My town has really changed

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen That is not true. Asylum seekers who get to the UK tend to have the skills to get and keep a job. If we changed the rules and said asylum seekers could work, but if they did would not get the benefits they do, many would work and move out of the really shitty accommodation they are usually housed in.

Oh yeah many stayed as well, but it was more transient than what we've seen since. Most people came here from EU to work and were more culturally entwined with the UK than endless unskilled single male migrants who don't speak English, or a worker coming here and then bring their family over as dependents (who will then be on benefits).

Immigration was mostly positive in the UK, at least until Blair's miscalculation over the eastern European expansion and how many would come here. That was where the road to Brexit started.

I thought the same. I stopped in a market town in Devon a couple of months ago, hadn’t been there since 2019, and it’s very different now. It just seemed rather dead, shops closed and not taken over. It didn’t look impoverished, didn’t see anyone drinking on street , that sort of thing. It just looked sparse and it felt like its spirit had died.

1 million people came into the country illegally in 2023 - that's from the ONS.

The population has increased exponentially over the last 20 years.

Of course there will be a change of quality of life, funding and culture as a direct result of this.

I don't understand what is so wrong with saying this?

But that makes it worse!

But at what?

Given that many are illiterate in their own languages, let alone any European tongue.

It's not the prettiest place, but it's not as bad as the OP makes it out to be, and the social problems listed here apply to most UK towns and some cities.

Part of the problem is too many MPs don't live in their constituencies and can't feel the problems. Nigel Farage anyone? Has he even set foot in Clacton? Does he truly understand the challenges of rural coastal communities or is he hoping them being poorly educated and unemployed will keep him in a job? If he were the only one doing it we could point and laugh at him but many many more MPs, especially those representing communities experiencing deprivation, haven't got a clue.

Also for counties surrounding London who lose housing stock to London boroughs buying it up to house their homeless, where's the help? Why aren't they saying stop?

I've just read an article in the Lancashire county magazine about Wigan and it sounded lovely, with pictures of the town and places to eat.It went on for pages

Completely agree that this issue is being fuelled by putin, I imagine many of the people trafficking gangs have his grubby little mitts all over it.

The issue is poverty plus housing.

Some of it was transient. I know many, many Europeans who settled here long term with no intention of going back. These include my DH, my SIL, many colleagues, friends and school parents. I know way more Europeans who have settled permanently than those who stayed briefly. All Europeans I knew were heartbroken after Brexit and saw it as a rejection of them. They all vowed to return to their home countries but actually they're all still here and have gained British citizenship.

If you want to know who is responsible, think of who would wish to destabilise Europe.

Based in London so theres always been an element of this but the level has got off the scale in the last few years.

Groups of men just sitting drinking for hours in the middle of the pavement. A group of druggies have a spot near a primary school. We have had to call police to.move drug users sleeping on the benches of a playground.

On a Sunday morning nearly all storefronts have homeless people sleeping in them. There are people regularly passed out or zoned out on the streets. Several familiar faces regularly walk around the area shouting randomly at people they have never met.

Just on my way my 15 minute walk home from the tube I walked past two sex workers arguing about the age of a client. A man zoned out at a bus stop whilst his friend took a piss in the middle of the pavement about ten feet from a school that kids were leaving. A bus pulled over as three someone sat on it just ranting abuse at at others. This isn't even unusual.

If you can afford it, I would just move to somewhere nicer. I very much suspect it won't improve anytime soon and as you get older I think it's very important to live somewhere safe.

It's all the Turkish barbers springing up around here that gets my goat.

In some ways I agree if people's standard of living increases. Of course we have always had people who are worse off, but I think property inequality has been the biggest problem. It all went to shit when homes became investments. That doesn't really have much to do with productivity, if anything poor accommodation actually makes it worse.

It was under Boris Johnson's government that numbers (legal mirgation) got out of control and that was post-Brexit.

When you dance with the devil...

I’m sure Brexit voters didn’t want any immigration from the global south but their betters didn’t really care about what the voters wanted.

Immigration within the EU was more transient becaue you had the right to work all over. You'd get hospitality workers for the summer etc and they'd go back.

We've swapped mostly worker European migration for people from Africa and places like Pakistan and India who then want to bring their family with them and often aren't even skilled to work and don't speak English.

European countries like Spain and Italy are more exposed geographically to the migrant crisis (close to African border). The UK as an island should be able to manage our borders better.

If you look all across continental Europe at places like France and Germany they are having similar problems, and brexit is obviously not the cause there so I think that brexit isn't a driving cause of mass illegal immigration.

It's happening everywhere. Huge increase in population but mostly just an increase in poverty.

Far too many people in the country and unskilled migration and single men being imported from everywhere.

Inequality is not a problem as long as you are growing the economy but the UK is in a recession is it not? Of course things will decline if you don’t actually produce much of anything and just want to hose the wealthy (which is not sustainable)

Housing instability has an impact. It is why council housing was introduced in the first place. If you have a transient population in an area they have no real incentive to care for the area and build a community.

The need for two incomes to run a home. There is nobody left to fuel a community through voluntary work.

Children being in childcare from babies. They don't learn about being part of a family and home skills at parents knees in the way they did.

Decline of high Street. Less people being out and about (more in workplaces?) mean shops get less footfall. Councils charging high rents for retail properties mean its cheaper to be online. This goes hand in hand with high parking charges in towns which discourage people from just popping by.

A breakdown of family connections, feeling like work doesn't pay yet two adults needing to work to struggle by and a population struggling with high housing costs. It doesn't make people charitable towards others or have pride in things.