Hate how racist everything has become, and how quickly it’s happened.

[Silverbirchleaf]

I was just looking at facebook, and a ‘Sad face’ newsmaker article came up. Practically all the comments mentioned boats, asylum seekers etc etc. Its really getting me down.

Travelled to the south west last weekend. On the way down no flags on bridges. On the way back, in some areas, every bridge.

Its scary how quickly it’s all happening.

I know how much international fees for students are, I don’t need to look that up. What I am contesting is a ‘business model’ that requires international student fees making up a “shortfall.”

I am also speaking specifically on the training of doctors. Our taxes should go towards national funding for our medics.

I am not critiquing the university model in the UK as a whole — that’s another separate issue.

Home students need to pay higher fees seeing as it costs more than they’re currently paying to provide the degree. Whether this is done via a bigger loan or a graduate (and possibly a graduate employer tax) should be up for debate. Or maybe the govt decide to invest in the education of the workforce and contribute which ultimately would mean the wider taxpayers paying.

I don’t hate anyone. Why are you assuming that?

Do you think anything would change if your sleepy village had to accommodate hundreds of male asylum seekers?

Genuinely interested!

Super naive if you genuinely believe this is just working class people who are a bit fed up.

A quick look at Cambridge Analytica should clue you in.

So the government are lying when they say asylum seekers are in hotels?

This is from the BBC in August 2025 - Rising numbers of asylum seekers coming to the UK has led to a greater use of hotels for accommodation.
Figures released by the government on Thursday revealed that the number of asylum seekers being housed in hotels had reached 32,059 - an 8% increase in the year since Labour came to power but down on the 2023 peak.

I didn't say they were lying. I said that the image of people being put in 4 hotels is misleading. If I go and pay to stay in a 4 hotel, I expect a room on my own, decent restaurant, swimming pool etc. The asylum seekers get bundled in 4 or more to a room, swimming pool probably empty, no restaurant etc.

It is just a distortion of truth. As people have mentioned up thread, processing is higher since this government came to power, more people returned and the overall level of immigration down. That doesn't appear to make headlines tthough.and I don't especially like this government either.

I actually think that small boats (which are a very small percentage of the problem despite getting most of the focus) could be reduced to zero, and Farage would still be banging on about small boats. And people would still believe him.

I think it’s the fact that they’re being placed into these hotels full stop. Forget the all inclusive treatment. It’s the fact that they’re in a property that the general public have to pay for a room to be in.

You mean you missed all those recent years where critical race theory denigrated 'whiteness' in every conceivable way? And constantly told people they were irredeemably racist in books, lecture halls, DEI workshops, you name it.

Also, stop sea lioning. It's tedious given you're very much not open to understanding what this all means, but just want to indulge in some performative sneering.

Asylum seekers have been placed in cheap hotels for years and years. I worked in one in 2001-2003 and we had some asylum seekers staying for a while. It was good for the hotel as they filled rooms for a few weeks at a time which the government payed.

None of them stayed very long, the system obviously worked quicker back then.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 okie dokie

Wherever they are put someone else would have to pay for, even if it were a tent. About the only place I can go and stay for free is a park bench.

You really think asylum seekers are living it up in their cheap hotel and £9.95 allowance per week?

People wanting to discuss this need to have the same set of statistics, and then take it from it from there.

Like how many documented individuals have arrived by boat this year, the last five, ten and 25 etc.

How much money a local council, say in Bournemouth is spending

Crime statistics should be looked at not shyed away from

Sometimes figures are hard to get as only available by foi, and some people will happily right off any facts and figures because its being reported on by someone they don't like. But the endless cross commication isn't helping anyone.
Discussions should be based on at least some starting facts that people can understand as reality and the debate the merit of those facts.

For example these are some statistics showing assault figures. We can probably guess both no.s are higher as people don't report every assault however that dosent exclude the rates reported.

I don't, but the PP who responded to me earlier appears to. My point was exactly as yours is. They're hardly being kept in the lap of luxury.

That is your perspective but you clearly have no idea where they come from. For some of those people it is absolutely the lap of luxury. Free food and accommodation, healthcare and support IS a huge luxury and I am just staggered so many can’t see that. Have you ever been to parts of Africa?
I find the lack of understanding of true global poverty on here quite frightening. Also the total lack of comprehension of how much this is all costing. It’s costing billions and billions of pounds. We are footing the bill, no one has even asked us if we are happy to continue to pay such huge amounts for this. We are just expected to continue as more and more arrive, and the government sits idly by. No wonder people are furious.

As it happens, I have been to Africa. India too. The fact remains that the previous government introduced a system where an asylum seeker must be on British soil in order to claim asylum. So they have to try to get here. Once they are here, what are we supposed to do? Put them in a cardboard box until they are processed? Even then, you would most likely argue that even a cardboard box would be considered luxurious to some.

This government is actually doing more than the previous one did, so they are not sitting idly by. Processing is happening at a more rapid rate, and returns in Labour’s first six months were higher than in any two consecutive quarters in the previous parliament. I didn't vote for them, and I am not especially impressed with many of their decisions, but one must acknowledge the facts.

Yes, it does cost billions. You can blame the previous government for that. And, in a way, they did ask us whether we were happy about paying. They did that with Brexshit. While the majority who voted for Brexshit for reasons related to immigration believed they were doing so to reduce the cost, had they been better informed, they would have realised that the cost would inevitably increase as we would be losing the support of the EU, and then having to pay for things that we previously got for free. Talk about own goal.

IMHO, the law preventing asylum seeker applications without being on British soil should be reversed and it should only be possible to apply before you get here. And then, we need more processing capability to clear the backlog which Labour are already doing.

If you want to see a real cost spiral with no substance, you may be in luck as I suspect Reform may do well at the next election. If they get in, you'll really see costs go through the roof as Farage flounders around trying to make good on his totally uncosted and unachievable promises. If it weren't so serious, I'd almost want him to get in so that his supporters realise what a complete arse he is.

What utter bollocks. Extraordinarily inaccurate.

This government has no plan, is taking no action whatsoever to address the mounting crisis. They have no policies or plans st all!!! There is zero leadership or vision. They are utterly, utterly incompetent. Simultaneously wrecking the economy and doing absolutely nothing about this growing and escalating crisis.

There are good reasons why there aren’t routes to claim asylum as anyone with half a brain would know they would overwhelmed by claimants in hours. It could never work! This government could offer asylum routes all over the world tomorrow - why do you think they aren’t rushing to do it?

You are genuinely living in cloud cuckoo land if you think we can absorb another ten million people in the next couple of decades, totally and utterly deluded.

And yet, the evidence disagrees. More returns and more people processed. I agree about many of the other aspects of this government, but they absolutely are processing more quickly. So while it may not have a plan we agree with, to dismiss what it is doing undermines the credibility of your argument.

And I agree that there would be an influx of applications should the system change, but which is easier to deal with? An influx of paperwork or an influx of people? A paper application doesn't need to be housed in a hotel until it is processed.

Setting up asylum routes would not stop people coming, they will still be coming in their millions, you would also have to deal with millions of extra paper applications as well. It could never work, which is why no government of any persuasion has ever even attempted to set one up.

Processing applications faster is not going to solve the immigration crisis we are facing. We need to solve the root issue and that is there are far far too many arrivals in the first place. We are at breaking point. We really are, this is not about race. It doesn’t matter where they are from, it’s irrelevant - we have no more capacity to accept them.

There is no plan. There are no policies. There is a leadership vacuum. We are sleep walking into an unmitigated disaster. I wish we were not.

It is causing such terrible tension in communities. A pressure cooker is building. You can’t silence the growing unease that is building and building in the country.

We have accepted ten million already with no clear plan in place as to where they will all live, how our hospitals will cope.

Where is the leadership now?

It’s non existent.

We can not offer a home, schooling, free healthcare to the entire world. It’s just not feasible. We need a pause. Time to get the situation under control before the whole system melts down altogether.

How do you think the Japanese ethnicity was created? They didn’t come to Japan as a singular people, they are a mix of Jomon aboriginal, Korean rice farmer, Han Chinese and Siberian hunter-gatherer, all arriving at different points, and far from peaceful. It’s not so different to the English, yet you know it’s a total absurdity to claim there can be ‘white Japanese’ and ‘black Japanese’.

It’s not hateful to say white or black people cannot be ethnic Japanese (although they can become nationals, I’ve known a few!). It’s just observing reality.

What do you mean by setting up asylum routes? What I mean is reverse the process we have now. Anyone arriving to claim asylum is immediately deported unless they have made an application in advance, and been accepted.

I presume you are talking about small boat crossings, which are actually a very small percentage of the immigration we currently accept?

Where is your statistic of 10 million accepted immigrants coming from? Net migration to the UK averages about 325k per year over the last 30 years, although there has been a massive spike after Brexshit (see earlier comment).

I presume you are aware of the difference between an economic migrant and an asylum seeker and that the latter are not granted permanent residency, and are reassessed every few years in order to see whether their asylum claim is still valid?

The reason that processing is important is that it is the backlog causing the issues as these are the people being held in hotels etc. They are the ones awaiting a decision on whether they stay or go.

Your point of lack of leadership in general I dont disagree with. I am politically homeless at the moment. Previous shower caused this mess, current shower are making odd choices, and there is no alternative. Reform is a joke with no substance, and the Lib Dems are, well, lacking generally.

I’ve always maintained it was fine, because mass immigration destroys communities much more, with completely unrelated people with zero intention to assimilate.

It is a tangent to say that there’s no such thing as a black English person. It is an ethnicity, not a nationality. If anyone can be English, then really nobody is and it’s no longer a useful term (in fact you could see a future when the label will be completely abandoned)

Weirdly, I see my children as fully American but NOT fully English. White American is very broad and feels like it can fit my children. Just my feelings on the matter.

Firstly presuming anything is always a mistake and you have made too many assumptions in your post in my view.

You can in seconds fact check my assertion that ten million people have indeed arrived since 2000. Your suggestion that it is factually incorrect is wrong, it’s absolutely the case. The equivalent of the city of Leeds continues to arrive here every single year.

As a result the quality of life has deteriorated for everyone, the infrastructure is near collapse, the cost of housing has rocketed and is sparse, as have the costs to run public services. Even the sewage can not be adequately managed because our systems were not designed to deal with this many people.

I agree we must deport any illegal arrivals immediately. Setting up special routes via France or anywhere else would only act as a magnet. Labour are suggesting this as an option.

We already offer ways to obtain a legal visa, but most of the illegal people pitching up here would fail that process - so they lie and manipulate and exploit the system or disappear once here. people arrive here in all kinds of ways, not just ‘small boats’.

We need proper controls. Secure and safe borders, and an efficient way to deport immediately. A country such as ours should be capable of dealing with this, other countries seem to manage it perfectly well. This current government are allowing this crisis to get worse.

I will ask again where on earth is Starmer?

He has a duty to contain the mess he is responsible for. They have been in post for over a year now, and they have achieved nothing at all of note, apart from ruining the economy piece by piece and stripping pensioners of their winter fuel allowance that they reversed - what exactly have they done?? The people of Britain, of all ethnicities have had enough.