Changes to immigration rules announced by Starmer

[OneAmberFinch]

Full white paper here is extensive and announces changes to all avenues of migration - basically their approach to resolving the issues of massively increased migration from 2019-2023/4.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6821aec3f16c0654b19060ac/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper.pdf

And Starmer's commentary on the BBC: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce810e3z6dkt

Handful of headline changes: default timeline to get ILR to go to 10 years instead of 5; abolishing new care worker visas; raising skills threshold for Skilled Workers back up to graduate level; increasing minimum grades required for student visas; various bits and pieces around English language requirements among several other policies

Breaking into the country?

How do you propose they claim asylum otherwise? ----

Not the peak then. If it was Reform wouldn’t be leading in the polls now.

Yeah but millions pouring in keeps their house prices up. And most immigrants move to cheap areas so it doesn't impact on the political class and the middle class bubble in their leafy suburbs and posh villages. At least until a migrant hotel pitches up.

I think if the delivery the intended changes to Article 8 and exceptions it will be hard to claim this way. But we will see, won’t we?

Exactly. How are these 25% of care workers going to support the other 75% of their dependents while on minimum wage?
Answer: they are not.
Who will pick up the tab? You guessed it, the tax payers.

Immigrants live mostly in London and the south east, don’t we they?

The increase from 5 to 10 years is kicking the can down the road from the Boris Wave when he had an open border policy for 2 years. We can't just give millions of people ILR over the next 2 or 3 years at a point when Reform are smashing the polls.

They get visas.

@bombastixwasn’t at least part of the incompetence about the immigration debacle though? Specifically, saying one thing and doing precisely the opposite

There appear to be some people on this thread who don’t feel there should be any limits on immigration. Mind-boggling.

I think Southport was a huge tipping point and the riots that followed (just after the election).

Starmer was at least given a chance on stopping the boats but numbers are only going up. Reform are smashing the polls and the local elections. People aren't seeing the upsides of mass immigration when the economy is in the state it's in. Brexit was about uni party not dealing with mass immigration. 10 years on and here we are again.

I would totally agree! I just thought all the stuff about asylum seekers was a pathetic fig leaf to cover up what was a pretty clear policy from the Conservatives to import cheaper labour. 906k people is not incompetence, imo. You have to write a criteria in law to let it happen.

This is not to say the Conservatives were not world beatingly incompetent in many other areas otherwise they would not have lost the election

Is that why Labour have lost support in record time?

Immigration in general has become a huge net drain on finances. Whether with benefits or the billions paid out to keep asylum seekers in hotels and other accommodation. Yet weve no money for anything else.

It can't go on. Immigration can be positive if properly managed.

I just don’t agree that migration is really about small boats. These are very small figures compared to legal
migration. I agree asylum seekers are a good visible story, but I don’t think they are the key issue about migration and why it may be an issue. 906k people enter the UK in one year? That is.

Go to any city now or large town (at least not the posh ones). The Boris Wave has changed places beyond recognition in record time.

Or you could know what you're talking about:

https://www.davidsonmorris.com/immigrants-economic-contributions/

"Studies indicate that immigrants contribute significantly to the UK economy, with estimates suggesting that they add around £2.5 billion annually"

I think Starmer is right to do something and much of the white paper makes a lot of sense. I think the risk is that he looks disingenuous, given that he would previously have opposed this if the tories did it. But it is the right thing to do.

query whether it will go far enough for the voters - a lot of people are very angry about migration now. I get the impression that starmer’s team have now started to look at the details that they didn’t consider when they were outside government (and Cooper actually does have good attention to detail) and spotted that the line that immigration boosts the economy is based on some quite dubious accounting from the OBR and the Treasury (who only cost any immigrant for the four year fiscal cycle, so do not even consider whether they may later cost the taxpayer money at all). Same with dependents - if we as taxpayers don’t have to pay for 3 dependents per immigrant care workers, how much more could we pay care workers? Has anyone done the maths? I welcome the attempt to consider getting value for money from immigration in terms of GDP per capita - people have been told for a long time that immigration makes them wealthier, but in a no growth environment GDP per capita is going down and people have really struggled with being gaslit by politicians.

Boriswave! I had not heard that one.

Yes @bombastix,I agree with this. I think that it was a smaller part of a bigger picture of incompetence

I don’t mind if Labour supporters think it’s not about channel crossings. Reform won’t mind as they’ll benefit from the lack of insight.

The open border policy was about trying to replace lost GDP because of brexit with the expectation that a population explosion would equal growth. But it makes us poorer per capita and has seen the benefits bill skyrocket.

Single people from Europe who came here often seasonally via free movement replaced with families from Africa or Asia who are basically here for the duration, often low skilled and are likely to need financial support.

I run a care agency, I employ local people we could never afford the visa requirements. If governments paid attention to social care decades ago ,then we should never have relied on recruiting from abroad, there should be more incentives given to attract mire into the care sector.

That’s my point.

The electorate gets obsessed with nonsense and votes for idiotic policies that will make things worse so the political parties all propose ever-more idiotic policies rather than taking the obvious steps that would improve the economy and raise living standards.

So you have people who are angry about their living standards actively voting for things that will make them worse, and because the politicians have noted this they devise ever-more idiotic policies which people are apparently lapping up.

As I said, the electorate gets the Governments it deserves, and that is why our Governments get progressively worse as time goes on and the decline in living standards is accelerating.

And Starmer will shout from.the rooftops if it drops, but 500 or 600k is still far too many per annum.

We just can't sustain this it's madness. The Tories promised (and failed) to get migration into the tens of thousands. If it was then immigration is a fringe issue. A million a year is insanity. No other word for it for a little island like ours.