To be shocked at the net migration figures currently being discussed

[Feelingathomenow]

Yesterday’s figures discussed by the Tories stated that since 2010 the net migration figures to the UK has equalled the size of the population of Wales. Today we were told the figures to June 2023 showed a net migration figure of nearly 1 million for that year, for the year to June 2024 this had reduced to a mere 3/4 of a million. The numbers coming in of the boats per year alone is equal to a large town. AIBU to think this has to stop. We need to immediately crack down on people allowed into this country- limit it to urgently needed highly skilled jobs and start offshore processing (or similar) of the people who are here illegally (basically like many other countries).

We just can’t cope with those numbers. - no wonder our infrastructure is collapsing, we have a housing crisis etc.

I want to hear from the government how they are going to tackle it. We have heard from the Tories now it is over to Starmer.

This is no doubt a real problem but reflects a lack of investment in the country’s infrastructure by successive governments, who have in particular failed to plan for an aging population. Lack of gps and dentists are due to staff shortages which are bein managed by - migration. There are now more doctors trained overseas registering in the uk each year than uk trained and the bottleneck is due to an aging population with multimorbidites taking up a huge proportion of resources. We also don’t have a ready supply of labour to build new homes assuming the government actually acts on its pledge.

To June 2023 there had actually been 44,460 detected arrivals on small boats (it’s accepted that the actual number is likely to be significantly higher) - link below to government figures. Hardly any of these have been processed.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-june-2023/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-june-2023

You don’t think the population of immigrants equal to the population of wales that has arrived since 2010 might have had an impact?

It doesn't affect them yet. It will do though for their children and grandchildren.

@TENSsion - I bumped it last night just above my post about how trying to claim there's no racism is as much of a issue as trying to claim it's all racism.

For what it's worth I'm an immigrant and a Brit in that I don't live in the UK. Kids' are educated in English. DD (GCSE stage) is the only one of her friends who is first language English. You would never know except for one child who only started being educated in English when she got to secondary and so has a Russian accent (but otherwise fluent - limited base to fluent enough to be expected to get all 7s+ at GCSE in 3 years). My DD is not in anyway impacted by being one of very few first language English children in her class. It's not a default that is a problem!

This!!!!!

But the point @DoraSpenlow was making is that if a country sees Brits as a burden (no matter how they regard themselves), it should be at liberty to put restrictions in place.
Isn’t that what’s been happening since Brexit? Surely Brits can’t just move to Spain now?
To say that British pensioners don’t contribute to the tax system is not quite accurate if they pay VAT.
As for healthcare, I‘m not sure what the arrangement is now, but before Brexit there would have been reciprocal agreements in place.

Ah well, you obviously know better than I do. Even though I worked in the school.🥱🥱

It’s wild that you think these two school are comparable. It shows a complete lack of awareness.

Why so combative? I didn't say anything about your personal experience. My comment was that it isn't a given that having a majority ESL kids in a class is detrimental to language acquisition. It isn't. It was in your case and I completely acknowledge that it often is. It comes down to resources (which absolutely is an important point in the discussion) but also the characteristics of the ESL speakers. If you look at somewhere like a university town then that gets large numbers of children from Indian Hindi speaking families (so are ESL children but have been through Indian education with strong emphasis on English/ have parents with a high level of English at home to support them), it's completely different to the situation where children are coming in as part of reunification processes and straight from an environment where they have had very limited exposure. Without resources the latter group absolutely can result in an impact on the class as a whole. The former group probably speak better English than half of the first language English speakers in the class!

According to the government website the UK population is 80% white, do you think that pp's observation perhaps highlights an integration issue?

Several years ago a local primary school recorded 45 different first languages spoken by it's pupils- it's a challenge to behaviour management let alone teaching when children at school can't (or sometimes just pretend they can't) understand their teacher.

What’s the different between an ex-pat and a migrant for you?!

No. It is clear racism. They didn't say only British, they didn't say only native English speaker, they didn't even say only child who had grown up in the UK. They said only white child. You don't just accidentally jump to the issue being a skin colour one if you're not thinking on those terms.

Yes there are integration issues that need to be addressed. But let's not deny that there is blatant racism as well.

@Feelingathomenow yes of course but the vast majority have been allowed to immigrate to take jobs that actually improve the nations public services and infrastructure so it’s not that simple. And in answer to your question should we keep on accepting immigrants and when I’d enough, my answer is no we shouldn’t and should stop when there are no longer hundreds of thousands of roles we can’t fill in essential services. It’s not just about numbers it’s population structure. I still haven’t seen a credible answer for this - just talk of “illegal” migrants who are a tiny drop in the ocean compared to the hundreds of thousands who come in each year on health and social care visas. And the figures will also naturally drop when international student numbers stabilize and as many are returning home as arriving.

Sorry, a credible answer for what?

You only have to think about this for 2 minutes
The majority of immigrants are young, not ill, and coming on student or work visas. Many of them are working in the NHS. They are mainly part of the solution not the problem.

People staying alive longer also increases population.

@Feelingathomenow how we fill the long-standing vacancies in health and social care and other areas considered unattractive to work in, that are driving the bulk of migration

There are those that think human overpopulation worldwide is leading to an extinction event. Can we afford to test that theory?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17910054-the-sixth-extinction

Those who push for increasing numbers often can't say how high the population should be

Or as pp said we should discuss it. Well we are discussing it now

Why not now? Kicking it down the road makes it harder

Would you send your child to a school where no other child in their class barely speaks a word of English?
Where the teacher has to speak in very basic English in order to have a handful of children understand them?
Where they don’t hear fluent or ambitious language for six hours a day?
Where your child starts to speak in very basic English in order to be understood by their classmates?

If your child started asking for things by saying “me pencil”… you’d be fine with that?

Because that is what was and is happening; only the families of the English speaking children are too poor to move out of their area and choose a different school. And if they did, they’d be accused of racism.

We’re not talking about a private/ elective school where rich people choose to send their bilingual children in order to improve their English. We’re talking about grinding, inescapable poverty.

Can I suggest you re-read my post? Because I'm not sure why you feel the need to make this point to me. I haven't disagreed with you ever. I've just pointed out it's not always the position that ESL children impact others language acquisition. It's very dependent on the group of children at the school.

Because your first comment to me was diminishing the impact of being the only native English speaker in an English classroom by comparing it to an elite English speaking school abroad.

Your privilege doesn’t compare to their experience.

Furthermore, how do you propose we make it less impactful? Do we make it so that children can only attend English speaking schools if they have a certain level of English as I assume happens at your child’s school?
What happens to non-English speaking children then? With no access to education or teaching of English?

Who is pushing for higher numbers? no one.

The record rise in immigration arose under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, pre 2019, migration was around 210k net.

Yet we still have labour shortages in care, agri, logistics and factory work.

As is the record rises in people not working due to sickness, both physical and mental.

What has happened to the UK?

Most racism stems from lack of integration- on both sides. (when you fail to actually connect to each other as human beings, the quality of character not the colour of skin)
It can be just as difficult being the only white person in the room if you are othered by classmates expecting racism - it cuts both ways.

The number of people on MN who talk about racism and 'brown people' or 'white people' or 'gammons' shows where their focus lies.

I'm not searching for quotes for the pp, they can read back, but yes there is sentiment that we have the capacity

Discussion on this topic has always received backlash from some