Changes to immigration rules announced by Starmer

I'm just right.

And everyone sees the snide superiority for what it is.

Are you a right winger or a far rightie?

And that's the sneery, wilfully blinkered elite-lefty superiority complex checked off.

That is the Reform fantasy checklist ticked off

Yes, and while they are here they get some gullible UK female up the duff and then apply for a council flat ( and get priority because she's pregnant) and then they apply for asylum and can't be deported because they have a "right to a family life"..
They then join the other 1-3% of overstayers who can't get a job because they have done a Mickey Mouse degree in "Media Studies" or "Communications" or "Astrobilogy" and we end up paying out benefits for years.

Great idea.🙄

Yes you may have a point. I think the 700k was just not going to work anymore politically but how you change things so we don’t see the people we want to stay leave instead etc is a hard one.

I agree migration in the UK is very complex and it is hard to know which levers to pull. Tricky balance. I expect lots of uncertainty in the next few years. Which will ironically drive away high skilled immigrants with other options and attract more low skilled ones.

Yes, I do absolutely understand that. But they did cause the problem in the first place. I see that as a failure of Boris Johnson's government.

The question is how predictable it was. I suppose we should be glad that they recognised it when it happened and tried to fix it.

Labour are claiming to have made a difference with returning failed asylum seekers and increasing controls on illegal workers. That would be a good thing - unless it's just spin to take some credit for the drop - so I would like to see some numbers.

@glutesthatsalute You're getting our young doctors (who we spent £200k to train) because of our loose immigration policy which actually makes it easier for overseas doctors to get the job than our own newly qualified doctors. You must see that this is another area we need to tighten up, to prioritise them? Hopefully that is next.

I'll be interested to see a better breakdown of which students are choosing not to come to the UK. You're right that we absolutely want to keep inviting genuine postgraduate students - and if we are losing them back to your country then that's our loss and your gain.

It has become unbalanced though - and a slight rebalancing is no bad thing. A friend in research has told me that in recent years she now has almost entirely international postgrads coming to her Universiry. They're great students, but we need our own young people to take those top opportunities too. A mix is healthy. Yes, it will cost more to fund universities - but this is the mistake we keep making: accepting some cash in hand now, and selling out our future.

The student visas we really need to stop though is those being sold not as an educational opportunity but as a route for the whole family into the country. You can't pretend that isn't happening in large numbers. The trick is which levers to pull in order to stop that whilst still keeping (enough) real, high-level incoming students.

I work with many colleagues who are fairly recent immigrants. I value them hugely, and of course no one sees them as spongers. Ironically, one of my colleagues who I most want to stay is considering moving because of our high tax regime, which he sees as caused by overly generous social provision removing the incentive to work. He also sees uncontrolled migration and a lack of protection of our training and work opportunities for the existing population as a huge threat to the UK's future prosperity. He was committed to the UK - kids at school, fully integrated into UK culture. What is making him reconsider is concern for the UK's economy - due to our choices - not any imagined sentiment against him. He knows he will never use benefits or be out of a job.

To conflate concern over huge, uncontrolled, economically costly low-skilled immigration with negativity towards valued, high-skilled colleagues is ridiculously reductive.

@GlutesthatSaluteyou sound annoyed at the policies, is it for personal reasons? It’s hard to get visas down but no party can get voted in with 700k plus a year. It just became too much politically.

There are upsides to having so many people arrive for things such as care and universities but also downsides. I don’t feel strongly about legal migration really, but 700k plus is high and the last gov put policies in although they’re no longer in to say we did this. A bit too late.

@TheHouseofGirth They seem very pleased to take your hefty tax contributions. You see how people here fell over themselves to reassure you they don't mind YOU when you mentioned your salary. But still... you're a bit of a sponger, ain't ya. Deep down. Confess.

My country has a strongly rebounding international student economy (worth a great deal of money to us) and our universities are some of those benefitting from this particular kneejerk anti-LEGAL-immigrant policy of the UK's, so rule Britannia, I say.

Our medical vacancies are also being filled by UK-trained graduate doctors who can't get a job in their own country. We didn't even have to pay to educate them. Thanks, UK. Your policies are truly a boon to the world. Not sure what you're getting out of it, though.

It's mad there's no way of differentiating between quality of institution when allotting visas to overseas students. Someone studying a physics-related PhD at Cambridge or Imperial? Fair enough, and maybe they can bring their partner and children. A MSc in International Business at the University of Bradford? Come on.

I know it's not personal- no need to tell me again- but all the rhetoric about recent migrant = sponger is beginning to wear on me. Going to just call myself an expatriate! Sounds more glam.

Oh well. It will be interesting to check back in 5 years and see how universities, care homes and taxpayers are doing. If using a sledgehammer as a weapon doesn't work, who will be left to blame?

The spongers who pay double the fees and whom Coventry University estimate generate £651m a year for their city's economy?

I am sure the UK students whose fees will be increasing again to help cover the massive shortfall will be fine with it.

Fine by me.
Then the other countries can pick up the tab when all the kids need to go to school or get sick.

We have enough spongers in this country without importing any more.

Right. Thanks to Suella Braverman, international students are now spending their £££££ getting their Masters at universities in other countries that let them take their kids with them. It's not as though your higher institutions and student towns needed any of that money coming in. Truly, a cause for celebration!

Yes it takes time for policies to show in figures. The halving is from last gov changes to visas.

I think it's only fair to point out that the reduction in numbers was due to the last governments change to rules around visas ie not allowing applicants to bring their dependents with them.

Nothing to do with this Labour government

I'm very glad the changes to the rules have worked, and numbers look like they are going down fast. It was an urgent issue: granted immigration can't be reversed.

It's a bit shocking to have it confirmed quite how directly the recent loosening of migration policy around dependents and the abuse of student visas had increased migration by so much. That it was so quickly reversed by removing those blatant fake avenues. Labour seem to be suggesting that it's also because failed asylum and illegal immigration was let slide. I'd like to know more about what they've changed.

It's certainly become very clear that the crazy high migration Boris encouraged was far from inevitable.

This news doesn’t seem to have had much attention but is relevant to this thread and I’m just wondering how it will affect the Reform/ Tory vote I guess.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgx3ekkw1eo

I don't think that's true. Almost 1 million net migrants in 2024 was far too many. And the rules were ridiculously - knowingly - lax.

Yes and all people are really interested in is lowering illegal immigration.

what an odd thing to say!

Likewise 4 out of 5 voters are anti Labour! So what?

What matters is which party will get enough votes to form a government next election.

Or possibly a coalition.

Of the remaining 3 out of 5 voters who wouldn't choose either Tory or Labour as their first choice (of which more than half are Reform, and the remainder Lib Dem or Green) ... which party do you think they would prefer a coalition with?

Uh?

No "Gotcha" thats a silly and childish thing to say, its as Mel Stride said "It's Blindingly Obvious"

Even a stopped clock is correct twice a day!

4 out of 5 voters are anti tory!