Voting for Reform

[Behappyandbehave]

Would this be such a bad idea? I hate labour and tories. But I don't know enough about Reform.

I'm going to win Euro millions next month..... anyone can promise anything at all.

Farage has no ideas at all on how to reduce migration or stop x channel migration either.

He still wants around 100k healthcare workers to still come to the UK, plus dependents or they simply wont come here, so thats about 250k....

Airy fairy ideas on making the unemployed work... how? they are unemployed for a reason, MH, few skills either, what would Farage have them do?

He championed Brexit and Brexit is why we have run-away immigration.

I think you'll find there are plenty of receipts. These people are stupid enough to write their racist bile on social media etc.

Your figures are off. 2023 had 685m net migration but that was unusually high, mostly due to people not coming during the pandemic years, and the fact the UK funds its universities with higher fees to foreign students, and so lots of students and their families arrive (and most of them return). Most recent years pre-pandemic it was 200-300m, similar to other wealthy countries.

The main reason we had such high immigration in 2022 and 2023 was because of the point based system set up under Boris, which started in 2021.

Supposedly to attract the ‘brightest and best’, it was a travesty that allowed employers to recruit from abroad without having to attempt to recruit British workers first. In many cases they could pay foreign recruits 20% less than British workers, even if that was less than the minimum wage. The salary threshold was so low, the minimum wage nearly caught up with it.

It was only the outrage that greeted the release of the 2022 figures that forced the government to introduce measures which will bring the figures down this year, although we’re still talking hundreds of thousands of net migrants in 2024.

The one thing Brexit did do was give us control over immigration. The focus on people coming across the channel is a complete red herring. They make up maybe 5% of the figures most years, and we do have a legal duty to people who claim asylum to consider their claim.

The majority of the British public want immigration reduced. Labour, Conservatives, Lib Dems, Greens, none of them want to reduce it. Even when they claim they do, actions speak louder than words. It’s surely not surprising that Reform are doing so well in the polls.

@mossylog

"Your figures are off. 2023 had 685m net migration but that was unusually high, mostly due to people not coming during the pandemic years, and the fact the UK funds its universities with higher fees to foreign students, and so lots of students and their families arrive (and most of them return). Most recent years pre-pandemic it was 200-300m, similar to other wealthy countries."

These are the recent net migration figures which show a sharp increase after Brexit (which ironically was about reducing migration!)

And who was instrumental in Brexit?

Boris? Yes, he lied big time. The point is, Brexit did give us control over immigration should we choose to use it.

I meant Farage but yes Johnson is just as bad

The UK is controlling immigration already.

My (left-wing) husband voted for Brexit as a protest vote because he wanted to see the Tory government collapse. I'm still angry at him over this!

Well yes, I suppose you could say the government is controlling immigration, but not in any way recognisable to what they have consistently promised the electorate.

Reform aren’t even particularly radical with their commitment to net zero immigration. It was pretty much what David Cameron promised 14 years ago (net migration in the tens of thousands). I think it was seen as a reasonable policy back then.

Net Zero immigration is still 600k people per year.

I think that should be plenty to fill the skills and labour gaps in our economy.

With so many people threatening to leave the UK becoming immigrants themselves when Labour gets in, net zero might not be so difficult to reach

I think so too! I’ve not heard anyone argue for zero immigration. We need some immigration. But how anyone can think a country the size of England can absorb an extra 750k people each year is utterly beyond me.

(The vast majority of immigrants to the U.K. settle in England).

Brexit could have been bloody avoided if some sort of controls on numbers could have come into force.
David Cameron didn’t listen , nor did his predecessors, hence why the leave vote won.

Even now the government, who’ve lost control of immigration, still arnt doing anything about it.

This is why Reform may well do in the polls. They are a protest party.

Like people who voted to leave did it as a protest vote.

Have some sort of sensible controls but no main party still doesn’t seem to listen. You’d have thought Brexit would be a painful learning curve for them.

Absolutely this. Total incompetence in terms of meeting a political need. You can control immigration- but you shouldn’t actually liberalize it in reality and then expect people to be supportive

A reform candidate was on LBC the other morning. Have a listen. They don’t make sense. I don’t agree with them.

But back then immigration figures didn't include students...

And I'm not sure the majority of immigrants settle in England... I read that most comply with the terms of their visas and leave when it runs out? Students go back to their country, don't they? Obviously there was the Ukraine scheme, and the Honk Kong scheme, and Afghans after the fall of the Taliban.
How are immigrants paid less than the minimum wage? Is that legal?

The main reason we had such high immigration in 2022 and 2023 was because of the point based system set up under Boris, which started in 2021

Is it?

We have to scour the world looking for migrant workers as few now come from the EU, if you re coming to work here from India etc, you'll want to bring your family, travel home once a month isn't feasible, unlike someone coming from Europe.
More dependents of care workers come here than the actually people we need, same with any other sector.

Then we have the simple fact that 10s of '000s of UK citizens used to retire to France Spain etc, they are now stuck here.

Add in Ukraine, HK and so many not in the workforce and here we are... 20% of all workers here in the UK are foreign born.

There might be temporary blips, but students don't add to the net migration figures unless they stay on to work post study, as they are allowed to do in many cases.

There’s migration, and there’s net migration, which takes into account the number of people who leave. So in 2023, approximately 1.2 million people came to the U.K., 500k left, which means 700k people were added to the population permanently.

When I said the majority of immigrants settle in England, I meant as opposed to the other 3 countries that make up the U.K. People often argue that we have plenty of land, but England is level pegging with The Netherlands as the most densely populated country in Europe, and like them, we are very vulnerable to losing land if sea levels rise.

The rules were changed earlier this year so that employers can no longer pay migrant workers 20% less than U.K. workers. I think it was shocking that this was ever allowed.

There might be temporary blips, but students don't add to the net migration figures unless they stay on to work post study, as they are allowed to do in many cases.

There’s migration, and there’s net migration, which takes into account the number of people who leave. So in 2023, approximately 1.2 million people came to the U.K., 500k left, which means 700k people were added to the population permanently.

When I said the majority of immigrants settle in England, I meant as opposed to the other 3 countries that make up the U.K. People often argue that we have plenty of land, but England is level pegging with The Netherlands as the most densely populated country in Europe, and like them, we are very vulnerable to losing land if sea levels rise.

The rules were changed earlier this year so that employers can no longer pay migrant workers 20% less than U.K. workers. I think it was shocking that this was ever allowed.

Absolutely not, they are not added indefinitely, they come and go, don't they? "Most non-EU citizens who receive work visas leave within 5 years and do not settle in the UK permanently" according to this: migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/work-visas-and-migrant-workers-in-the-uk/
I also read it's quite difficult to find out who comes and goes, actually, and that a better indication of how much immigration really is here to stay, is to look at the percentage of permanent residents who are not uk citizens (or who were born abroad, or who have a non-uk passport,I can't remember the exact measure).
I read that in the UK, that's 14%, which is the same as Spain and various countries, and about average. I also read that is is expected to come down naturally next year anyway, due to the first wave of post-Covid students' visas ending.
And yes, students are currently counted as immigrants the minute they arrive in the UK. It wasn't always like that but has been the case for a while, I think. Teresa May made the change at some point. Which is another reason some of the hysteria around the immigration numbers is really overdone. Most are not going to settle here.

I think you are confused about what net migration is... It's whoever arrives in the UK on a given year, whether to work or study, temporarily or not (you won't know how long they are here for when they've just arrived, obviously).
As an EU citizen who arrived a long time ago, I'm no longer included. I show up as one of the 14% foreign born.
The many people who arrived on work visas this year, will likely be gone within 5 years. And "student migration patterns from recent years suggest that those using the Graduate work route may only stay in the UK temporarily. Among non-EU migrants issued an initial study visa in 2008, for example, when the previous post-study work regime was in place, only 17% still held a valid visa seven years later, with around half of these former students granted a graduate visa. "
Which is why immigration is supposed to naturally come down in the next few years, as many of them came, and will leave.

I’m sure we’ve had this discussion before about what ‘net’ means? I’m getting a sense of deja vu.

Students are now counted in the immigrant figures whereas they didn’t used to be. However, they’re not counted as net immigrants unless they stay on after their course has finished. So the students that arrive each year would be roughly equivalent to the students that had finished their course if they all went home. So no net immigration. If they stay on on a work visa after their course has finished, then they become net immigrants.

It’s not done on an individual basis. It’s just number of people who enter the country for at least a year versus the number of people who leave for at least a year. So the difference is the number of people added permanently to the population.

No, net migration isn't the number of people added permanently, and yes, students are added to migration figures after a year, even though we all know they will leave after two years (or whenever, the point being that at the point they have been a year, they are counted in net migration figures).
"Net migration in the UK is defined as the number of people who immigrate to the UK long term (for at least 12 months), minus the number who emigrate long term. But often discussions of net migration overlook emigration, and specifically the fact that most migrants come to the UK for periods of only a few years, before emigrating again. This means that while net migration may look unusually high over the next couple of years, emigration should eventually rise too, causing net migration to fall even if the number of people immigrating to the UK remains high."

"High immigration leads to high emigration, but not immediately – there is a lag of two to three years. Unless there is a large change in emigration behaviour from what we have observed in the past, it is reasonable to expect that emigration will increase between now and 2025, bringing down net migration, even if the number of people arriving in the UK remains high by historical standards."

migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/why-are-the-latest-net-migration-figures-not-a-reliable-guide-to-future-trends/