Immigrants but legal ones?

It’s just a really complex situation.
For context, I’m descended from immigrants if you go back a couple of generations (and poor ones not highly qualified and invited here so probably illegal) married to an immigrant from a Mediterranean country who has been here 25+ years.
Both of us are scared by the media pushing Reform and the powder keg situation regarding asylum seekers and the protests. DH has said if Reform get in, we are off back to the EU, even though he’s basically lived his entire adult life here, has no friends from his home country at all, favourite foods are steak pie, black pudding and apple crumble!
But there’s a sense that his obvious foreignness makes him vulnerable in a way that he didn’t feel pre Brexit.
At the same time, both of us are uneasy at the polarisation of rhetoric about immigration. The middle class and liberal line is all about free movement and welcoming diversity, based on 30 odd years of globalisation. If you are working class globalisation doesn’t always work so seamlessly.
Of course a massive influx of people of a totally different culture to that of a Christian country will cause friction. It isn’t just about white/ brown (although for some people of course it will be) it’s that nobody likes rapid change they have no control over, and some cultures are obviously going to be less compatible with British culture.
Poorer people have much less control over where they live- the changes are not theoretical.
For context again, my street is a mini United Nations. My immediate neighbours are Ghanaian, Vietnamese, Syrian. It’s a respectable working class neighbourhood, everyone works hard and is friendly and it’s very peaceful. I’m lucky. But it works because of the mix. Large influxes from one place are always going to present a problem.

There are posters here who pop up on every race/immigration thread to whip up hatred and fear, threatening of 'dire consequences' and societal collapse. Same stuff over and over again.

I caught a bit of GB News just now. It's all 'boiling point' nonsense recycling the same few protests as if they are happening everywhere. They are desperate for civil unrest, see Farage's disgraceful speech recently.

The people painting flags on roundabouts and protesting are a tiny minority, whatever they try to make you believe.

They are illegal if their asylum claims are spurious and not covered by the 1951 Refugee Convention.

The ones found to be wanting to pop home for Christmas don’t sound very genuine ‘refugees’. This has been reported by the Chief of U.K. Border Force in a rare moment of openness.

We're also not a very big island and our resources are finite. That's not racist thing to say, it's simply practical. We are already stretched to the limits and our abilities to cope are failing - GPs, Dentists, Schools, Emergency Services, Adult Mental Health Support, Hospital Places, CAHMS, Social Housing - even getting the bins emptied and the streets swept - we're running out.

Maybe why the OP came to the UK is none of your business? Is that even relevant now she has been here for 16 years?

Judgemental post - I can just imagine you shaking your head at 'how sad' it is.

I don't have a British passport but have lived and worked in this country for over 40 years. In the NHS as a nurse - as that will give me extra brownie points.

I've had Indefinite Leave to Remain since I was 16 - but recently have had to prove my immigration status over and over. Theresa May changed the system to biometric data - v. cumbersome and difficult to do. It's just been changed again to an e-visa system. Again, very cumbersome and difficult.

If you want to apply for UK citizenship it will cost at least £3000 per person.

For me life is pretty easy though, that's because I'm white and adopted an English accent as soon as I could.

@OP I totally get what you're saying, and think the racism and bigotry in the UK is disgusting.

@blueclip You asked why services no longer work as they should.

It’s largely down to austerity over the past 25 years. Public services have been eroded, budgets and resources reduced.

It’s easier for some people to blame immigrants rather than votes and political policies which have led to areas being decimated and the public purse transferred to private wealth (PPE, Carillion etc).

It’s also preferable to the elite for immigrants, black and brown people to be blamed, while they continue to shake us down.

Exactly. Unfortunately for Pandora, she hasn’t been able to explain exactly what she thinks is racist about my post, apart from accusing me of ‘weaponising VWAG to bolster racism’ and this is the issue.

We need as a country to have a sensible conversation about this and we need the government to start listening and stop trying hide the problem and creating an information void that can get filled by others.

Then you get people like Pandora running round yelling ‘racist’ at people and wondering why the conversation gets heated.

Unless all the tax paid is all on income from investments or pensions, anyone paying tax is likely to be working. And if they're working, the country as a whole is benefiting from their labour as well as their taxes.

understanding why the UK has a much higher average refugee acceptance rate than France

This is a lie. In 2023 France received 167,000 asylum claims, more than double than the UK's approximately 67,000. In 2024 the numbers are getting closer with France receiving 130,000 claims, and the UK 108K,

I can't even get a quick illegal immigration stats check before Brexit. The number of illegal migrants before 2016 were very small but Google won't give that information because your governments doesn't want it to be easily obtainable.

This is how much crap you were fed by politicians selling you the slogan "wanting to control borders" during the Brexit referendum, and facing reality.

You said, without qualification: Unfortunately, the racism is dripping from your post.

In my post, as one if the issues we are experiencing, I mentioned the totally preventable rapes and murders perpetrated by these men.

I asked if you included those in your definition of ‘racism dripping from my post’ - now you accuse me of weaponising VWAG.

I note you don’t confirm that you view any of my other specific points as the ‘racist’ ones so I have to ask again - what are the racist bits?

Asylum seekers (incl those from Ukraine, Hong Kong and other humanitarian routes) is 16% of total UK immigration

No, we are not. In fact, we have welcomed immigrants since the Middle Ages. Learn your history! To say this is just lazy, lazy lazy!

Why do you keep saying such inflammatory and untrue things?

I said it because it actually happened.

Wtf? Wow.

Me too. And I'm also afraid of what it means for our future. Imo a far-right government could well be the outcome of the next GE.

I'm old and will hopefully have shuffled off by the time they've done their worst, but if I was young, I'd be really worried about what the future holds under a Reform government.

The UK taking 1% of refugees is huge

As others have said, many countries are like this and hold those born and with family native to that country as 'higher'.

My brother and his wife moved to N.Ireland, he is highly skilled, but found it hard to get a permanent job, and has been on a succession of temporary contracts, originally he couldnt even get interviews, and then when he changed his surname to his wife's Irish sounding surname he got some. When they were looking to adopt, it took them over 2 years to jump over all the hurdles, when should take 6 months, they were told they were 'ineligible' for a baby with no reason given.

It's terrible when people are judged by their nationality, rather than the skills they bring.

There is a very long history of people from Britain migrating all over the world and not making any effort to learn local languages or respect local cultures and traditions, but instead forcing everyone too speak/ read/ write English.

And those people have been rightly criticised because it is not always to the benefit of the people already in that country (although some African countries report that they have appreciated British education, infrastructure and rule as they are now far ahead of their neighbours).

Are you now suggesting that we have to accept zero effort for integration from some migrants because of the behaviour of some ‘yobs’?

Exactly ⬆️

Reform's immigration plans have no credibility either

My daughter’s mixed race and had 2 passports. Her dad was born in the UK but his parents travelled and moved back to their home country when he was a baby. He done all the visa process years before we met and holds British status. My daughter is literal my twin bar a couple features but holds her dad’s surname. She has never experienced any racism until last year someone called her the N word. Which didn’t make sense cause she’s white but her dad isn’t. However the person knows she’s is mixed race and more than old enough to know what she was saying. My DD asked her why she called her the N word and she replied to ‘you know why N’ so my DD smacked her in the face then went to the girls door and told her parents who were utterly mortified. It’s a sad world we live in xxx

Government policy is nearly always set by looking at the average case. There will always be many real-life examples of a much better outcome (or worse) than the average.

So long as we have immigration controls, this will always mean turning away some lovely people who would have made a very positive contribution to the UK. To place this in context, the current world population is around 8 billion. 1.5 billion live in Africa alone. In contrast the current population of Western Europe is just 200 million. For the whole of the EU this is estimated at 450 million.

Overall, the annual arrivals by boat will be a large net financial cost to the UK. It is much better for a country to manage any shortfalls in employment in key areas through relaxing its visa rules. These can be changed as and when needed, and proper background checks can be done on new arrivals.

I am very sorry if this thread seems to be a personal attack. As I said before, we can like and value (or love and have families with!) individuals who have immigrated to the UK by a range of routes. And still we can worry about the total numbers.

Can you point to the sources for the claims below, please?

"Migrants on average pay a lot more tax than the average UK-born person. So we are disproportionately funding the exchequer..."

"So we are disproportionately funding the NHS."

I gets really, really boring though. I have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else, have a British passport, British mum, British cousins, etc, etc, but have an accent from elsewhere.

Only yesterday, a person said to me, "You must have come a long way". And I said, "I've come from Camden" and she said, "but originally......" and paused, and waited. And this was at the theatre so yeah, it wasn't rude but why it was the most interesting thing about me to her, I really don't know.

I would much rather talk about the theatre at the theatre. About books in a book shop. About the weather if it suddenly starts pouring.