Actually Pro Immigration- Hear Me Out?

[n4mech4ng3r]

I have always been, and will always be, pro immigrant, pro asylum seeker, and pro refugee. It saddens me that I seem to be in the vast minority these days, the lack of empathy from the general population of the UK in 2025 is disgraceful imo.

I chose as part of my career to support refugees, and it has opened my eyes even more every day. The tragedies these young people have gone through are unimaginable for anyone here, and the treatment they get when they arrive is appalling.

When illegal immigration is brought up in a political context, it is always devoid of humanity, vulnerable people spoken about like an invasive species. I implore anyone so far removed from the realities of ‘illegal’ immigrants, especially those who risked their lives to be here, to volunteer for a refugee charity.

These are children, overjoyed to learn simple words so they can make friends with our children in the playground. Teenagers, completely overwhelmed by food they’ve never seen before (like fish fingers!). Young families, so grateful to a country that wants them to ‘go back to where they come from’ even if they die there.

It’s heartbreaking, and it makes me sick. Every time I see the Reform lot, racists, and other bigots treating immigrants as the scapegoat, I can’t help but think of my little students, their families, and the stories they’ve told me of life before they arrived.

It baffles me how people can go on about ‘British values’ while showing absolutely no kindness to the people who need it most. What’s the point of this national pride if it’s built on cruelty and exclusion? I see so much ‘we need to look after our own first’ rhetoric, but why can’t we do both? Why does helping people fleeing war and persecution make you angry? Why is that your line in the sand?

If anyone else is feeling like this, works in this area, or has something to add I’d love to hear it. If you’re going to try and change my opinion, please save your energy ❤️

Changed my username for this one because I’m discussing my professional life and opinions rather than my family life. Long time user over several accounts. Thanks for reading, sorry if it’s a rant.

Middle class and rich people dont have to live cheek by jowl with a certain group of immigrants. They have the luxury of experiencing the professional liberal types of immigrants (which i think we definitely need eg drs nurses engineers etc)
Try living next to a HMO full of young,male and very much not liberal immigrants and see how you feel then.

Could you provide sources for your claims please?

Refugees are causing enormous unplanned change.

70 percent of London maternity services funding is now spent on births to foreign parents

English people will be in the minority in 30 years.

Thanks

FFS what are you talking about? The majority of young men arriving here do not (in all likelihood) have wives and children and elderly parents who they intend to ship over once they’ve got themselves set up with a good job and housing!

Look, we very much have differing opinions on this subject. I vehemently disagree with you and you with me. So be it. But don’t keep fanning the flames because you’re really starting to piss me off!

I know. The small town my sons were born in remains 100 percent white English people.
It's extraordinarily expensive to live there now. The small Victorian working class house they were born in now sells for almost a million (I haven't lived there for decades)

Only the wealthy live in white only places.

Where I live now maybe one in 20 of the people I see daily are English.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2023#live-births-to-non-uk-born-parents-by-geography

Birth data.

Yes those issues factor in too but how can 3.07 million extra people in ten years not have an effect on how much the service is stretched? The issues you mentioned do not effect A&E wait times and horrendous waits to see a GP or a consultant (unless of course you’re on a two week wait pathway). And I work in the NHS too. The millions that are wasted (yes wasted) on interpreters for appointments when sometimes the people don’t even turn up!

https://www.heterodoxcentre.com/wp-content/uploads/3-CHSS-Goodwin.pdf

Demographic change projections

Likewise.

Refugees are causing enormous unplanned change.

The OBR and the government are balancing the net negative of asylum low skilled immigrants with increased skilled migration to avoid a net negative to GDP.

We have to in total import a town the size of Plymouth in total every year.
Or the Yookay does.

The OBR also produces short-term forecasts. In 2024, it forecasted how different scenarios of net migration would affect net government borrowing over a short (5-year) period, between the financial years 2024/25 and 2028/29. The OBR forecasted that higher net migration would lead to a net reduction in borrowing over the five-year period, although some of this reduction resulted from the fact government spending plans did not envisage increasing spending more on public services to reflect the higher population.

The OBR noted that if the government adjusted spending on public services to reflect the size of the population in the high-migration scenario, it would require an additional £6.1 billion of spending in 2028/29. In other words, the higher tax revenues generated by the additional migrants would be partly offset by higher spending on public services.

It's madness.

Too late really.

The whole thing makes me so sad. Tolerant kind Britain has now gone and that is not the fault of the British people. It's the fault of successive governments letting more and more people of limited means and abilities that can be of use here, in to a tiny island with a huge population and dwindling wealth. While I don't blame them, immigrants are in it for themselves naturally; now we all have to be. And that's the end of the social cohesion of the UK sadly.

So OP while I think your comments are intended to be kind, I think those views are now the opposite of kind to the people of this country. They are in fact supporting a course of action that is detrimental to the people of this country. And looking at opinion polls, most people now know it.

@MrsSkylerWhite - what is your opinion on integration? What is your view on communities forming their own laws if democratically decided? Do you have an opinion on the way women are viewed by men of other cultures who choose to settle here? Should this be accommodated?

So OP while I think your comments are intended to be kind, I think those views are now the opposite of kind to the people of this country. They are in fact supporting a course of action that is detrimental to the people of this country. And looking at opinion polls, most people now know it.

Sorry OP, as it is clear that you mean well, but this. Mass immigration has been terribly detrimental to the London suburb I live in; it is now an overcrowded, dirty, crime-blighted shadow of its former self, with huge pressure on key services and next to no community cohesion. Middle class families like ours are quietly moving out to leafier, more homogenous enclaves - we’re moving this summer - while those left behind will no doubt be painted as racists and bigots for expressing concerns about the pace and scale of demographic change (down from 81% White British when I was born in the ‘80s to 33% now).

Yes, some of the genuine asylum seekers have experienced terrible things that we in Britain can fortunately only imagine, but the sheer scale of current migration means that many of the issues they are fleeing from - misogyny, intolerance, religious zealotry - are now being imported here.

My personal red line is that I don’t want my future quality of life - and in particular that of my young daughter - being blighted by the fallout from this forced demographic change. I certainly don’t want to adjust my own cultural norms to accommodate the often incompatible views of the people we are importing.

Back in the day, when immigration levels were far more sustainable, I was a liberal left, Guardian-reading ‘be kind’ type, who would frequently argue the point with my Daily Mail-reading older relatives. Not any more.

@MiloMinderbinder925I’m not the poster of these stats and I can’t verify those claims exactly, but there was a flurry of news reports on birth rates a month or so back stating similar but not identical findings.

(Apologies for the paywall) - 40% of U.K. births to foreign-born parents in 2024 (several similar articles online if you search): https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/four-in-ten-babies-born-to-foreign-parents/

This site analyses birth rates in London and concludes that 60% are now to non U.K-born mothers: https://data.london.gov.uk/dataset/births-by-mothers-country-of-birth-in-london/

These headline ONS stats from 2023 assert that 67.4% of births in London were to parents where one or both were born outside the U.K (37.3% nationally): https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2023

The White British minority claim appears to stem from a a study by Matt Goodwin and also appeared on various news sites a month or so ago: https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/britains-identity-crisis-white-british-become-minority-2063-immigration-surges-1734973

This totally
Could not of written it better myself.
I was the same as you 20 ,30 years ago ..very left
Not anymore.
Sadly I feel I don't belong in my own country any more ,it's changed beyond recognition..
None of the political parties speak for me ..
Green is probably the nearest,..being vegan ..but I don't agree with getting rid of nuclear weapons ..so no idea who I will vote for next time

Well put temps that is also my trajectory. I hope the government have a plan and this will all work out but currently just not seeing it. Far too much is being asked of the host country and tax payers. I’m extremely sorry for all these people from these shit show countries but we simply can’t support and save them all.

I was quite shaken by my recent visit to London. Lived there in the early 2000s and visit frequently but last week in a park in central London our group were the only group of women in the park that were not veiled or in headscarves. I wish I was exaggerating.

What are views on this? Perhaps it should be discussed.

At this rate Reform will be in with a real chance which is concerning and I would never support them but we can’t go on like this

@Catswhiskers3 sadly re Greens they don’t seem so “green” any more. Talk of joining forces with Jeremy Corbyn’s new party and focusing on foreign affairs, trans issues and keen on open borders.

Blimey
They get my vote to push veganism and animal welfare
Probably don't even stand for that any more then either

Got ..not get

Every migrant I meet whose story I hear I feel hugely sympathetic to. The children at my kid’s schools who are immigrants or whose parents came recently are invariably decent, solid, reliable, hard working, heading for good Universities and are a positive to this country. I sometimes think that these immigrants, keen to build a better future, keen to create wealth to share with family overseas, are the antithesis of indigenous population (including children who descend from earlier migrations) who are getting so despondent l beaten down, defeated that one in four of us feels we live with a disability or chronic health problem and one in ten of us is so disabled/ill we rely on the government to financially support us.

Did they come across in a dinghy? I doubt it.Skilled people who come here via a legal route, they are the ones we need, not hoards of economic migrants whose backgrounds we know nothing about, no documentation, partaking in criminal activities, whose values and culture are vastly different to ours, bringing all sorts of diseases that died out years ago in the U.K., are not the ones we need, but we get lumbered with, to the detriment of the pop of the U.K.

I have always been left of centre and a live and let live type. However this country is changing at a fast rate and not for the better. I will probably vote reform at the next election and I never ever thought I would say that.

If the Conservatives don't sort themselves out by the election I can now see myself voting for Reform. Unsustainable immigration underpins so many of this country's problems and Labour don't seem to have a viable plan or the underlying philosophy to want to limit it.