Immigration - can someone please explain it to me in simple terms?

@bigbird1234

do you think there should be NO limit to the number that can come?

Why do people keep coming out with such hyperbolic nonsense?

Well, they are doing nothing wrong. Under certain circumstances people from the EU, Switzerland and a few other places are allowed to claim child benefit (whether claiming other benefits or not) for children living elsewhere.

All this was agreed when we left the EU. So blame Brexit!

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821f334ced319d02c906103/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-web-optimised.pdf

What I think is that they are addressing loads of this already.
However, people cannot just sit back and complain about not enough housebuilding and whinge. If you want to make a difference get involved. Get your kids to train as bricklayers etc. - do what you can personally. Don’t whinge about neighbourhood building.

Immigration is a thing that British people have done for centuries to the huge detriments of the locals. It is however considered to be a good thing.

By contrast when people from other countries do it and come to Britain it suddenly becomes a bad thing.

We have not built enough houses for years. This has been an ongoing problem. Despite promises to build more, we do not have the construction workers and looking at the stock prices of housebuilders, hardly looks like anyone believes there is lots and lots of profit in there for the taking. It is difficult and expensive to build here and debt is expensive.

We have also had border control for years and intrusive questions every time you enter the country, even if you are British. Yet we have more migration.

Labour have already increased indefinite leave to remain to 10 year qualifying period, international students have already been put off, the thresholds for bringing over family have already gone up.
When the Tories tried to put migrants into the Bibi Stockhold barge there was massive outcry from Labour and Rwanda scheme was illegal.

So exactly what is the proposed solution?
And Farage promising unicorns won’t do it. It will just be financial bankruptcy as 1+1 does not equal 1 million pounds for all. As much as everyone wants to believe it.

Polish immigrants top the list of non- UK nationals claiming benefits in the UK.

Including child benefit for children living in Poland.

So what do people actually want? Track every single immigrant, give them an ID card and social credits and count every penny they contribute from the point they arrive, including children? And once they are at a certain threshold, let them do a test and get citizenship if they get to what figure? 500k? What exactly is people’s point here? And what about all the remaining existing citizens who never contribute much financially into the pot and are net takers. What do we do with them (barring ill health/disability) - should we remove their vote?
Generally speaking, UK has benefited for centuries from colonising and cheap and more expensive overseas immigrants coming here. The stats should clearly that EU migrants where contributing, not least because many came here during their productive working lives, after they had been educated in eg Poland, at the cost of the Polish state, many went back to pay for their own holiday health treatments and then on top of that, went back during retirement. Not actually costing us much at all. But that was not good enough. People still voted for Brexit. And now we are paying through our noses for both Brexit and Covid. And yet again, it is the immigrants to blame. Not the lazy sods here contributing f… all and putting not much back in.
I say if people want this, bring on the ID cards and social credits for all British citizens.

I disagree...legal migration is a huge issue too. Legal migrants need somewhere to live...they will use the NHS. It's still pressure on our services. And there are far more legal migrants than illegal.

But they are not coming over in small boats organised by criminal gangs are they?

It is the illegal/small boats “asylum seekers” that most people have an issue with.

The student/skilled migrant numbers should be able to be easily controlled by the government (whether they do us another question eg recent junior doctors thread) but there seems to be no real plan or way of stopping those coming in the boats.

We had a lot of Chinese, Indian and Nigerian students come. Many well off and intelligent. I really cannot see the problem with that demographic, for example. They are coming at the most productive time of their life. There really is nothing to complain about.

most of the people I know who don’t like immigrants and think they are a major issue, are poorly educated In the sense they have both limited critical thinking skills and also limited interest in the world around them outside of their own immediate circle.

Empathy bypass is also a characteristic of the ‘Ban the Boats’ people I know

We have not built enough houses for years. This has been an ongoing problem. Despite promises to build more, we do not have the construction workers and looking at the stock prices of housebuilders, hardly looks like anyone believes there is lots and lots of profit in there for the taking. It is difficult and expensive to build here and debt is expensive.

We have also had border control for years and intrusive questions every time you enter the country, even if you are British. Yet we have more migration.

Labour have already increased indefinite leave to remain to 10 year qualifying period, international students have already been put off, the thresholds for bringing over family have already gone up.
When the Tories tried to put migrants into the Bibi Stockhold barge there was massive outcry from Labour and Rwanda scheme was illegal.

So exactly what is the proposed solution?
And Farage promising unicorns won’t do it. It will just be financial bankruptcy as 1+1 does not equal 1 million pounds for all. As much as everyone wants to believe it.

in 2023 net migration was around 900k.

We built around 200k homes that year.

where are we housing everyone?

So what do people actually want? Track every single immigrant, give them an ID card and social credits and count every penny they contribute from the point they arrive, including children? And once they are at a certain threshold, let them do a test and get citizenship if they get to what figure? 500k? What exactly is people’s point here? And what about all the remaining existing citizens who never contribute much financially into the pot and are net takers. What do we do with them (barring ill health/disability) - should we remove their vote?
Generally speaking, UK has benefited for centuries from colonising and cheap and more expensive overseas immigrants coming here. The stats should clearly that EU migrants where contributing, not least because many came here during their productive working lives, after they had been educated in eg Poland, at the cost of the Polish state, many went back to pay for their own holiday health treatments and then on top of that, went back during retirement. Not actually costing us much at all. But that was not good enough. People still voted for Brexit. And now we are paying through our noses for both Brexit and Covid. And yet again, it is the immigrants to blame. Not the lazy sods here contributing f… all and putting not much back in.
I say if people want this, bring on the ID cards and social credits for all British citizens.

So what do people actually want? Track every single immigrant, give them an ID card and social credits and count every penny they contribute from the point they arrive, including children? And once they are at a certain threshold, let them do a test and get citizenship if they get to what figure? 500k? What exactly is people’s point here? And what about all the remaining existing citizens who never contribute much financially into the pot and are net takers. What do we do with them (barring ill health/disability) - should we remove their vote?
Generally speaking, UK has benefited for centuries from colonising and cheap and more expensive overseas immigrants coming here. The stats should clearly that EU migrants where contributing, not least because many came here during their productive working lives, after they had been educated in eg Poland, at the cost of the Polish state, many went back to pay for their own holiday health treatments and then on top of that, went back during retirement. Not actually costing us much at all. But that was not good enough. People still voted for Brexit. And now we are paying through our noses for both Brexit and Covid. And yet again, it is the immigrants to blame. Not the lazy sods here contributing f… all and putting not much back in.
I say if people want this, bring on the ID cards and social credits for all British citizens.

I was born and bred in the UK and worked here paying taxes until I was 47. My ancestors going back hundred of years were born and bred here too. I left the UK to live and work for four years and on my return at 51 I had to prove I was habitually resident here and wait 6 months before I could get medical care under the NHS. I couldn't get any help with housing as I was fit and healthy and under 75. So I was street homeless for a period of time. I gained a temporary place in a hostel where I made friends with other women including asylum seekers. Once they gained asylum status they were given social housing. I was pleased for them but angry that I was not considered in housing need.

Because the freedom of movement in EU was stopped - that our Gov would allow /encourage / increase other immigrants from elsewhere wasn’t on the cards at the time of the vote.