To think that net immigration…

[Libertass]

Of 745,000 people a year isn’t what the 17 million people who voted for Brexit in 2016 thought they were voting for?

YABU = Yes, this is what Leave supporters voted for.

YANBI = No, they didn’t vote for this.

EU students paid UK fees (and some still do, but that number is decreasing each year) so they were also being subsidised by international fee paying students as UK students are.

Once you have graduated from Canadian university you can remain in Canada indefinetely and then start on a path towards citizenship.

Perhaps that is a system the UK could consider?

When the Prime Minister moves on from it I will to, as it was he used it at PMQs this week, but maybe that is because he has been an economic migrant?

Yes sounds like it’s worth looking into. Idk details like this

It wasn’t funny to start with, it’s not funny now.

You worry me. It’s time to let go.

It doesn't matter about student numbers. If they are here for a 3 year course, then you have similar number leaving and coming. The net effect will be very low. However, if they are staying behind, and you have a big difference between studing coming and leaving, then net migration will show it.

It is what's Brexiters has voted for. They may just not understood what it means. It's like people buying an apartment in a retirement village, or buy now pay later or equity release. You can't blame people for not understanding what your vote means.

They can, they return to their country of origin and apply for a work visa, same as most countries do.

As a young student from India said on the World Service last night "Yes its very expensive but a UK degree is worth far more than one from an India Uni" she had to prove she had tuition fees in the bank but not how she would fund her living costs.

If UK Uni's are so underfunded that they have to rely on huge numbers of overseas students, might i ask why we had a £21 billion tax cut this week?

I think they are just naive to not understand. The whole narrative about controlling migration is so we can issue visas to Indians, Nigerians, etc. Instead of Eastern Europeans. These are legal migrations and all with visas the home office issued.

@ReadyForPumpkins indeed- and not all scientists or nurses etc- I worked in a business centre where a company was based doing all the face to face processing aspect. It was mainly Africans, phillipinos, Indians and Pakistanis. The occasional Hong Kong or Ukrainian - very very few EU, Australians or US etc - it's large families in most cases, not single people too

TBF i think Sunaks heritage and his family connections with the Modi's is quite a relevant point.

I feel very sorry for that Indian student who believes her exorbitant British education will be so valuable to her.

Students paying more are good imo. They also add to the diversity etc plus towns and cities thrive in locations outside London

I take the pp on visa fraud or money required etc though

Maybe because I had similar o/s, many countries benefit from an attractive tertiary sector

I’d probably be in the same space as when I voted in 2016 (remain) if it wasn’t for what I see as huge pressures that will break post war set up

I think though @EasternStandard that aspect was always more controllable. I personally am more comfortable with a flow of EU citizens too and fro (and reciprocal) than having the pressurised need to take large families from developing countries (and not so developed) I'm sorry if that sounds harsh to some. It's unlikely we would have a glut of French or German or Danish families rushing to use their FOM . They were also really strict on this when we lived in Denmark pre withdrawal agreement for all EU countries- you couldn't claim anything for quite a long time and had to be in work or studying and registered by 6 months- so those rules clearly can be used. UK couldn't be arsed to administer it correctly

Agree but it has to be controlled, not used to save the treasury money on Uni funding.

I think most places in the UK have enough diversity, people would rather have more affordable housing.

Very instructive thread for me, as a recent-ish immigrant.

Rishi Sunak was born in Southampton. He was on a student visa ( I think) to the US then went back to the country of his birth (Britain). Biris Johnson was born in the US.

God help you.

He worked at a hedge fund in California - so he was an economic migrant to the US.

Skilled migration to the UK of course is in a sense the British Empire at its worst - in a sense pillaging all talent from lower income countries. it is not as straight forward as it is always a good thing to have high immigration into the UK.

The UK is too crowded in my view and the US and Europe are going to have much bigger immigratino issues with things like climate change and the popularity of our democratic systems and ability for people abroad to travel here and see our countries more easily due to the internet so I think the world probably needs to develop some new rules for this new era.

About 4% of immigrants are asylum seekers without visas. Many of those will have useful skills but they are now detained and cannot work until the government sends them to Rwanda.

There is no social housing and virtually no affordable housing in my local authority which has a population of which 95% was born in the UK. We cant get doctors appointments either

@Xenia Perhaps you should let skilled migrants decide what is and isn't the British Empire for themselves. They are certainly skilled enough to make up their own minds. Bit like saying Silicon Valley- built by immigrants from the world over- is pillaging all talent. Talent flows.

Yorkshire's population only increased by 3.8% in the last decade. The problem is not the people its the degrading of local services by the government. The NHS is held up by migrants and the PM sits in his big Yorkshire house telling us things are getting better with him in charge

Immigrants are generally net contributors. Its older , sick Brits which cost the country so much. Still many will be forced into employment under the welfare changes and those that need social care will probably die of neglect when Jenrick stops allowing social care immigration