You and your family could be asylum seekers by this time next year.

[Nevermay]

Just want to point this out, as many posters seem to be of the opinion that asylum seekers are a different species, with different aspirations, different hopes and fears, different medical biology, and different housing and nutritional requirements than the rest of humanity

It could be you and your family next year.

There could be any number of natural disasters in the UK. Meteor strike? Tsunami? Volcanic eruption? All of these are likely in the UK at some point. There could be manmade disasters, war, famine, there could be something more personal that happens to you, you could be a witness being searched for by a hostile government.

You might be a highly qualified professional, ( many asylum seekers in the UK are) you could have worked hard all your life to pay off your mortgage ( many asylum seekers in the UK have) you could have kept yourself fit and healthy all your life and you may also have an assortment of serious or trivial medical needs. You might have french or spanish GCSE to help you, or you might not.

None of these things will mark you out as special, or different, if you are in a crowd of asylum seekers seeking refuge in another country. You will just have to sit and wait and hope with everybody else, maybe for years, your children with you.

I really wish people understood this, refugees and asylum seekers are no different to our own population, some are uneducated, some are criminal, most are decent people, many are highly qualified and come from affluent and successful back grounds.

When ever you think and speak about them, please just keep in mind, this could be you next year.

With all the we know you, racist type posts that is a fundamental flaw.

If there is no answer on numbers then it’s not a solution.

I agree. A series of natural disasters combined with a run on the pound leaving govt unable to help could impoverish us.

It's easy to forget Europe was poorer than Africa and Asia 500 years ago and suffering from widespread deforestation and loss of native wildlife 800 years ago

That's why America had so many European migrants - there wasn't much left at home

KeepYaHeadUp - Do you know what, I couldn't give a fuck whether you think I'm a racist or not. The population in this country is large enough, and I don't want it to be added to just because someone thinks they'd rather live here than France, Germany etc. In an ideal world we'd all be able to live where we like, I quite fancy Australia or the Maldives. In fact quite a few places sound appealing but it's not going to happen. The world doesn't work like that.

There comes a point when you have to say enough.

We have to be mindful of the social contract we have as a society. We work together, support each other with benefits (for some) pay tax for services we never use. Look after the vulnerable and in need through funding the social services, care system etc. All of this is carefully agreed by those that work their socks off to give everyone a civilised and decent life here.

There seems to be a prevailing sense in some corners of society that this is a given, an entitlement, but it isn’t. It’s a fragile concept built on trust and consensus. If we watch it being eroded away by people traffickers, criminal rackets, drug cartels and economic migrants we can’t be surprised when support is withdrawn. Already it has stretched the good will of the very people paying for all of this already.

We don’t want a free for all!

We want a good quality of life for every single person that lives and works here, it is NOT a limitless resource.

We want to extend our finite resources, hospitality and care to REAL refugees. Ones that are genuinely in need. We should not be offering homes and free money to dealers and those exploiting the system!

This is has never been and never will be anything at all to do with race for the very last time, and it’s bloody insulting and racist to assume that those of colour are not also propping up the tax system with very long work hours and are not sick and tired of the exploitation of their goodwill as well.

This simply can not go on.

Going back to the original point, I don't believe at all that this time next year my family and I could be asylum seekers.

It’s very odd that we are so preoccupied with having too many people when all over the world developed countries with low immigration are desperately trying to reverse or at least slow population decline and/or mitigate its effects.

The fact is that immigration has insulated the U.K. economy (and those of other European countries) from the impact of having a below-replacement birth rate. The fact is that if we didn’t have the levels of immigration that we do in parts of Europe then we’d be experiencing similar levels of population decline (with all the associated economic difficulties) as somewhere like Japan. In fact, it would possibly be even worse here as our slightly higher birth rate is propped up by higher birth rates among immigrant families.

It’s not only Japan either. Russia, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria, Poland, Portugal, the Baltic states and big chunks of the Balkans are all facing the huge economic strain of an aging and declining population. Even China, which has looked like an unstoppable economic juggernaut in the last few decades, is now going to have to come to terms with the impact of a population decline at a truly astounding rate. Their population declined for the first time in decades in 2022 and it is the beginning of a truly unprecedented depopulation that will hugely exceed what happened in Japan in scale and, more crucially, speed. Their working age population is likely to shrink by well over 20% over the next two and a half decades whilst the proportion of the population above retirement age is estimated to grow to almost 40% of the total. By the end of the century their population is estimated to drop by half. We, along with other Northern European countries like Sweden, Ireland etc. are estimated to hold our population relatively steady, largely because of immigration, and this is a huge advantage. India has another couple of decades of population growth but will start to fall into decline fairly quickly by the middle of the century.

We are moving towards a period of global depopulation pretty soon, where attracting immigrants is going to be crucial if you want to be economically competitive and if you want to have enough working age people to care for your elderly. Concerns about immigration feel very out of touch with the demographic and economic reality of the 21st century world.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

In all of this long and rambling post have you stopped and considered the powerful and permanent impact of AI on employment. It is no longer a futuristic concept but a development and advancement taking place right now.

Those that understand how many tens of millions of jobs are going to be lost in the next decade or two are certainly not fretting about population anymore! If it’s taking a while for that to sink in globally and on here then I suggest you do some research- your job may very well be one of the first to go!

Supermarkets, surgeons, nurses, care staff, farming, factory work, transport workers and drivers, doctors, customer service and that’s just the start…

If jobs disappear then migrants will stop coming and will head off for other places or stay where they are. We’re only an attractive place to come whilst there’s very low unemployment and high demand for labour. If that changes so will migration patterns.

There is no need to worry about overpopulation. The U.K. birthdate is significantly below replacement levels and in a state of decline.

AI will replace jobs to a certain degree, just like mechanisation did, but something else will fill the gap. It may even help to mitigate some of the burden of an aging population on the economy.

I’m a lot more worried about climate change than immigration or AI.

I’m a lot more worried about climate change than immigration or AI

Climate change and immigration are connected. Climate change leads to food supply insecurity which then amplifies immigration. It's a shortsighted to separate the two.

Really? Just disappear you think. What other country are they going to disappear to that offers free housing, benefits, health care, social care, education and a very tolerant nation. Please wake up.
Most people job or not will not be disappearing anywhere!

If the U.K. becomes a high unemployment, low labour demand economy then it will no longer be any of those things. Countries with high unemployment and low demand for labour aren’t attractive to migrants. They also tend not to be tolerant, progressive places. I don’t think the U.K. is likely to become such an economy any time soon. So I think it’s unlikely that migrants are going to go anywhere. I was responding to a comment that suggested jobs are going to disappear. If they do, people will stop coming. In the 70s the U.K. population was actually shrinking, because the economy was shit and migrants didn’t come when we had such high levels of unemployment.

Those claiming there's a need to increase the population with younger people, consider the case of Italy.

There has been much hand-wringing about Italy's falling birth rate - 1.24 children per woman in 2020. Yet youth unemployment is 21.7% - over one fifth of young people are unemployed. How does that square?

Asylum seeker is someone fleeing war or harm to them/their family,

Environmental refugee at best

The uk is full.

There is a similar situation in Spain.

1.23 births per women yet youth unemployment at a massive 27.4 %

I disagree. The people arriving here have a very secure safety net they won’t find elsewhere and not everyone comes here to ‘work’ in a role that involves paying tax, it’s a very outdated and somewhat idealistic view.

Are you sure you mean Mt Teide in Tenerife rather than Cumbre Vieja on La Palma. BTW the flank collapse theory for CV is now considered questionable.

Actually facts matter, and none of the events proposed by OP are at all likely. Empathy yes, we are all human beings. Saying absolutely ridiculous things in an attempt to prompt empathy? Nope.

Youth unemployment is often high in countries where population is in decline. Youth unemployment rates in Japan rose rapidly in the 90s to 2000s when their population first began to shrink.

It’s expected that China will also experience high youth unemployment in the next few decades.

They often go hand in hand.

https://www.nber.org/digest/fewer-young-people-will-not-solve-problem-youth-employment-0

all of the events I suggested are possible - that is the whole point

I've just read this to my partner who works in the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel.
After laughing out loud, and wandering if you'd copied that from Donald Trump, they said you'd better not come into the hospital for treatment if you fell and hurt yourself running away from all the 'men in parks chewing drugs' as pretty much every single person working in that hospital is a first or second migrant.