... to think that Nigel Farage will be our next PM?

We didn’t have a mass return programme though. Our numbers were tiny and we took more than returned.

It was only a few hundred. And the criteria was tough, and the people needed to be accepted back.

A few hundred back and taking a few more than that wasn’t really a factor. It’s not really a factor elsewhere in the EU either, they still have migration issues.

The last I saw of a country hailing success was a physical barrier which is of course tricky.

Another Brexit bonus Whoop!

Ironically preBrexit the UK actually had a big advantage over other EU countries partly because it was an Island so anyone rocking up at Calais had really obviously come from France. There was illegal migration in lorries etc where people were coming but not declaring themselves to the authorities. The challenge then was for UK border police to find them at our border and then they could be sent back immediately to France (usually to try again sigh. But they were sent back). UK border force got a lot better at detecting people hiding in lorries than they were originally though of course this still cost money. And small boats would be really obvious and easy to intercept at the shore so people didn't really do that
Brexit effectively removed the need to hide from immigration - on the contrary it makes more sense to immediately present yourself on arrival for processing.

We were the country that benefited the most from the return agreement. We could renegotiate it with France but politically it doesn't make much sense for France to take people back. So we would have to give them something in return whereas before it was a freebie from being in the EU. That disproportionately benefitted is.

I'm in a Greater London suburb and the amount of tent sleepers has increased noticeably. In the town and industrial parks, car parks and nature reserves. There are hotels being used to house asylum seekers but these are now being contested as illegal. We have children arriving in my school who are living in 1 room with their entire family. Our family services do home visits and are appalled. And they continue to arrive. I can't see how anything is going to improve. The town has hundreds of men in groups sitting around with not much to do. It feels safer being in Central London.

Lots of posts here suggesting that Reform might form the next government alongside another party. I can't imagine who would or could work with them. They don't even seem able to work amongst themselves.

Also, those who had actually been through the blitz when the war ended voted in the most left wing government on record, bringing the NHS into being etc.

But that was migration for economic purposes from other EU countries. Which another poster (@squishedmallow) specifically said was not a problem or at least not for Switzerland who are apparently much better at migration than us.

Small boats: When the UK was in the EU, the UK was part of a returns agreement with the EU. This meant that anyone travelling to the UK from the EU without a right of entry could be sent back. Not just to their original country of origin. But to the place they had just come from (eg France). So in theory someone could sail their dinghy from France to Dover. But noone did because they would have been sent back. Brexit ended that agreement and we can't send people back to France without their cooperation. So the only option is to process their claim and either return them to their country of origin if it's deemed safe, or allow them to stay.

Ironically "just tow them back" is exactly what lots of people supporting Reform want but that's not possible without an agreement with France and we had that agreement before Brexit. I swear Garage could stand at Calais with a stand selling rubber dinghies and lifejackets and a map of the UK coast line and people would still say only he cared about migration.

Oh and the party members leave, come back, leave again. It's a bloody shambles. How can anyone think they're a credible political party?

I would honestly like to get political asylum somewhere else if he gets in. Can't stand the man and I think people who vote Reform are so, so stupid to believe his false promises. They are also so racist.

What a pathetic nonsense all this is, prior to Blair's massive blow to our country when he flooded it unwittingly with low cheap labour filling these jobs was never an issue
Post blairs atrocity it's been falsely framed as an issue

How much is it helping those within the EU? They have similar migration issues and political pressures.

I live in a small town, we were a Tory stronghold until the last election. I have always been a bit of a swing voter. Our Tory MP was actually really good! He was often seen, easy to get hold of and did was was asked of him by his constituence. We now have a lib dem and he's absolutely awful, impossible to track down and does zero. Most people I know ( and I know it's only a small bubble) will definitely vote reform next time, this goes across ages and normal voting intentions. Most that I have spoken to about it didn't vote at all last time, due to a dislike of the conservatives behaviour over the last few years and a concern for stamers government. They now feel justified in their opinion of labour and that the Tories aren't challenging or pushing back enough. Many of them don't actually like farage but do agree with many of reforms policies. Racist as someone said up thread has lost any meaning to many people and they really don't care if that's a word bandied about. I don't think farage will be pm but I do think there is a very big possibility that reform will be or part of the next government. Just my little opinion!

Because all sorts of agreements linked to our membership fell away and data sharing etc got much more complicated. Essentially, as far as I understand, we're having to rebuild a system with France bilaterally and it's not as easy as continuing with what we had before because we lost access to a whole bunch of stuff. So yes, Brexit is a massive setback regarding illegal migration from outside the EU.

That's true but the previous arguments on here were about small boats and the fact that numbers were up this year. The small boats from France is connected to Brexit. Asylum claims from people from Pakistan who arrived here legally/through conventional channels aren't down to that. One thing that would help that is clearing the asylum backlog and processing claims faster. Otherwise people can arrive from Pakistan or anywhere, falsely claim it's too dangerous to return and then sit out the slow moving asylum process, not legally allowed to work but possibly doing cash in hand jobs. But when I said that it wasn't just the numbers arriving by boat but how fast the UK government processed asylum claims and returned rejected claims the other posters got very cross for not centring the small boats.
And there has also been an increase in legal economic migration from Pakistan and other places outside the EU. Which happened because a lot of EU migrants stopped coming/went home post Brexit and people were needed to fill their jobs (and also because of Hong Kong and China political stuff).

And once again Farage knew all this would happen.

Yep and as others in the EU are still struggling with the same it’s not the relevant factor.

@Kitte321

Immigration wasn't a hot political issue when I was growing up and what we had seemed low and manageable to a degree.
Unfortunately it all kicked off under tony Blair the the horribly stupid lifting of rights meaning a great deal of people came here very quickly
But famously no one was counted in

Instead we were gaslit as as a country , communities under horrific strain ,the NHS , doctors ,schools, the police.

That's when it became the no 1 issue.

On my own small sample size ive never heard anyone saying they don't want immigration but what's happened to us a country is extreme and we have suffered.

Love your source 🤣

Sorry I don't follow. People have been migrating across Europe mainly from the African continent with the goal of reaching the UK. France are fighting a battle to manage and it is only recently that a new law has been implemented allowing the boats to be destroyed in the water. How would this have been prevented had we been in the EU? Brexit has been a disaster in business terms but I don't believe for a mi item that the issue of the boats would have been better.

I just find it mind boggling that voters cannot seem to grasp that change can absolutely be for the worse...

Why do believe the 'small boat problem' wouldn't have happened had we stayed in the EU?
Because every single fucking thing has got bogged down in new bureaucracy because we left a system that we'd helped shape to our advantage in many instances. Maybe some compromises were required from us from time to time but this kind of stuff - managing borders- was logically much smoother before we flicked two fingers at the neighbours. And now we have a lot of red tape.

And I remember anyone pointing this out in the run up to the referendum was accused of racism by leave voters!

Why do believe the 'small boat problem' wouldn't have happened had we stayed in the EU?

Our largest number of asylum applications comes from Pakistan according to published data. Most don't even arrive on small boats. They wait for their visas to run out and then claim it's too dangerous to return.

Agree completely. Any message of change feels positive even if there is a lack of substance, strategy or real grass roots initiatives. People can see bulging waiting lists, growing classes, knife crime, grooming gangs - they can see and touch it. NF says that they are ‘heard’ and he can deliver a silver bullet solution.

Those of us who argue and suggest it might not be the silver bullet it’s made out to be are shouted down. We are too
privileged to understand. Too sanctimonious. All the other parties just aren’t able to successfully communicate a message that lands in the same way.

Video evidence of people entering Switzerland illegally!

Well, we had agreements in place that limited irregular migration to the UK. And lots of EU migration (just like Switzerland has lots of EU migrants) because of freedom of movement. Voting to leave allowed Britain to restrict movement of EU people. But also directly caused the small boats problem. So it limited one type of migration but caused an increase in another. If the problem is only non EU migration why did people vote leave?
And Switzerland does have refugees)asylum seekers and lots of arguments about illegal migration too. So you thought wrong when you thought not.