Sick of the lie 'It's just illegal immigrants people don't like.'

[Slightyamusedandsilly]

This is just not true.

Reform, the flag flyers and protesters are racists. All of this 'It's just the illegals we want gone.' is a lie to excuse their racism.

Their recent figures have all been disproven. Even the think tank that gave them figures have stepped away. So no it’s not true that their positive contributions do not outweigh the negatives.

AI will change the requirements for Indian tech workers to come here.

Yes I agree AI will change the requirements for workers.

Please can you give me the citation of that, because I understood it was generally accepted thar GDP/capita has gone down due to an increased population driven mainly by immigration.

No, but you don’t vote for a party that is going to make things hell of a lot worse.

As I said if reform voters executed the same energy towards real issues, underfunded services, failing education the black hole left by tories then maybe the population won’t indefinitely spiral. Alas distract, divide and conquer has always been the oldest and most used trick in the book.

An immigrant should be a positive. There should be no negatives to discuss. The country shouldn’t suffer in any way for having immigrants. That’s the issue.

How do you address it without money?

I care if people are going to be net contributors, half the UK population are not net contributors already. That’s the real issue skin colour is irrelevant.

But anyone arriving without paperwork I have an issue with, I don’t care how they arrived they are not traceable.

Germany are now turning away undocumented asylum seekers

https://www.dw.com/en/germany-turns-first-asylum-seekers-away-at-border-report/a-72506177

As parts of mainland Europe become more hardline we can ponder, does it make the UK more desirable or harder to get to because it’s difficult to get through multiple borders.

It's nothing to do with racism and all about people coming to the UK and taking the piss and getting something for nothing.
If you come here legally, work, pay your taxes, integrate into society and don't threaten to kill us or rape us, then you are welcome.
Britain is on the whole are a fair and compassionate nation but what's happening now and has been happening since the last Labour government opened up the borders is just taking the piss and some people, particularly those who are struggling, are just fed up of it.

But Labour are the ones wrecking the economy and education and farming and business? And unemployment and illegal immigration has risen? So they are the party that is making things worse. Nothing to do with Reform.

And you call people who have genuine concerns about the massive migration figures, who are probably affected by the pressure on services daily, intolerant…

This whole issue is incredibly complex, nuanced and important, affecting the lives and future of us all. You’ll get nowhere by being insulting or calling anyone thick.

This is where we end up asking questions about essential jobs though

Sorry, I'm on another thread about this and I get confused

These technical, digital jobs where there's apparently a shortage. Are these jobs that are going to benefit anyone? I mean that's a genuine question. So obviously we all benefit if we have more healthcare professionals for example.

If we've got more people creating the next iteration of digital banking, for example, most of us are fucking sick of technology and would much prefer that it actually stood still for five minutes!

So is this genuinely a gap that needs to be filled? Or is it a gap that shareholders and tech company owners would like to be filled because that's how they line their pockets?

I remember David Cameron banging on endlessly about GDP. It's never been a measure of well-being. It's not intended to be. But when they used to wave those figures around proudly, I used to just think "so what?"

so it is very hard to sell the necessity of any of this to human beings who are not seeing the most basic job functions being filled properly, not seeing our taxes used to do the most core jobs, e.g. filling potholes cleaning roads.

most of what we're doing now isn't working. But it's not actually designed to work for ordinary people. It's only designed to work for the mega rich.

I wouldn’t consider myself racist, I generally stay on the fence on issues surrounding immigration as I see both sides.

However I worked in public sector for a while and to be completely honest, most immigrants tend to be in complete poverty especially if they speak little English and have a low level of education. Even if they work, they might be working multiple jobs on zero hours and have pretty much no opportunity for social mobility. Their living situations aren’t great, and they aren’t really seen as desirable by employers. They’re highly susceptible to being taken advantage of, I saw examples of everything from modern slavery for example all the way to just having shitty support from places like councils and housing associations.

Their kids might fare better but I get the impression that black and Asian communities from poorer backgrounds worry about their young sons getting caught up in gangs. if you’re a teen from one of those communities in a rough area, chances are you’re aware of criminal activity and actively have to work so much harder to not get caught up in that.

So overall, I guess my thoughts on immigration are more pragmatic as opposed to anything about race or patriotism. Ultimately most of these economic migrants are bluntly going to have rough lives here and I guess it just begs the question about whether this is sustainable. Maybe 30 years ago people could make something of their lives, but in 2025 onwards I just think that bubble has kind of burst.

It has been all over the news. The moment he came out with his shite that immigrants are costing us 230bn it was refuted by the very thinktank that produced it.

GDP/capita may be going down but to suggest it is being driven by mainly immigration is misleading. Brexit, covid, weak exports and the economically inactive.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/22/what-are-nigel-farages-immigration-plans-and-do-his-sums-add-up

The U.K. has no tech industry and it needs one if you want your economy to compete globally. So yes you need the software engineers and the IT workers because there is a skill shortage.

It’s not nuanced and complex. The foreign face on your street is not the reason your services are pressured.

That figure just relates to the immigrants since the Boris Wave that are coming up to the 5 year qualification for ILR. The government won't release the actual figures so the suspicion is that the figure is actually higher.

I suspect you are just reflecting your own prejudices as to how you think other people think.

We do have a tech industry.

And technology means we don't need to actually import these workers. We only did so because the Indian government required visas for it's people to.come here in return for considering a trade deal.

I remember going to a talk on this subject 20 years ago - more of a debate I guess, about how tech was developing and some people were unhappy that the UK wasn't at the forefront

I think it's a massive exaggeration to say that we don't have a tech industry

But leaving that to one side

Let's say we get to compete on the global stage in this way

What is the benefit for the average person?

we heard so much about how globalisation was going to benefit us and of course, some people feel that it has. Again, it probably comes down to individual preference. I remember saying to people at the time that I didn't particularly care if there was much more available in the shops. Because for me there was enough.

Has all of this really worked well for most people?

YADNBU, OP.

Very true. We've got massive and rising unemployment in vast swathes of the UK. And yet we dont train up people actually living here already and instead bring in more and more people from outside. The country has gone mad since 1997.

I’m not sure what you’re asking to be completely honest.

The tech sector is lucrative and oversaturated, every company needs digital professionals. Of course, there is a benefit to others. Mobile banking isn’t just going to disappear and the people making the apps are going to earn much more than the entry level staff working in banks operationally. Beyond that, there needs to be digital staff maintaining the infrastructure around the clock to ensure systems don’t go down or aren’t subject to attack etc. So the fact you can access your bank account whenever you want digitally isn’t by chance, it’s by a team of people enabling you to do that hence being an essential service. You might not like it, but that doesn’t stop the world from being digitalised.

Our children will have to compete with the world's IT workers that we are currently.importing. This is not something that previous generations have had to do. What lives are we setting our children up for?

@ChangingWeight okay let me be clearer

What happens if we simply maintain what we have? Would there be any drawback to that? Are we mostly recruiting people to maintain infrastructure or are we recruiting them to innovate and develop further?

I understand that we've got to maintain what's been created and I fully appreciate the work done by those people

What I have found is that many people discussing the digital skills gap are talking about future innovations. Like self driving cars for example. Or 20 years ago, it was AI.

has the focus on all that innovation actually benefited an average person on an average income living an average life?

I don't think this is something that can be measured in figures. The reason I keep bringing up personal preference, I want to be very aware of my own bias

I remember talking to a colleague, maybe 10 years ago, he thought it was fantastic that he no longer had to telephone for a taxi. He genuinely thought it was really exciting that he could do this on an app and minimise his interaction with human beings

I was baffled at the time. What I didn't realise is how damaging all this would be to human relations.

I've also been baffled at how pointless QR codes are. I realise they're useful for targeted marketing but just using that as another example of innovation which has had pretty much no benefit except for a niche group of people

so relating this to immigration, the deal that's been done with India, is it going to provide workers to build technology that people really feel the benefit from?