Conservatives closing the gap on reform

[Pinkponyclub3]

Any conservative supporters here ?
Recent reports say the gap on reform is closing
Having watched some clips of kemi in action,I was quite impressed
But I don't know much about the party having never voted conservative,
Have they more of an insight in to current feeling than labour?

I'm all for a bit of time wasting on here by tilting at windmills and arguing against a point that hasn't actually been made. You do it well!

That comment applies to you, i'm afraid.

I said you didn't do it deliberately & stated i don't like class definitions, so wasn't arguing against anything at all.
Then asked you a question on Erasmus but instead of accepting that, you carry this on.

So i'll try again, do you think Erasmus is good or bad?

Why are you asking me as to the benefits of Erasmus? What relevance has that to my point?

That's true, there are a few changes in 2025 which nicely extend Sunak's immigration changes. But they were far less significant than the Conservative policies in impact, and some were just extending the Conservative policies.

The Student visa changes Sunak announced in early 2023 were clearly the most significant by far, given that 44% of total entry visas (excluding visitors) in 2023 were for study, a quarter of which were for student dependents.

You can see from the chart I posted that immigration only started going above pre-pandemic levels in early 2022 - and there's obviously a lag in getting accurate figures. Do you remember how the original estimate of 700k net for the year to June 2023 jumped up to 900k when the numbers became a bit clearer in early 2024? That's when it really hit everyone's awareness. You can also see it with the dotted lines in the graph - which show the difference between previous estimate and current estimate for dates in the past. Sunak did incredibly well to bring in policy which addressed the biggest issue within such a short time - announced in 2023, just 1 year after the numbers started rising above pre-pandemic levels.

And you can see that well-targetted Conservative policy taking effect, with immigration topping out immediately after he announced the student dependents visa change.

Skilled worker visas still need some tweaking. I am glad Labour increased the skilled visa salary thresholds: but it was just an inflation-level continuation of Sunak's policy. Sunak increased the threshold from £26,200 to £38,700 per year in April 2024 - that's a significant change. Labour increased it from £38,700 to £41,700 to align with 2024 ASHE data on salary inflation. Good, but not actually introducing anything - just continuing good Conservative policy.

Immigration Skills Charge is tiny: increasing it from £1000 to £1,320 (£480 for small businesses) is an irrelevant drop in the ocean of recruitment costs - certainly not a deterrent.

Stopping the care workers route and also dependents for the TSL were good though - I'll give Labour that. There were 146,000 care worker visas in 2023 - obviously nothing like as significant a gap to plug as the 650,000 student visas issued in 2023 (down to 440,000 now). But both those routes were hugely abused as a way of 'buying a way in' to the UK and it's good Labour stopped the care worker route.

Now we just need to get some of our 946,000 young NEETS into those vacancies instead.

None, i didn't really get your "point" just seemed like a snipe really, i was trying to move on but your not interested and just like to argue.

Leave you to it.

So you did miss my point entirely! Why have you been going on off on the wrong track then repeatedly despite being told by several people you had? You chipped in presumably just in order to argue a point that wasnt actually made.

As I said, I'm all for wasting other people's time and you do it so well.

Rejoining Erasmus is going to cost the UK government £570million

That's just for the first year and the government claim they have negotiated a 30% discount - so the cost could be over £800 million a year.

BIossomtoes
Again: what have Labour introduced?
Key Changes (July - December 2025)

Published statistics only go up to year ending June 2025 - therefore policies introduced July - December 2025 have not been measured yet.

BBC Report 27 November 2025

Good news for government - but Tories will also claim credit for the drop

The numbers have come down since they have been in power.
However, migration experts have pointed out that much of this reduction is actually because of measures brought in by the Conservatives in 2024.
So you can expect lots of political argument about who is actually responsible for the drop...

Roughly 10,000 UK students took part in study exchanges before we left Erasmus. So it is going to cost the taxpayer roughly £57,000 for a UK student to study in Europe and possibly £80,000 per student in the future! That is a lot of money when we have a budget deficit.
UK universities are saying that there will be no financial benefit to them either as subsidised fees for EU students means that they can't get the full international fee. Roughly 16000-17000 students came from the EU to the UK on the Erasmus scheme before we left, so more students come into the UK than go to other countries. If the government only have so much to spend, surely the money would be better spent elsewhere.

The Trawl podcast gives a round up of lots of posts on the internet so you can go and look things up, delve a bit more into what’s going on. Try it. You might like it.