Are all of us foreigners just going to be told to pack up and leave if Reform win?

[Onegingerhead]

I might be totally unreasonable here (or not), but please hear me out.
(Bloody) foreigner here — I’ve lived in the UK since 2001. Built my whole life here: house, husband, DC, the lot. Worked the whole time in a field that requires the highest level of qualification.
I’m getting increasingly worried about the talk of Reform winning in 2029. Some even say it could be sooner if Labour are pushed into early elections. This week (as we all heard) our beloved Reform suggested rescinding ILR or even settled status from Europeans. God knows what else they’ll come up with, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if they went after naturalised Brits next and started revoking citizenship, just to please the voters.
I know a lot of foreign-born women — some married to born-and-bred Brits, some to other Europeans (not always from the same country), some to men from overseas. All sorts of combinations.
So what do you think lies ahead for us? Will we be politely asked to leave, or will things just get so hostile that we’re pushed out anyway? And how likely is it that people who aren’t very white, or who have an accent, will face more discrimination in work?
I’m meeting my foreign friends tonight and we’ll be talking about it. For most of us, moving now would be incredibly difficult. We’re late 30s to early 50s, and starting over in a new country isn’t exactly easy. Some of us are married to men from different countries entirely, and we don’t even speak each other’s languages well enough to get proper jobs there.

AIBU and should think we will actually be allowed to stay?
AINBU sorry but you’d better start planning your move now

There is no better way than a 'liberal democracy', unless you think this way of running things - politics as entertainment, profits as the Telos, forgetting about civic duties etc. etc. is going to not mean the end of our freedoms?

People can be cynical and hate the government but the government are citizens, people voted for the government and they should take personal responsibility for harmful laws and failing institutions/policies. Forgoing our freedoms isn't going to improve any of this.

The US and UK do allow dual citizenship, in both directions, and, as part of the process, both countries are aware.

What dual citizenship (with these two countries) does not do, is absolve you of your US tax responsibilities, so there's no tax benefit at all to US citizens in the UK, although there might be in the opposite direction.

In fact, for Americans in the UK, it makes figuring out your taxes extremely complicated. So, for that reason, some people then renounce their US citizenship, but the government doesn't make that process easy and it's quite expensive.

Someone mentioned resilience, saying they couldn’t imagine starting afresh in another (or their original) country. That’s exactly it for me too. I’d feel foreign in the country where I was born.

once you’ve lived into a country for a few years (as in live in, not the expat type that stays with expats), you change.
Even a coupke of years is enough to make you feel out of sync with your ‘own country’. After 10, 20 years? Your original country will feel like a foreign country you dint fit in anymore.
Its the consequence of being resilient enough that you’ve fully integrated in the country you’re currently living in.
Not lack of resilience to start again in another (or your own) country

It really isn’t. If you are not British born you need to plan and be prepared

Ok, let's not live in the past. The 2020s are shaping up to be bad enough in their own fucked up way.

Lib dems

But plan for what and how? That's the whole point. I think the fear that is seeping through society right now, spread by pseudo Nazi fucks like Musk and co is so toxic because no one knows what will actually happen, when and how.

I think the real casualty here is the English language itself, courtesy of Nigel and his patriotic band.

"Fair play" means "Changing the rules after you've jumped through the hoops".

"British values" means "Pretending your only concern is illegal immigration, then being relieved when you can expand your concerns seamlessly towards legal immigrants who don't contribute 'enough' or haven't enough gratitude".

"Indefinite" means "Nah, just until we move the goalposts and retrospectively render you illegal, but we'll put it in weasel words because we're squeamish and cowardly".

Immigration is a really complex issue. There is so much middle ground between " Get all the foreigners out" and " Let everyone in". I wish we had better discourse. We will need it.

It certainly feeling familiar.
Replace Jews with immigrants and you’re not far off it.
replace black shirts with blue 10 football shirts
the finger pointing from the press blaming one group for societies issues.

All this! And then we pontificate about how great British values are.

Not quite, either but in some ways closer than others.

Oh I agree - I was being sarcastic here... I think sadly our decade will soon be a point of reference in its own right.

yet that’s not the case for everyone. £2k is a lot of money for many people.

Yes, and it's at least three days off work or having to juggle partial days off work, 2 biometrics appointments and the ceremony, which is difficult to manage for a lot of people.

But it’s okay for you and the poster you responded to to spread transphobia?

No.

Racism and xenophobia are not okay, but neither are transphobia and homophobia.
You don’t get to decide if you’re a bigot or not by cherry picking what you think is okay to discriminate against.

I’ve always been inclusive to everyone, I don’t judge, I make a point to step up and strike up a conversation with anyone that I feel may be feeling excluded and uncomfortable.
That goes for everyone, not just those I deem “worthy” of my support.

We seem to have fast forwarded the history after the pandemic and skipped the roaring 20’s before the depression and rise of racism.

It's depressing that within a week, the "oh, I don't mean you" rhetoric has morphed from "oh, I don't mean you, I mean the boat people" to "oh, I don't mean you, you're white, earning over 60k ... you can stay, so long as neither of those things change and you don't claim any benefits."

I am Irish (not earning 60K), low on Nigel's hit list but on it nonetheless. Will he try to deport me before he goes for SEN kids and disabled adults? It doesn't even matter if he does. He has changed the discourse of the country for it to be ok for the general public to be questioning my "value".

What transphobia? Sex is a legally defined concept and it is not transphobic to say an elephant is not a seal, thanks.

So sad to hear this too.

Exactly this. With a heft dose of patriotically self-righteous "If you were a proper good immigrant, you'd have used your crystal ball to apply for citizenship already, so you deserve everything that our Nigel has lined up for you."

Anyway, Nigel & The Patriots already proved that they were lying about only being concerned about illegal immigrants, back in 2016 when they retrospectively changed the rules for legal EU migrants.

Really? You think anyone is happy with the status quo? And you think Farage has the answers to fix it? Wow.

Yes, but they can (and should) call out the lies, instead of pretending there are no facts. If some of the lies around Brexit had been called out - 350m into the NHS, for example - things might have gone differently.

Giving airtime doesn't mean you have to pretend that an Oxford economics professor and Isabel Oakeshott have an equal knowledge base and equally valid points.

1 year after getting ILR you can apply for citizenship right? Just apply for citizenship.

Sigh. Read the thread.

It costs money? Okay. Pay for it. Especially if you consider the UK your home and want to build your life here.