised he was arguing for cheap labour that would keep his wage bill down and hence the wages of the every day working man and woman.

So Sludge - are you for cheap labour or against it ?

The Tories have been in charge for 13 years

The country have voted the utter tosspots in

It's their fault , not mine , you should ask them about cheap labour

[SLUDGE FACTORY]

Who do you blame for the 13 years previous to that ? when Tony and Gordon were in power

The people who wanted cheap veg in the supermarket 365 days a year

[Eric the Half a Bee]

Who do you blame for the 13 years previous to that ? when Tony and Gordon were in power

As far as I'm concerned, after 13 years, everything wrong with the UK is entirely down to the Tories, pretty much the same as when Labour were in power for 13 years when they could no longer blame Thatcher.

[the other bob wilson]

Who do you blame for the 13 years previous to that ? when Tony and Gordon were in power

And what happened then was that people showed their disapproval of what happened in 2008, and to an extent the Gulf War, by voting Labour out. With studies galore showing that the average working person has got poorer since 2010, the richest have got richer, food bank use has exploded, the NHS slipped into crisis and life expectancy went down in the years before Covid, why do you consistently choose to defend the party who have been in power during that time?

[Heathblue]

As far as I'm concerned, after 13 years, everything wrong with the UK is entirely down to the Tories, pretty much the same as when Labour were in power for 13 years when they could no longer blame Thatcher.

In a way you are essentially saying what I have said for years on here and the reason I do not vote, there is no red or blue party, even orange or green for that matter, whoever gets elected are just a branch of the uniparty and serve the unelected bodies above them who dictate world policy. Divided you are weak, together you are strong.
'Q'
NCSWIC

[pipster]

And what happened then was that people showed their disapproval of what happened in 2008, and to an extent the Gulf War, by voting Labour out. With studies galore showing that the average working person has got poorer since 2010, the richest have got richer, food bank use has exploded, the NHS slipped into crisis and life expectancy went down in the years before Covid, why do you consistently choose to defend the party who have been in power during that time?

It also 'exploded' in socialist France - much more so (3 times more) than the UK
1984 France introduced food banks - 1997 in the UK. France turns over the 3 times as much in their food banks than the UK does - with a similar sized population..... whose fault is that ?

ps re 13 years - we have 26 years of Labour in the Welsh Assembly.... happy about that are you ?

[the other bob wilson]

It also 'exploded' in socialist France - much more so (3 times more) than the UK
1984 France introduced food banks - 1997 in the UK. France turns over the 3 times as much in their food banks than the UK does - with a similar sized population..... whose fault is that ?

ps re 13 years - we have 26 years of Labour in the Welsh Assembly.... happy about that are you ?

Unless or until we get full independence in Wales, what the UK Government does effectsour lives far more than the Welsh Assembly does.

All you’ve got to come back with is it’s worse with Foodbanks in France which does nothing to make my statement that their use has exploded in this country under the Tories wrong. I know it’s hard being a Conservative voter these days, but you really shouldn’t have bothered replying if that’s all you’ve got to say.

[NinianOpinion1927]

And what happened then was that people showed their disapproval of what happened in 2008, and to an extent the Gulf War, by voting Labour out. With studies galore showing that the average working person has got poorer since 2010, the richest have got richer, food bank use has exploded, the NHS slipped into crisis and life expectancy went down in the years before Covid, why do you consistently choose to defend the party who have been in power during that time?

You do realise that in 2010, Labour chancellor Alistair Darling was preparing to enact Austerity policies that the Conservatives/Lib Dems eventually did? People conveniently forget this. Brown didn't agree with him but Brown would've eventually been faced with the reality that his chancellor did. You can source our particulary bad suffering, post financial crash to Labour's behaviour and borrowing pre 2008.
Also, life expectancy is far more complex than adding few extra quid to the poor's budget. There's been a huge shift in dietry behaviour with obesity rising. Yes, Obesity rising in a time where food banks have EXPLODED

On the matter of food banks, i think they're better than state handouts. It's a more efficient use of money, targeting those really in need.
I'm sure that i once heard foodbanks were in large part state funded.