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

What about pensioners? Agree or not the state pension is classed as a benefit. Many foreign nationals have a full NI record and therefore qualify/will qualify when old enough at the moment.

You will absolutely not be asked to leave. If Farage pratt gets in..and i doubt that...he will back off most of the stuff he is spouting.

No we need foreigners! Apply for citizenship. It's the illegal immigrants they're focusing on.

But if they vote for Reform than they are voting to remove ILR from people that already have it and are here legally.

I am quite boggled by the posters who think that xenophobes would be all luvverly and welcoming at legal immigrants who contribute some goalpost-moving sufficient amount of tax. As if any racist thug is going to politely stop and ask if you are here on a skilled visa or have ILR or can they peruse your tax return, and then decide whether or not to abuse you on that basis. The reality is people who have a problem with foreigners, have a problem with foreigners. Just own it.

I'm not so sure that Reform will 'win', or that they'd get a majority which would enable them to pass such drastic laws. A poll today predicted a hung parliament. The right-wing vote is split, that's really what delivered Labour's super-majority. I think you're worrying unnecessarily; four years is a long time. Unless dozens of Tories defect to Reform in the interim, there will have to be some kind of electoral pact, I imagine, and the impact of that would be to tone down some of Farage's more inflammatory rhetoric and proposals.

yes true

but there are plenty of others from further East who probably do want I described

But he said they wouldn’t be able to access benefits, which I assume includes pension. And maybe the NhS.

Imagine having worked all your life in the U.K., building your state pension like anyone eise in Britain and be told you’ll have nothing to show for it.
Imagine having worked all your life here and be told you’re a scroungers because you happen to loose your jobs/be ill.

20 per cent of the NHS workforce are foreign nationals.

I think in reality they know it wouldn’t work to get rid of all immigrants. Our country is based around their labour and their tax contributions, as much as the right don’t want to admit it. All this deport them all crap is about making some (low educated, lower class white) people feel good about themselves at the expense of another group (anyone black or brown).

Yeah this is what i was saying, but not obviously! I;m inexactly that situation. I was responding to someone saying 'what's the problem? Just meet the threshold now?

When I got my ILTR the minimum threshold was way above the average wage.

I've paid and paid and paid for 20 years. I made my life here. My children were born here.

I've had it tbh. I've invested my life, my emotions. my money, my whole existence into the UK. I'm at the point where I say fuck it and walk.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-ilr-immigration-policy-nigel-farage-b2831087.html

Two friends applied and got citizenship years ago. They both got jittery because their children were growing up and wouldn't be going anywhere. I'm glad they did

Only what’s published in the BBC website article, which I shouldn’t imagine is offering an especially rose-tinted view of Reform policy. I didn’t see anything to contradict what I said? Happy to be corrected.

@BellaBallerina2 "You think Europeans are coming to the UK for medical treatment?"

I didn't say that. I queried where are the non Brits having treatment coming from.

Replace it with conditions that many, many people won't be able to meet. Turning currently legal migrants into illegal migrants and leading to their deportation.

I totally understand the OP's point. I'm in England with a Scottish accent and even that can be hard. People think I'm working class or rough or something just because I have a different accent. I'm PhD educated and very well behaved.

Also last time there was a BNP march here there was a huge man in our park shouting "challenge me Scotland!" in a parade ground accent. I really did not want to get on the wrong side of him. That was ten years ago, when things were relatively peaceful too.

The nhs treating foreigners is not the reason it’s on its knees. You are just being told to worry about the immigrants using the nhs. They have created an enemy for you so you don’t think about the real reasons…

Possible retrospective removal of ILRs for already legal immigrants
Increasing salary limit to £60 k which no one earns
Forcing already legal people with lives and families to renew visas at a cost of £2 k pp

You shouldn’t worry. It’s the people whom came over claimed lots of benefits and don’t work. I know people who work in housing and benefits and there’s a great deal of immigrants on benefits and we simply can’t afford to keep lots of unworking/disabled immigrants. This is to me is perfectly logical and no other country does this but us. Remember it wasn’t that long ago people were getting big moneys from tax credits to send to Poland for children never to enter the country. It’s wrong we can’t afford it. People need to grasp we can’t keep making ourselves poor to support unskilled, low earner foreigners. We are going bankrupt. Who wants to continue like this for even their own children’s sake? I love different cultures it’s got sod all to do with race and I’m delighted to have high skilled and high earner foreigners here. It’s a no thanks to them getting social housing and benefits.

Depends what job you're doing and if you're white I suspect. An immigrant who is a person of colour and a diversity consultant might be decided to be surplus to requirements (FWIW, I think diversity work is valid and needed), a white surgeon who is not a native Brit is less likely to be.

Can you all recognise please that people may love this country, be married to British citizens and have half-British children but they MAY NOT wish to be British citizens themselves?

Please. It's not hard to comprehend.

British citizenship essentially gives you two extra rights over and above EU settled status and ILR:

• the right to vote in GE
• the right not to lose your pension and right to live here if you were to move to a different country for longer than 5 years

Now, most people who are within the above category don't give a shit about the GE because all of your politicians are shit. I REFUSE to pay £2k for the right to vote on those clowns, thank you very much.

Neither do I intend to move anywhere else for a continuous period of 5 years and lose my rights.

Accordingly, I have NO reason to apply for UK citizenship because the rights I care about, such as freedom of movement, access to NHS and my pension are key. I PAY for these rights every month, at the rate of 40% + NIC, for a decades. I don't bloody owe anything to anyone, I FUND many "scroungers" per Farage's rhethoric in this country, if anything.

Considering, I do not deserve Nigel Farage or any other twat to threaten me with loss of pension rights, access to healthcare, deportation or ANYTHING else.

Farage and every single person believing in his "policies" can f right off - and very best of luck cause the first thing I will do if it comes to this is suing the UK for my decades of financial contributions and associated rights being unlawfully taken away from me - good luck to this country when that happens because I won't be alone. Maybe then more of you will wake up to what shitshow you have sadly quietly allowed to unfold here by being so painfully passive for YEARS.

But I am really not feeling British. I don’t want to go pay a lot of money to take a stupid test most Brits cannot pass, language test when I speak with a wider vocabulary and more grammatically correct than a large % of the British population and finally attend some ceremony where I have to kiss the flag and the king’s portrait or similar.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
—Martin Niemöller

We have got to stamp out this hateful rhetoric. It’s genuinely terrifying the direction the world is heading in. Trump in the states is bad enough we do not want Reform here.

Are you referring to Polish people who moved here with degrees to do shit jobs British less educated people didn't want to do? And who then worked their way up many years ago? You may want to check your attitude and the facts here, darling.