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

The hate speech UK laws make sure no one can say anything. I think Farage is an idiot but if voting for him means it scares other parties into actually fixing immigration it’s worth it. Possibly means leaving the ECHR which he might attempt to do.
EU countries can make draconian laws to sort their immigration issues somehow our weak Gov can’t.

I am an immigration adviser. There ARE some huge holes in the immigration system that need to be closed, but it is essentially a problem manufactured to make the poor hate other poor people instead of the rich. Asylum seekers are like less than half a percent of immigrants. The biggest groups are partners, EU people who were here before Brexit already, Ukraine and Hong kong refugee schemes and skilled workers. All of those people (bar Ukraine scheme refugees) basically need to work in order to prove their residence, meet requirements and settle here long term.

Other facts:

• immigrants are less likely than British people to commit crime by a lot. The ones who ARE committing violent or serious crimes are usually here illegally and the government is deporting a whole lot of them.

There were immigrants causing Blair,Brown and Cameron problems before Brexit. It was Human rights and laws which stops the gov sending illegals back.

I am not against freedom of movement but I am against people coming over in the back of lorries, the overhead cabins on planes (I know this used to happen) or on flimsy dinghy’s. Getting searched for 100g of shampoo etc through an airport but anyone can can get on a boat and pop over. It needs to stop. I don’t agree with Rwanda but seemingly Labour are developing similar but different policies.

I’m loving this thread, surely anyone can see that it’s a Border issue ,we are not effective in manning our borders.We cannot just rock up In other countries.Illegal ways of entering the UK who ever you are is wrong.The UK needs to be tougher with France.It is right that Net migration is curtailed.It should not be ok for students etc to be allowed family members.It is known to be one of the easiest ways to come to the uk,some not even then studying.
The NHS is not set up to correctly take payment for people whom shouldn’t receive treatment.It is also over subscribed by oversea nurses who culturally do not give care as nurses trained here are. Life in the uk is not great now,I remember the 1990s life was great.I do wonder what opportunities my children will have.I also don’t want to be ill.

This is such a useful and informative website. Thank you for sharing.

Don't worry they are all hopping over to us in Ireland either though the North or on a ferry from Wales!

There are more children than ever growing up in poverty. They're becoming adults who had no education, no real work ethic instilled into them...only a worldview that life is unfair, nobody is listening to them, and 'others' are getting priority treatment.

There are low/no-skilled workers being replaced by technology. Industries that traditionally employ the working class are dying, or being moved overseas to save money. People are hurting.

Many of the people affected are competing for jobs with immigrants who are - to be blunt - willing to work harder for the same or less wages/benefits. That breeds resentment.

The decline of public services breeds resentment. It's a complex issue, but the easy answer is 'more people, less to go around'. Many believe that by virtue of a cosmic lottery that led to them popping out of their mother on a certain bit of dirt, they're entitled to first dibs.

Many who don't contribute much (or anything) to society - the real empty-heads - are happy to believe lies about people coming here illegally and getting benefits, luxury hotels etc, because they need someone to hate. They cannot admit that it's their fault that their life is shit, or not what they thought it would be, so they accept the boogyman that's been fabricated for them.

Whatever you think of those people, whether you write them off as idiots, or bigots, or lazy...whether you think they should pull their socks up or adapt to the times...whether you write them off completely and think we should simply leave them to wallow in their own misery...the fact remains that they exist, they have a voice and a vote.

Immigration is an issue. It's nowhere near the issue it's made out to be. What people should be worried about are the people who are trying to weponise it.

Yes they are. One of my friends lived and worked in Spain for a few years.

Her two younger brothers went through the Spanish education system (she came back but her parents and brothers stayed) she and her son had medical treatment in Spain and her mother is still there using Spanish health care.

Oh and she complains about immigrants.

OP

There are various rough groups of immigrants.

1. Working holiday - these are usually young single people from Australia / New Zealand. They are allowed in to the UK for 1 or 2 years primarily to travel but are allowed to work. In London every bar seems to have a Kiwi or Aussie behind the bar.

2. Students. As a PP said, they pay for their education and as part of their visa they may have to pay an 'NHS surcharge'. I'm not sure of the latest rules but they were normally given a 1 or 2 year working visa after graduation.

These visas were often abused by people who actually wanted to work, not study and there were 'collages' that would fake attendance for a fee. These people are a problem, not the students and graduates but the ones abusing the system.

3)'Normal' Immigrants. People who are moving to the UK permanently, some but not all will become British citizens. These people can be any age, eg a young couple may have moved here as, say, a couple of doctors, they work in the NHS and have children but then one of their parents becomes ill so they may want to bring that person into the country.

Some are spouses of British citizens, this can be a problem if the British citizen is not earning enough then they cannot bring in their spouse, even if they have been married 20 years.

It's not just spouses though, where my dad lives a father whose children were born in South Africa was trying to get them in to the UK. His ex wife had died and temporarily the children (primary age) were living with their grandparents in an old people's home. But he did not earn enough to bring them in.

He actually brought them in a a holiday visa and then applied for them to have leave to remain. Technically these children were illegal immigrants but even under the last government it would not be a good look to not allow them to stay with their father, paternal grand parents, aunts and uncles. I can't say this particular two 'illegals' bother me.

4. Asylum seekers, people leaving a war zone or a place where they are oppressed. The problem is it can take time to process the application and in the meantime they have to be housed and fed. There are various reasons why the UK is preferred by some people. They may already have family here, they may speak English, they may not feel safe in other EU countries.

5. Illegal economic migrants. These are the people who are a problem. They often pay a fortune to be smuggled in to the UK where they work for very little in the black economy.

They are often exploited, trafficked and many of them are children.

When they have been found they may claim asylum even though they are not in any danger. As with genuine asylum claims it takes time to process and in the meantime they have to be housed and fed, and often they disappear back into the black economy.

You can control some migration by limiting visas, putting restrictions on some visas or some migrants but there can be ramifications to British people doing that. Eg many British people go to Australia / New Zealand on working holiday visas as a reciprocal arrangement and of course the economic migrants do not have visas.

You can also put limits on what employers have to do before they can bring a foreign worker in to the country.

So if the local Indian restaurant wants a new chef from India, they have to jump through a few hoops and pay more than a certain amount.

How do we stop the small boats?

Personally I think there are a couple of things that could be done, like allowing asylum claims to be processed in France.

I think we could offer a legal route for economic migrants. Often a family club together to pay a people smuggler to get one person in to the country where they work illegally to send money home. Or the person is smuggled in tot he country and then is forced to work to pay of their 'debt' to the smuggler.

I think we should offer visas for these people, expensive visas, just slightly less than the people smugglers charge and allow people to work legally for a year or two.

I understand the argument for asylum seekers not being allowed to work but I think they should be given opportunities to volunteer and to learn English.

We need more housing across the board. Putting people in hotels is not the answer, people think they are living in luxury. They are given 3 meals a day and get their bedding changed once a week but it is up to the hotel what they are fed.

Surely it’s a given now? Nothing has changed so far. People don’t say anything in public for fear of being labelled ‘far right’’. So they will just wait patiently until the next election and vote Reform.

Some of those GPs would have engaged in helping abort female fetuses, were almost universally raised to see women as secondary, and few chose to be doctors of their own will but were forced by their families. All normal back home.

It was a million ish arrivals a year for the last few years. So population of two Machesters added each year.
Mostly from third world with values on women and personal freedom that contradict our culture and values.
It doesn't work for the economy or people because of the number of dependants new arrivals bring who also become a user of public resources while being economically inactive.
This then makes up our population.
Gender and other mysoginist ideologies wouldn't have happened 30 years ago but it did now with boundary erosion and backwards thinking on women's right imported here.
Brexit was quietly cancelled despite the vote, by allowing unprecedented amounts, much higher than pre Brexit to arrive.

There is also the assumption that we are all here working in care homes. Nothing wrong with that but it's as misinformed as thinking we all come in small boats. We are GPs, Orthopaedic surgeons, Pilots, Engineers, Microbiologist, Teachers, and Business people. And some are here to be with their spouses and/or kids.

I don't understand why it's important.

Whose talking about a pure race? There's really no such thing anywhere, but there are nonetheless indigenous populations.

As for why governments don't do anything - with legal immigration there are two reasons:

1. It's an economic benefit for the powerful and professional classes and so they try and suppress anything being changed.

2. No government has quite worked out how to manage population decline in a global economy that requires constant growth to avoid total economic collapse.

I don't like to say it ....... but, did you mean to be so rude?

OP has asked a sensible question, and is entitled to receive sensible responses. You clearly don't have one, so why did you need to comment at all? If OP had wanted to "do her own research" then presumably she would have done. Sometimes it is easier to have it properly explained. Relying on research often gives skewed answers.

Is this a bait and switch? You spoke of indigenous Britons in your post, now you're talking about North Europeans. Anyway, let's move away from talking about some kind of pure race. We're a diverse country.

There are several issues OP which is why it can seem confusing I think.

One is that the flow of refugees has really increased in recent years, not just in the UK but everywhere. The rules for refugees came out of the post WWII period and reflect what things were like then.

Now, there are much larger numbers of people migrating, and they aren't necessarily the same kind of people - they may be more differernt culturally, or in terms of education and need for services to settle. These larger numbers and the differernce in their needs creates a lot more stress with integration, and in some places (like places in the US near the border) there is a huge demand on services that can't always be met.

In addition, a large number of the additional migrants are really more economic migrants, who actually aren't really eligible for refugee status. Having them come and try and claim asylum still costs resources however. And then there are also increasing numbers trying to fraudulently claim asylum, and it's becoming increasingly sophisticated.

The other issue is people coming legally, and the effect this has on communities. It has benefits of course, socially and economically. But it can stress community cohesion is levels are too high. And economically, adding a lot of workers tends to suppress wages and dilutes things like union action around benefits and working conditions. So this can appear to boost the economy, first because these people initially are new consumers, but mainly because it's very good for people at the top of the economic ladder who are employers - they can have cheaper workers used to less advantageous working conditions. It can also be pretty good for middle class people who get cheaper goods and services. But it is not good for the people who are at the same level as the imported workers who find their ability to demand higher wages and better benefits is reduced.

The other issue is with lower waged immigrant workers, that they will not likly earn enough to pay for the services they use, so it begins to bleed money out of public services - this is true even when it's workers that are sorely needed and is a real conundrum.

With all immigration, if the numbers are high, it will further stress any problems with infrastructure and housing and such. If you are in a housing or doctor deficit, add half a million people, you can build that many new houses and gain that many new doctors, and not get ahead.

There are other issues which are important but maybe not as central: the question of whether propping up an economy that way is sustainable; the tendency for governments to avoid investing in training their own people but just get specialised workers from abroad; the ethics of taking the best educated people from poorer societies after they have paid for their training; and the real problems that can arise in communities where you have ghettos form or where there are really significant differernce in cultural values.

None of these are specific to the UK, they are problems in most western countries to a greater or lesser extent, except where they have really restricted immigration.

A quick Google suggests the population of Britain is majority North European genetically speaking, despite migration in however many decades. The average ancestry in these islands isn't from Ghana or Indonesia, regardless of migration.

@AnotherDayInParadise43 Someone's been triggered.

Look at you throwing communist and fascist around with gay abandon. Anyone would think you didn't know what these words mean.

It's as though you aren't aware of the rise of the far right in many European countries such as Sweden.

It isn't far right to want a say in who lives here or in any other European country if you are a citizen.

So you keep saying. How does this 'sensible' discussion go? Lead the way.

'Far right' is akin to 'nazi' in the sense that as soon as you call someone you're discussing something with one of these names or try to use them as a gotcha, you've already lost the argument.

We aren't in the 1940s any more. It isn't far right to want a say in who lives here or in any other European country if you are a citizen. It isn't far right to not want your country to change dramatically in a social or cultural sense. It isn't far right to want to ensure the hard work you do and the taxes you pay, and shared with others who are committed to your country and its people as much as you are. It isn't far right to notice that many incomers seem to not only not want to contribute, but seem to despise the majority population in this country due to their skin colour and background - which actually is racism.

The political left behave much more like fascists and communists in our current era by trying to dismiss and stifle valid dialogue. We can have the conversation in a sensible way now, or voters are likely to choose for everyone at the next election anyway.

I'm sure you know your history and are aware that modern British people are not indigenous because we're a result of diverse interactions with other cultures.

I said indigenous/substantive.

A white British person could travel to live in Iran and gain citizenship, as could their children and grandchildren. They would be part of the substantive population. As such, one would expect the government to respectfully consult them on key decisions, along with the more indigenous citizens of the county/region... right?

I haven't shut the conversation down at all, in fact I said in my first post that the current level of immigration is unsustainable.

However I'm picking up on far right language and the influence of the far right in countries like Sweden which are being used as examples.

Labour have recently brought in restrictions on immigration so they are addressing it. Net zero immigration is for the delusional.