Politicians have done a great job in getting the public to focus on just the small boat crossings, which account for about 7% of the total, rather than the policies which have allowed the net figure to get so out of control.
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Announced today, that they have revised the figures for next migration up to906,000 people in 22-23. 728,000 in 23-24, so 1.6 million people in two years, all whilst we have complete control over it. (This isn't about illegal immigration).
Starmer accused the Tories of running an "open border experiment".
Worth noting that net immigration for decades was essentially zero and nearly always between -50,000 and +50,000 a year. Started rising under Blair and levelled out about 200,000 a year then rose to 300,000+ after the 2009 financial crisis, so 900,000, 700,000. These are all wholly unprecedented figures
Estimates entirety of the Windrush generation is 500,000 over 23 years..
We are building about 200,000 dwellings a year..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3degx4029ko
Politicians have done a great job in getting the public to focus on just the small boat crossings, which account for about 7% of the total, rather than the policies which have allowed the net figure to get so out of control.
We needed the immigration in the late 1990s
Since the Tories have taken over , 2010 , its rocketed ......whilst all the time they have placed the race card and blamed labour
The news tonight showed Cameron....may ....Boris....sunak .....all talking shit about reducing immigration and blaming labour whilst under their tenure immigration has exploded
Laughable to hear the Tories including cruella von ritchoven bravermaen slagging off labour when it was actually 900,000 under them
Absolute bunch of tossers
They have some brass neck that lot
I hope if reform have any use its to strangle them out of seats and hand the keys to labour and the liberals
Was desperately hoping this wouldnt be a party political thing. All the above applies to what Blair and Brown said too.
The point is what the heck are Labour (as the current govt) gonna do about it?
I read in one of the articles, that of those that came to the UK in one year, 170,000 were under 16. That's about 6,000 classrooms!
The numbers now are extraordinary and not in any way comparable to the era that any of us grew up in.
I really do think dealing with this spans across the political spectrum, and was pleased to see how seriously Starmer talked about it today, although I am doubtful of how successful he will be
I'm not saying it needs to be this high but the reality is to have:
- Triple lock and 12k state pension to be paid per year to people living longer than ever.
- increasing retired cohort.
- decreasing workforce.
- no radical thinking about wealth tax
Migration has to fill the hole or income tax has to massively rise for everyone. It's an impossible balancing act. Brexit was a vote to decide where they likely came from.
From a politics POV, this probably helps Starmer a lot as it takes away and obvious Tory attack line.
Piously saying you hoped it wouldn't become party political is a bad look for someone who only voices opinions from one side of the left right divide. There is not a new Government of any shade in the world that would not seize on figures which show that the previous lot, who promised a certain figure as a maximum number, had, in fact presided over a rise more than nine times that target - it's such an obvious open goal.
The Tories have increased immigration way above 200 k since 2010 .....they came in promising to reduce it
Every single year under them it has rocketed to the huge figure of 920 k as they left office
Increased immigration ....which they used to attack Labour.....is out of control .....on their watch
Absolutely hypocritical hogwash and I hate reform but hope they stick around at 15 percent to keep the liars and fraudsters like braverman , Patel and the new idiot in the bronze medal position , where they deserve to be
https://x.com/Haggis_UK/status/18621...QMoTPMxRQ&s=19
here's a decent breakdown of the immigration numbers, quite interesting I thought
Pious is a strange word, especially when I've started a thread on a topic that is not party political and said I agreed with the PM on it and by implication criticized the last govts failure. It's a fat more balanced introduction to a topic than most manage on here thank you very much!
It is an open goal, I agree, although I think the chief beneficiaries will be Reform, or Labour if they can get a grip on it.
What do you think of the figures though?
Im out of line with modern thinking on immigration I think because I dont have a problem with mass immigration if it means that jobs the residents in the country wont do get done. Im not having a go at UK residents who will not take on some jobs there because Ive been guilty of it myself.
I can remember going to somewhere close to Ross on Wye as a teenager to spend a day picking strawberries - I seem to remember it was on the day England played Brazil in the 1970 World Cup when Gordon Banks made the save of the century, so we worked for less than a full day because we wanted to get home for the bfootball. I would have been fourteen with a body that I would have thought would have been able to cope with picking strawberries and other fruit for six hours, but I was wrong because I spent the following day recovering from it and decided then that doing such work once was enough for me.
So, if it takes 900,000 from abroad to get onerous physical jobs or low paid construction and care jobs done, then Ive no problem with it. As for illegal immigrants coming over the channel in small boats, Im for any humane method which reduces and, hopefully, eventually ends this shoddy practice which only benefits those who rake the money in.
no l, I would be at all surprised if they haven't seen similar increases from some sources(although presumably not the reduction of internal EU migration as they still have shengen)
I thought it was very interesting how tiny a percentage the small boats represented - given the way it's portrayed you hear of 900k people arriving here and immediately picture lots of rubber dinghys arriving - when in reality most of them are on Student visas.
That's slightly disingenuous.
The reason successive governments have pursued immigration is to try to grow GDP.
We have an ageing population - and it is probably already declining without the effects of immigration.
We've been importing Labour for a long time to keep the economy running to pay for the huge proportion of pensioners amongst the native population.
If we suddenly decided to limit immigration then the economy would become a lot worse - in the short term at least.
I personally welcome immigration, I think it makes this country a more vibrant and interesting place - I am married to an immigrant.
However, there are alternative approaches to the economy that don't require immigration that are equally valid.
Japan for instance has kept immigration very low. Culturally they've remained much more isolated than we have, and their population has been declining for some time. Their GDP is lower than it was in the mid 90s.
That transition hasn't come without its problems, but there are also some benefits as well.
House prices, or indeed land values for businesses have barely changed in 20 years - this means you get a lot of bespoke individual businesses, almost running as a hobby because land values are low and not always increasing they don't need to make a huge profit.
We could absolutely adopt the same approach - it would take a couple of decades of pain which no political party is going to want to adopt. It would probably mean us taking a more reserved role on the international stage - leave our businesses vulnerable to being bought out from overseas and businesses here wold have to adapt to the managed reduction of the country.
There is a limit to how much we can throw onto the altar of permanent GDP growth though, so we may have to face these decisions at some point - I can't see any of the powers that be wanting to address it anytime soon though.
I think from a cultural perspective it's very easy to talk about the benefits of diversity and viewing the world as one place, one people etc. Likewise, economically the benefits of a laissez faire approach to immigration are well established. In terms of the goodness of most people, that shouldn't be disputed. There is good and bad in all, unquestionably.
In practice, I do think it is about numbers though, which is why it's important to compare to the world in which most of us grew up (the 90s in my case), which was just wholly different to what we experience now.
At net 900,000, net 700,000, even net 350,000 and the like it is pretty much physically impossible to provide the services needed for people in time and without a significant impact on the average quality of life insofar as things like the amount of schools per 1000, parkland per 1000, train stations per 1000 people
or affordability of housing etc goes, and I think that does matter. At these levels, I just think improving the quality of our social services is essentially impossible. 900,000 is a city like Birmingham, you need about 500,000 homes, 60 train stations, 300 schools, hundreds of serguries, dozens of large parks etc just to tread water. It cannot be funded, planned and built in time. That's leaving aside any integration or cultural issues which people will inevitably have
I think numbers will have to dramatically fall from what we've seen in the last few years tbh. I just can't see how a government can deliver otherwise. We have to find another way, and I sense there is growing consensus on that, inside the UK but also across the western world really.