This government and their direction of travel, frightens me.

[Kendodd]

Teressa May (last government, but same party) with her 'go home immigrants' vans and hostle environment.
Immigration and Borders act.
Transportation to Rwanda.
Bringing laws in trying to limit our right to protest.
Lying to the queen to prorogue parliament.
Lying in the house of commons.
Trying to change the law to get one of your MPs off.
Pretty much ripping up the ministerial code.
Windrush.
Admitting that they're just going to break international law.

I bet they will come after the human rights act and try to get us out of ECHR.

Worse, I think a great many of the public love the fact they've done all the above and would cheer loudly at the ripping up of the human rights act and ECHR membership (wtaf?)

How did we get to this?

@jgw1
Come visit me in Barbados or Jamaica anytime. I will appreciate you.

No we are only allowed to think about one thing at a time.

It helps that we're a nation of thickos

@jgw1 no, I don’t thanks. I’m allowed to comment on what I think this country has become. I’m not proud of it.
As far as I’m concerned people who need to flee are welcome here. As are people who need to earn money.

@devildeepbluesea YesCymru FTW!

We don't even have the money or housing to adequately house our own people, let alone every person in the world that would like to claim refugee status and come here.

How much tax would you be willing to pay? How much rent or mortgage are you willing to pay?

We need to decrease the population, not increase it.

Why is the UK "an insignifant little island" (less than 1/2000th of the world) when it suits and yet we are a major power, responsible for most of the world's problems and it is disgusting that we aren't happy to take on all the world's refugees ? It's ridiculous.

Hopefully, the remainders on this thread can be left to sort this out. I think we could agree on something positive.

Except Florenz.

@Florenz

We don't even have the money or housing to adequately house our own people, let alone every person in the world that would like to claim refugee status and come here.

How much tax would you be willing to pay? How much rent or mortgage are you willing to pay?

We need to decrease the population, not increase it.

Why is the UK "an insignifant little island" (less than 1/2000th of the world) when it suits and yet we are a major power, responsible for most of the world's problems and it is disgusting that we aren't happy to take on all the world's refugees ? It's ridiculous.

We really don't let every person in the world with refugee status come here?

Can I ask a question - what do you think when you hear the worldwide refugee stats?

83 million refugees.

4 million in Turkey
823,000 in Ethiopia

Most refugees living in adjacent countries - mainly in Africa - in large camps.

We don't even have the money or housing to adequately house our own people

Due to poor government planning and policy. Things can change, if any government had foresight and stopped thinking about the short term, things could be implemented for the better. They just dont or wont and the general public continues to moan at how we can't possibly do x, y or z.

[quote AlohaMolly]@devildeepbluesea YesCymru FTW![/quote]
YESCymru

@PurpleThursdays Yes, it's about political will. Learning the country's history should and could enlighten the future. There's a lot to gain, but much fear to overcome. I hope it's possible, but can't count on it in my lifetime.

We need to decrease the population, not increase it

The world population is increasing - with an increased need for limited resources
There is conflict in parts of the world and people fleeing conflict
Authoritarian regimes are forcing people to flee.
Climate change is causing droughts and weather disturbances - along with all the consequence that can bring.

It's a depressing situation. Maybe it is better to live in a bubble and cut ourselves off from the rest of the world

Concerning yes

Terrifying after seven weeks of seeing the war in Ukraine on the news every night

Of course the government need to do something they have put out a plan now the opposition need to put forward what they would do that voters will listen to

We can’t have open borders we have thousands of families living in temporary accommodation. And who would suffer the most from taking in the many people that would come here if we had open borders. It would be the poorest in our society as it always is immigration does not impact wealthier parts of society

@Florenz

We don't even have the money or housing to adequately house our own people, let alone every person in the world that would like to claim refugee status and come here.

How much tax would you be willing to pay? How much rent or mortgage are you willing to pay?

We need to decrease the population, not increase it.

Why is the UK "an insignifant little island" (less than 1/2000th of the world) when it suits and yet we are a major power, responsible for most of the world's problems and it is disgusting that we aren't happy to take on all the world's refugees ? It's ridiculous.

What in god's name are you talking about? Britain does not take on the world's refugees, Britain is not great, Britain is a fucked up mess with no discernible leadership. And it suits the small percentage of richest whitest people to keep it this way.

As an Australian I feel I can speak with some understanding of this because we are world leaders in treating refugees like shit. The reason why is quite simple - it’s a way for politicians to seize or hold onto power. You just harness the innate racism and xenophobia that exists in a sizeable proportion of the community. You encourage them to believe that the reason their lives aren’t great is because there are too many ‘foreigners’ in their country. It isn’t difficult because many of them already believe it. So they vote for you, to protect them from ‘the other’. Their lives don’t change at all of course but once the dog is off the lead you can never put it back on. Because if you decided to act with some human decency on refugees and immigration the other side of politics will jump on it and call you soft. They claw their way to power on the backs of the most disadvantaged souls in the planet and we allow it, because enough people are either racist or too selfish to care, or both.

How about we start with the less fortunate of this country before we try to solve the problems of the rest of the world?

We could do both? But no, people insist on voting for a government which will do neither!

We bomb countries for our own financial gain, Iraq, Libya, Syria etc. Displace people and then wonder why some of these desperate people rock up on our shores. There is no connecting of dots. And as OP pointed out, we have a populace that are quite ignorant and not capable of critical thinking.

I haven't been able to get access to free health care over the last couple of years. Which is shocking. But understandable given the pandemic. The pandemic and Brexit has made the general populus very selfish and quite nasty. The cost of living crisis exacerbates this.

Boomers that have done very well during the pandemic financially and those that could afford the Brexit gamble are so disconnected from the younger generations and clueless.

We have a horrible Government, that are ruining a once proud nation. Our national debt was off the scale pre-pandemic, way, way worse than the Blair years, but goes unnoted. Those that voted or championed Tory or Brexit won't back track.

The more we are down trodden, the more spiteful and resentful we are likely to become. It's classic divide and rule. They get the mansions, we get the ruins. Same old story.

Forgetting about immigration we are not really the "5th/6th richest country in the world". A better measure is GDP per capita which puts us at 26.

Immigration confuses me. We have an ageing population & skills shortages & actually need immigrants but it's just not popular.

as other posters said we are completely screwing over our young & the economy is in a bad way with low productivity & investment. This was true before the pandemic.

But there doesn't seem to be any will to change anything just more division & blaming benefit cheats or immigrants.

We need to decrease the population, not increase it

Our population should start declining in the next few years. The issue we have then is the demographic shift which hasn't been planned for as no one expected the birth rates to drop so dramatically.

This was due to lack of resources through austerity and cuts, yet people seem to think if there is no immigration the lack of housing and services will repair itself when those services have been dependent on immigration in the first place. Our issue is a government and its policies, not immigration.

absolutely.

People talk of landlords & devaluing of salaries but that's because the Tories tax income not wealth, haven't invested in the economy & QE has inflated assets.

They could see no future here with the cost of housing and everything else.

This is what our children will see, high tax but no prospects & I expect more & more will emigrate.

And when we realise we need immigrants we are not going to be looking too attractive to them either.

People in this country need to stop having so many children

Er do you know what the birth rate. People really aren't having lots of dc. Our population increase has been caused by immigration & people living longer.

I don't need any building work doing on my house and I am quite capable of caring for myself, so I fail to see why we need any of them to migrate here.

🤦🏻‍♀️

I just said if their perception of this lovely country is as they described then they know where the door is. They can choose to live in all those wonderful countries that are so much better, with such nice people if we disgust her so much.

What/where is this so-called "door"? Eighteen months ago UK citizens had right of abode (subject to a relatively simple application and documentation process) in 31 additional countries. Now it's one. Are you suggesting that everyone unhappy with living conditions in the UK should go to Ireland? What do you think that would do to the Irish economy? It seems awfully mean-spirited (and ironic) to suggest this as a solution to the UK's problems, given the legacy of British imperialism in Ireland which still persists.