Immigration - can someone please explain it to me in simple terms?

[Illbeinthehottub]

So for as long as I can remember I’ve heard that there is a problem with immigration in the UK. There are headlines about it daily and it’s always an issue for government. It’s a big part of what Brexit was about.

I don’t personally understand all about it, what is the issue, is it simply than people feel immigration is putting additional pressure on services?

I’ve just seen another headline saying that Kier Starmer has lost control of the borders.

Conservatives were in power for 13 years, presumably immigration was still unacceptable to people. Now people are unhappy with Labour.

Can someone who understands explain to me a) what is the problem with immigration b) why hasn’t any government been able to have an acceptable policy that works c) is immigration just something for people to whinge about?

People equate immigrants with asylum seekers that come over the channel on rubber dinghies, and get housed in posh hotels with full board provided for them - apparently.

They extend their frankly thick (because the vast majority of immigrants are here legally on visas, with little to no recourse to public funding) and racist views to all immigrants.

Edited to add: The Gov rather than tackle the difficult problem of the boats, chooses to focus on reducing post-study visas for students, and making it more difficult to get work visas - because those things are much easier to deal with. Good luck if you need a well staffed care home for your loved one.

Immigration in the UK means anyone from any other country outside the UK moving into the UK. Pretty much the same as Brits do when they move to Spain/Portugal/Australia etc but they call themselves 'ex pats' instead.

I think it’s based on many of the following reasons

1. When people are struggling financially and they may be struggling to find a job they think that allowing people to emigrate to the UK will mean less jobs for them. (Untrue, of course)
2. People who live in areas where high numbers of illegal immigrants, mainly men, are housed can feel less safe to those living in those areas.
3. Xenophobia
4. Racism
5. The ridiculous belief that all immigrants are illegal AND are on benefits. Clearly if they are illegal they can’t be on benefits.

This list is not exhaustive.

You must know this though, surely OP?

There's some info here with graphs which show how recent years have had a huge increase: https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/

The Tories, despite their rhetoric, are ideologically committed to high immigration to suppress wages, it is in their interests. However, can increasing demand for care work be met by UK workers? Some arguments like "well obviously it will always be a poorly paid job with terrible conditions so we have to get foreign workers" feel very accepting of exploitation to me.

The boats on the south coast are a humanitarian nightmare and need to be stopped. I don't know how we stop it but this can't be allowed to continue, children have drowned and it will happen again.

I am not against immigration at all but Labour need to reduce the net numbers that the Tories allowed, otherwise Reform will get in and I really think that would be a disaster.

Hmmmmm

They basically ignore the immigration they like.

The NHS is crumbling because of the restrictions placed on migrant workers and the inhospitability they now feel post-Brecht.

G.o.a.d.y

That really doesn't seem to be why the nhs is crumbling. Have a read of the junior doctors thread.

We don't have an absolute lack of doctors and nurses. The NHS just doesn't have enough money to employ enough of them.

Obviously however Brexit has made us poorer and at the same time immigration has increased. So not the most sucessful idea.

We need foreign workers. But enough bullshitters have convinced large swathes of the population that we don't. And made a lot of money from it.

We haven't had an honest debate on immigration in this country in years because politicians are too scared to tackle it. But not in the way the bullshitters would have you believe

None of these posters have explained it to you op. I am 56 and for first 30 years of my life (late 60s to 90s) people hardly mentioned immigration as it wasn't an issue as was net 50k per annum (and some years was a negative figure I believe). There was good infrastructure, houses were affordable even for youngsters without a degree like me, indeed nearly everyone I know of my age even working class owns their home. The UK economy was good. Then Tony Blair decided to have more immigration for ideological reasons including no delay on free movement from eu countries with much lower standard of living than us which depressed wages and binning the primary purpose rule (look it up). It went up to 300k per annum and housing states getting more expensive, strains on nhs etc. Despite Brexit clearly being linked to public disapproval ofhigh immigration levels the tories took it up to ridiculous levels (1m per annum). There are obviously also cultural issues and links of asylum seekers to Islamic terrorism which we didn't have before (whole other post). Most immigrants coming now are low skilled and a massive negative cost adding to the country's poor financial situation. None of this is the legal immigrants fault but all down to terrible leaders of the past 30 years.

Brexit made it impossible for the UK to send asylum seekers back to a European country. We are paying France millions to patrol their borders now and still we are getting asylum seekers in record numbers. It has got to stop.

Are you an immigrant OP? Or do you live in some rural backwater? If not then I'm not sure how you could have reached adulthood without being able to conceive why mass, unprecedented levels of immigration may be causing issues, or why people personally exposed to these issues, wish it wasn't happening.

Renting has never been more unaffordable.

I imagine those who pay tax should be aware of the benefits to 'foreigners'.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/05/30/benefits-foreigners-near-cost-1bn-month/

The use of hotels for asylum seekers means a lot for the local tourist economy. It's good for the individual hotel but for tourists it probably means the cost of hotels is pushed up. It probably has a knock on effect on the impact of tourism, but I don't think I've seen research on that.
When they are given permission to remain they then can get benefits. The ones who don't get given permission stay away but are supported in other ways, and perhaps keep some of the black market economy going.

The asylum seekers who have come via other visas but decide they want to stay, also has an impact on the UK.

We need more reservoirs, more power generation, more housing, more hospital appointments, more GP appointments, more dental appointments.

There's a thread about the UK medical staff being unable to get places as they are not being offered jobs because migrants are.

How does any more migration help any of this?

I’m not an immigrant and I actually live in a very diverse part of the country.

Genuinely not trying to be goady but I might be living with my head in the sand a bit.

Of course I do realise that people have genuine concerns about the pressures that immigration puts on our services.

But when you see constant headlines day in day out, I wonder, what type of immigration is it that people have a problem with.

It is people coming to work, or is it asylum seekers, or is it people making illegal crossings. Or is it all of that?

It feels as though people blame Labour a lot for high immigration, but didn’t Conservative's have years to put effective policies in place.

Immigration is when people from other countries come to the UK.

historically there have been waves of immigration into the U.K. - eg in 1685 and beyond many many French Protestants left France for the UK and other Protestant countries.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Fontainebleau

more recently after the Second World War the government encouraged immigrants to move to the U.K. because we had a massive labour shortage. I grew up in Lancashire and many Pakistani people moved there in the late 40s and early 50s to work at the Cotton mills.

at the time commonwealth citizens had the right to live and work in the UK so strictly speaking they were British citizens born abroad who moved to the UK rather than immigrants. A lot also came from the carribean - the wind rush generation

What is Windrush Day? https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-43782241

in 1981 British nationality was redefined by the British Nationality Act and citizens of current and former colonies such as Jamaica, Pakistan etc were now considered mostly not British citizens.

Immigration stayed pretty steady through the 80s and started going up in the 90s.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/283287/net-migration-figures-of-the-united-kingdom-y-on-y/

the big changes came with free movement in the EU in the early 2000s when many people from Eastern Europe (Poland etc) moved to Britain.

since Brexit many of the EU citizens who were here have left and immigration has gone up massively and is now mostly from non-EU states such as India and Pakistan.

why people don’t like immigration:
it can put a massive amount of pressure on local government services in a particular area and government isn’t always good at meeting that need.
for example many schools in the fens had an influx of polish children when free movement started who spoke no English at all. There was no support from government for these children, schools just had to do their best with random 11 year olds who had no English.
Immigrants tend to cluster together where there are already people from their country (for obvious reasons). If you are English and your village switches very quickly to being a place where many people speak Romanian or similar and no English it can feel alienating
economically there is an argument that high immigration keeps wages low because there are more people around to do the jobs.
there are concerns about some of the cultures that immigrants are coming from - some asylum seekers in particular almost be definition will come from places of extreme violence and significant cultural differences (for example Afghanistan) and they may find it difficult to adjust to English cultural norms.

why people like immigration:
polish builders are amazing
immigrants mostly do jobs British people can’t or won’t eg veg picking and harvesting
the UK has always been a multicultural society and the skills and experiences immigrants have brought have enriched it - eg Notting Hill carnival, Birmingham Mela, etc.

Thank you.

Why on earth don’t governments just deal with it?

How difficult can it really be to do?

Dealing with it is very difficult without having a big impact either on the economy or on what people expect to be able to do.

for example, foreign students at U.K. universities are counted in the immigration figures. These students pay massive fees to U.K. universities which help subsidize U.K. students. If you try to reduce the number of students you get universities having less money and then they close whole departments and potentially you run the risk of a whole university going bankrupt.

if you say that farm workers cannot come in then vegetables literally rot in the field because farmers cannot get people to pick them. (There is now a year by year scheme for agricultural workers).

etc etc

The scale of immigration we've seen recently is unprecented.

Post-covid total net migration has been about 2 million people. We've added two Birminghams worth of people to our population in the space of about 4 years.

Nail on the head. Excellent summary.

Why is this?

The mumsnet,Demographic tends to be very middle class so a,lot of immigrants your average mumsnetter will meet will.be educated and in a profession ,it's all very well sitting in your detached four bedroom house calling others thick for not wanting unlimited immigration ,when it's not your local services ,children's schools etc that are affected by
This is partly the reason why people voted for Brexit,in the first place but rather than,listen to.peoples concerns about
Some people would rather shout thick ,racist etc.

I think people worry when undocumented people just rock up here, in rubber boats, across the Channel. 1100 yesterday.

All have to be housed somewhere, and provided with other services.

Unless the main parties get hold of this, Reform will gain more power.🤷‍♀️

I'm ethnically Indian myself. Early 30s, parents moved over and then had me here. And I myself do agree that there is a problem with immigration. And it should be massively cut. I live in a very unintegrated area where people can't even speak English. My primary school year group only had 2 white kids!

There are legitimately some parts of London where it feels like you're not in the UK.

Economically it may or may not be beneficial. But my main issue is the societal and cultural impacts.

Primarily because Boris Johnson introduced changes that made it easier for people to come here on student and work visas.

I'm not against immigration. Zero immigration would be a disaster. But I think the numbers are too high.... Immigration at over a million per annum , resulting in net migration of about 750k last year I think...my number one concern about immigration is housing. We have a serious housing crisis which is crippling peoples finances and is seriously detrimental to our quality of life.