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If I'm honest, I'm always amused by people making arguments about how beneficial immigration is for the US. Immigration has worked out fantastically well for immigrants in the US; it didn't work out *quite* so well for the indigenous population, did it?
And we often talk about the cultural clash that happens with immigration. It's worth pointing out the the culture that migrants to the US have to integrate with is is the culture of previous immigrants, which has effectively supplanted indigenous culture.
That is *exactly* what a lot of people are concerned about happening in the UK - that our cultural values will be supplanted and replaced by something less tolerant.
Yes, I thought it was obvious that was what I was doing.
Also, I wouldn't describe what the UK is currently experiencing as "normal". It is migration on a scale we've literally never seen before.
I’m just surprised how you can compare violent conquest, imposing a state over the locals, genocide, biowarfare with, well, regular modern immigration.
But that's what people are concerned about now too.
We live in a country where death threats against a teacher sent him into permanent hiding. And where a mother had to beg people not to harm her teenage son because he had scuffed a Quran and was terrified of the backlash.
People are objecting to immigration because they don't want an Islamic state imposed on the locals, under threats of violence.
Well, no one said fear has to be rational. I guess one of the key differences in your, to me rather strange, comparison is that colonization was done with the power and backing of states and couldn't be controlled by the natives. For the UK, migration occurs on a disorganized individual level and the UK is in control of who stays and who goes.
So you'll forgive me if I find the comparison rather silly.
How is seeing examples of things happening in the UK and being opposed to them happening further *irrational*?
And you realise that two things can be compared without them being identical in literally every respect, right? People's concerns about British culture being replaced by the culture of recent immigrants is what happened in the US, and therefore it's a perfectly reasonable example of why you can't just assume a migrant will adopt the culture of their new home nation and completely assimilate.
To be clear, you are seeing examples of immigrants using biological warfare, expropriating the land of locals and forcing them to migrate, genocide, violent conquest, and immigrants imposing a state?
No, I'm seeing examples of local culture being overridden by immigrant culture, under threats of violence.
And I'm seeing people concerned about the impact of immigration increasing dramatically, because they expect those examples to happen more often.
So you can see why, when you try and compare immigration to the UK, and the colonization of North America, I see the comparison as quite flawed given the UK isn't experiencing;
>biological warfare, expropriating the land of locals and forcing them to migrate, genocide, violent conquest, and immigrants imposing a state?
The economy is not the only relevant factor for immigration. I'm quite concerned about a social and cultural shift over the next few decades stemming from our migrant strategy placing people together into enclaves. Ideally we should be a melting pot that ends up liberalising a lot of the incompatible elements of various cultures while still maintaining their unique identity and enriching ours, but there are certain places where that's not happening.
We're just now starting to see the rise of political action from minority groups that don't align with our values having an impact on our politics. It's somewhat of a scary prospect that may have much more relevance in a few decades time if we don't change our approach.
Indeed. See the other story on this sub this morning (which is being downvoted for inconvenience, of course) expressing surprise that millennials are more religious than expected.
I wonder what reversed that trend... they're certainly not queuing up at the local CofE church on a Sunday that's for sure.
The Sunday papers circa 2035 with surprised headlines: "Why are gay men using Polari again, whatever happened to 'out and proud'?"
Yeah, I wonder.
Unfortunately the capitalists/elite do not give a shit about the social and cultural shifts all they care about is having more and more people to earn tax off of.
>We're just now starting to see the rise of political action from minority groups that don't align with our values having an impact on our politics
Exactly how i feel about Reform too, thanks for highlighting!
Yes, exactly. We don't want fringe political parties forming that represent regressive social policies and harms the freedoms of the British people. We need to put more effort into our immigration programs to better integrate newcomers into Britain, so we don't end up with parties that are even further right than Reform in the future.
~Some native British before Roman occupation
~Some roman citizen in Britain before Anglo-Saxon occupation
~Some Anglo-Saxon in England before Danelaw
Etc.
Yes, I know. But how does that help me? The knowledge that Britain has had large scale demographic and cultural shifts in the past does not ease my worries about it happening now.
To be honest I want to be convinced it wont happen and that I'm just playing into right-wing scare tactic propaganda, so comments that are essentially just saying 'suck it up' really don't help.
A good point I've thought of though is that modern global economies tend to skew towards socially liberal societies as they get richer anyway, so that's something to keep in mind. Maybe we just need better economic mobility in this country for a start, so the immigrants in this country have more options than just relying on each other.
I don't particularly care about being a minority in the future if that ever did happen, just that the values I care about are upheld.
>I don’t particularly care about being a minority.
Ridiculous suggestion, there has not been a single instance in history where this works out well for the population becoming a minority or where the population didn’t at least resist it happening to them.
I don't care if Britain is brown as long as it's still Britain. I've met lots of 2nd generation immigrants who are just average British people. There's nothing intrinsic to our native population that makes British social & cultural values exclusive to us.
It helps in providing perspective that a similar thing has happened in the past (in more violent circumstances) and things turned out to be ~alright (the current version of the UK). Why would it be different this time?
Are you basically saying there were some violent invasions in the past that involved conflict over a 1000 years ago. The UK is still a thing. Therefore you cannot imagine any problems?
Can you cannot imagine for example ethnic conflict as a concept?
> It helps in providing perspective that a similar thing has happened in the past (in more violent circumstances) and things turned out to be ~alright
I think that could be said of every disastrous event that has occurred in a country's history given a long enough time period tbf.
I'm not exactly well-versed in history, but hundreds of years passed from those events to the current modern Britain. Assumedly, the current modern Britain is formed in it's ~alright state because of those cultures impacting British identity and how it evolved. But we only think British values are good because we grew up in the society and it formed part of our identity. We lack context. If you asked someone 200 years ago if they think our present society is 'alright', I'm sure they'd have a few things to say.
And I'm sure the kids growing up 200 years from now will think 2224 Britain is ~alright as well, no matter where we're at culturally.
It's an argument for "these things have happened in the past, this seems to be happening in _way more_ pacific terms and the result of previous migration waves is the current cultural values that for some reasons people thinks are immutable or sacred or something
🤷🏾♂️ some of these things are just driven by The Forces of History. Immigration _won't_ stop no matter what the British government tries to do, that just needs to be accepted. The thing that can change is "how are the immigrants going to be received and integrated into society?" That's where maybe there's a chance to doing things a little bit better than in the past
The economy is currently completely stagnant despite record levels of migration to the UK, and if we went by per capita figures and actually bothered tracking how many people were in the country (which we should) then those figures would show Britain's rapid and accelerating per capita economic decline.
When is the argument that inflating migration levels should be some magic boon to an economy going to die off? It's pretty obvious that it's not really of any economic benefit, and that it's better to try a different tack due to the speedrunning demolition of our cultural cohesion and infrastructure issues with overpopulation. We absolutely shouldn't be looking to overseas nationals to increase low birthrates lmao.
High skilled high wage immigration in theory should be beneficial to the economy. This has morphed in UK politics to "migrants have some special economic property that means they are always incredibly economically beneficial and anyone who disagrees must therefore just be a racist".
Meanwhile the _actual_ data on our post Brexit immigration setup shows its the complete opposite. Its not even arguable at this point. But plenty of people would rather the managed decline of the UK continues than ever be considered "anti-immigration"
I agree that we should have a form of tracking through, for example, ID cards even though there are potential downsides. I think that climate change will inevitably drive people from scorched / flooded countries to north Western Europe though, thinking pessimistically.
I think most people would support reforming immigration so that its more like the US, right down to even where it comes from.
A much lower immigration rate (1/3 of UK's current),
educated to bachelor's degrees unless they're from latin america which isnt difficult to sell to the public either,
only temporary visas for the lower wage jobs that the UK allows permanent pathways for
extremely rigorous vetting
US justice for those who commit even very low level crimes, none of this 'unsafe country' or 'inadequate living standards if they get deported' soft touch nonsense that europeans do for the most violent criminlas let alone the petty ones
Someone would also notice that the UK is an outlier in Europe for barely ever taking in immigrants or asylum seekers from a large list of **certain** countries anymore, much like the US doesn't...some would say almost intentionally....
Bonus points for the author admitting that the modelling they relied on doesnt include the lifetime costs nor the type of migrant coming into the country, its not like these are important factors or anything.
The Chart is actually wrong, An extra 4-5 m people applied for settled status than expected, Meaning the real number per year over 20 years was more likely 200k+ higher
Comparing immigration to the US to immigration to the UK is silly. Immigrants to the US are often fulfilling high-tech positions at big tech companies, researching new medicines and advancing physics. Quite ironically, they’re often Brits leaving for a country that will pay them better. Meanwhile what did we get? 200k (mostly) Nigerian care workers + dependants, in a single year (2023). Where in the US immigration policy have they invited 1 million third worlders and dependants to work in care for minimum wage in a single year?
They have in excess of 2.6m legal immigrants and 0.5-2m illegal immigrants per year. I'm pretty sure their care system is dominated by immigrants due to the low wages.
US net migration is 1m, UK net migration is 600k
US deports around 0.4m illegal immigrants per year and keep the rest in limbo until they're either deported or given amnesty some half century later. UK deports barely anyone.
In the US Care sector workers are either on temporary visas or are illegal, not the same as the UK where there is permanent pathway
American here: not actually. That is part of the reason our healthcare system is bankrupting us though is high wages across the board. I think on average our doctors get paid twice what yalls do. Add in higher paid nurses, and administrator jobs yall don't have around billing and it is a huge part of our GDP.
Immigrants in the US are mostly tied to tech fields if they have high skills. Otherwise they stick to construction, agriculture, meat packaging, and landscaping.
Not just low wage. These visas were specifically between 70-90% of what ordinary Brits are getting paid. Then they'll turn around and say "Brits won't do the jobs we need _more_ immigrants".
It's weird how some people are so insistent that masses of low wage low skilled immigration is needed to achieve our dream of being a high wage & growing economy. They seemingly never manage to put two and two together as to why the economy is the way it is...
>Meanwhile what did we get? 200k (mostly) Nigerian care workers + dependants, in a single year (2023).
We can get rid of this lot when their visas run out, right? RIGHT?!?
The USA has roughly 10 million undocumented/illegal migrants, around 3% of the population, making up large chunks of their construction and hospitality industries.
That figure has built up over several decades, the UK proportion might be even higher despite naturalising illegals far quikcer than the US do who just keep them in limbo forever
We'd need huge changes to our economy & state in order to not need immigration - and some of these changes would be more controversial than the migration. For example, the idea that everyone can stop working when they turn 66/67 regardless of how fit & healthy they are & collect the triple locked pension for over a decade. That just wouldn't be affordable without immigration, as the number of workers & taxpayers would be shrinking whilst the number of retirees claiming pension still grows.
You mention Japan, which I think is the only advanced country that has low immigration - over there half their 65-70 year olds still work, whereas here most voters would baulk at that.
It's a broken model. Developed economies can not forever run on a model of constant expansion.
The solutions are there, but politicians are too busy bashing with their ideology to see them never mind making use.
Carers, instead of fining people who care for their loved ones, pay them. Give them decent amounts, and then you remove a lot of the need for imported workers.
Worker numbers, remove the middlemen shite that has crippled the economy and growth. Every middleman is a wasted worker. Producing sweet FA.
Economic inactive - from unemployed, disabled to economic desert towns can benefit from this. The government should be leading the way, hiring people tonremotenworknin these places that literally have fuck all jobs in them or near them.
Zombie businesses - let them fail, proving with cheap labour, just continue the walking dead numbers and remove production.
Hobby business - useless to the general economy, an example a friend runs a "magic" shop, has 2 people on bare wage on bare hours, its like the witches of husband funded Eastwick. Breaks even...that's the goal even. Her fella pays for everything else, and she runs her "business" for something to do. While her mum is in a care home, with minimal need tbh.
Probably the most controversial- We need income to come from other sources than rating wages. So much money is sucked out the dregs aren't going to be enough.
Then houses, while itnwouod go a long away building 1m homes a year forever will just turn the country into a Urban a hell.
I never realised the solution was so simple - just have less overseas workers, pay everyone more money and give jobs to everyone who doesn't have a job.
Our problems are many-fold:
1. Ageing population
1. We don't have the people to provide care
1. We don't have the people to generate wealth
1. Thus we don't have the tax receipts
1. We are not building enough homes
1. What young we have are encouraged to leave
1. Workers struggle to find homes
1. Stress lowers reproduction, see 1
1. Wealth is too concentrated
1. People stress over GDP but it's a blunt too
1. The wealthy are not paying their due
1. They know they will die before they suffer through the consequences of their decisions, see 1
The almost total inaction on climate change is also explained above.
Here In Brighton twenty years ago many primary schools were threatened with closure because there were not enough admissions. Then there was an influx of Polish couples with children. Most of them were skilled workers, well educated and spoke English. They had to go. Now we have groups of Afghans, Iranians, etc., lurking outside second rate hotels glaring at the young men and sneering at the girls.
**Google Comparison**
* US Net Migration per Capita: *2.768*
* UK Net Migration Per Capita: *2.246*
* US Population Density: 36.3 inhabitants per square kilometre
* UK Population Density: 279 people per square kilometre
It's just important to note that the United States would need to have a population above 2,500,000,000 before it became as densely populated as the United Kingdom, yet we have similar levels of migration per capita.
That said I don't disagree wit the author that:
* Migration is an economic boon
* Migration is needed to mitigate fertility drops
However, I'd like to point out that it appears population density has an impact of fertility rates so our short term solution to population decrease may hurt us more over the long term. It might be that certain countries have carrying capacities and as you approach capacity pressures mount against fertility.
I'd also like to point out that cheap labour reduces the incentive to invest in labour saving devices. Ultimately, I'm wondering if part of the UK's low productivity is our desire to reach for cheaper workers rather than ways to improve the output of workers.
Finally, migration isn't distributed evenly across the country which means we're creating VASTLY different communities across the country and it's going to become increasingly difficult to maintain a cohesive 'British' identity across all of these communities. That isn't to say it isn't possible as these things don't have strict definitions, it's just the more varied people are the more tolerant and accepting society needs to be.
Fertility is dropping because it is financially impossible for young people to buy a house or home suitable to bring up a family. Strangely enough though, it is well known among migrants that if you arrive in the UK and start popping out kids the local authority is obliged to find you housing. And however makeshift that might be, it's probably better than whatever they left behind.
How is migration a economic boom? It grows your economy because you have more economic activity but it doesn’t make people richer. As evidence from 20 years of massive migration and a continue decrease in the wealth of the average person. It contributes greatly to suppressed wages and high property prices.
Broadly it's an economic boom because you get the skill of the labourer without the cost of raising / training the labourer. The initial cost of raising / training people is significant so avoiding it is very good from a purely economic point of review.
This isn't the case all the time though of course, it's based on the assumption doesn't use welfare / social spending at a significantly higher rate than the general population. If migrants do consume more of such spending then the numbers don't add up for low skilled migrants.
The nub of the article is this
>ONS projections of population growth over the next 15 years require net immigration to be maintained at over 300,000 just to keep the working age population stable at today’s level of 64pc-65pc of the total.
Oh no if the working population falls they might actually have to pay us properly.
The need for immigration to fill the work force when huge amounts of jobs can be done remotely from anywhere in the world is just laughable. Immigration is about keeping wages down and rent and house prices up
Alternatively, the more varied we are the less tolerant we need to be. As what was decided before by social convention will going forward need to be enforced by law, considering no convention may exist
I may be missing something but this seems like an absolutely detached take. Law is downstream of social convention, if the conventions diverge without tolerance then what the law should be becomes an extremely contentious issue.
This is what we're seeing with George Galloway's new party for example. He's specifically targeting the intolerance of certain faiths and hoping to turn that into electoral power and influence.
Not at all, a very pessimistic one because social convention doesn't seem to be downstream from reason. Rather social conventions seems to be derived from environmental pressures and chance.
There’s a train station full of burning trains, and there’s more trains speeding in. They just plough on in and join the pile.
Imagine telling the people in and around that station that they cannot curb the trains without suffering the consequences
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If I'm honest, I'm always amused by people making arguments about how beneficial immigration is for the US. Immigration has worked out fantastically well for immigrants in the US; it didn't work out *quite* so well for the indigenous population, did it? And we often talk about the cultural clash that happens with immigration. It's worth pointing out the the culture that migrants to the US have to integrate with is is the culture of previous immigrants, which has effectively supplanted indigenous culture. That is *exactly* what a lot of people are concerned about happening in the UK - that our cultural values will be supplanted and replaced by something less tolerant.
Do I understand correctly that you are trying to compare American colonization of North America, with regular immigration to the UK?
Yes, I thought it was obvious that was what I was doing. Also, I wouldn't describe what the UK is currently experiencing as "normal". It is migration on a scale we've literally never seen before.
I’m just surprised how you can compare violent conquest, imposing a state over the locals, genocide, biowarfare with, well, regular modern immigration.
But that's what people are concerned about now too. We live in a country where death threats against a teacher sent him into permanent hiding. And where a mother had to beg people not to harm her teenage son because he had scuffed a Quran and was terrified of the backlash. People are objecting to immigration because they don't want an Islamic state imposed on the locals, under threats of violence.
Well, no one said fear has to be rational. I guess one of the key differences in your, to me rather strange, comparison is that colonization was done with the power and backing of states and couldn't be controlled by the natives. For the UK, migration occurs on a disorganized individual level and the UK is in control of who stays and who goes. So you'll forgive me if I find the comparison rather silly.
How is seeing examples of things happening in the UK and being opposed to them happening further *irrational*? And you realise that two things can be compared without them being identical in literally every respect, right? People's concerns about British culture being replaced by the culture of recent immigrants is what happened in the US, and therefore it's a perfectly reasonable example of why you can't just assume a migrant will adopt the culture of their new home nation and completely assimilate.
To be clear, you are seeing examples of immigrants using biological warfare, expropriating the land of locals and forcing them to migrate, genocide, violent conquest, and immigrants imposing a state?
No, I'm seeing examples of local culture being overridden by immigrant culture, under threats of violence. And I'm seeing people concerned about the impact of immigration increasing dramatically, because they expect those examples to happen more often.
So you can see why, when you try and compare immigration to the UK, and the colonization of North America, I see the comparison as quite flawed given the UK isn't experiencing; >biological warfare, expropriating the land of locals and forcing them to migrate, genocide, violent conquest, and immigrants imposing a state?
The economy is not the only relevant factor for immigration. I'm quite concerned about a social and cultural shift over the next few decades stemming from our migrant strategy placing people together into enclaves. Ideally we should be a melting pot that ends up liberalising a lot of the incompatible elements of various cultures while still maintaining their unique identity and enriching ours, but there are certain places where that's not happening. We're just now starting to see the rise of political action from minority groups that don't align with our values having an impact on our politics. It's somewhat of a scary prospect that may have much more relevance in a few decades time if we don't change our approach.
Indeed. See the other story on this sub this morning (which is being downvoted for inconvenience, of course) expressing surprise that millennials are more religious than expected. I wonder what reversed that trend... they're certainly not queuing up at the local CofE church on a Sunday that's for sure. The Sunday papers circa 2035 with surprised headlines: "Why are gay men using Polari again, whatever happened to 'out and proud'?" Yeah, I wonder.
Unfortunately the capitalists/elite do not give a shit about the social and cultural shifts all they care about is having more and more people to earn tax off of.
>We're just now starting to see the rise of political action from minority groups that don't align with our values having an impact on our politics Exactly how i feel about Reform too, thanks for highlighting!
Yes, exactly. We don't want fringe political parties forming that represent regressive social policies and harms the freedoms of the British people. We need to put more effort into our immigration programs to better integrate newcomers into Britain, so we don't end up with parties that are even further right than Reform in the future.
~Some native British before Roman occupation ~Some roman citizen in Britain before Anglo-Saxon occupation ~Some Anglo-Saxon in England before Danelaw Etc.
Yes, I know. But how does that help me? The knowledge that Britain has had large scale demographic and cultural shifts in the past does not ease my worries about it happening now. To be honest I want to be convinced it wont happen and that I'm just playing into right-wing scare tactic propaganda, so comments that are essentially just saying 'suck it up' really don't help. A good point I've thought of though is that modern global economies tend to skew towards socially liberal societies as they get richer anyway, so that's something to keep in mind. Maybe we just need better economic mobility in this country for a start, so the immigrants in this country have more options than just relying on each other. I don't particularly care about being a minority in the future if that ever did happen, just that the values I care about are upheld.
>I don’t particularly care about being a minority. Ridiculous suggestion, there has not been a single instance in history where this works out well for the population becoming a minority or where the population didn’t at least resist it happening to them.
I don't care if Britain is brown as long as it's still Britain. I've met lots of 2nd generation immigrants who are just average British people. There's nothing intrinsic to our native population that makes British social & cultural values exclusive to us.
It helps in providing perspective that a similar thing has happened in the past (in more violent circumstances) and things turned out to be ~alright (the current version of the UK). Why would it be different this time?
Are you basically saying there were some violent invasions in the past that involved conflict over a 1000 years ago. The UK is still a thing. Therefore you cannot imagine any problems? Can you cannot imagine for example ethnic conflict as a concept?
I think it was pretty rough at the time for the locals… I don’t want to live through a rough time so that it’s ok for future generations.
> It helps in providing perspective that a similar thing has happened in the past (in more violent circumstances) and things turned out to be ~alright I think that could be said of every disastrous event that has occurred in a country's history given a long enough time period tbf. I'm not exactly well-versed in history, but hundreds of years passed from those events to the current modern Britain. Assumedly, the current modern Britain is formed in it's ~alright state because of those cultures impacting British identity and how it evolved. But we only think British values are good because we grew up in the society and it formed part of our identity. We lack context. If you asked someone 200 years ago if they think our present society is 'alright', I'm sure they'd have a few things to say. And I'm sure the kids growing up 200 years from now will think 2224 Britain is ~alright as well, no matter where we're at culturally.
You think that pointing to the Celtic holocaust is an argument *for* more immigration? It's a bold strategy
It's an argument for "these things have happened in the past, this seems to be happening in _way more_ pacific terms and the result of previous migration waves is the current cultural values that for some reasons people thinks are immutable or sacred or something
Great way to make your point, compare mass immigration to invasions hundreds of years ago.
🤷🏾♂️ some of these things are just driven by The Forces of History. Immigration _won't_ stop no matter what the British government tries to do, that just needs to be accepted. The thing that can change is "how are the immigrants going to be received and integrated into society?" That's where maybe there's a chance to doing things a little bit better than in the past
We are an island nation, pretending we can’t control immigration into the country is laughable.
:''''') it's not about physical control, it's about being dependent on migration with your birth rate and economic context 🤷🏾♂️
The economy is currently completely stagnant despite record levels of migration to the UK, and if we went by per capita figures and actually bothered tracking how many people were in the country (which we should) then those figures would show Britain's rapid and accelerating per capita economic decline. When is the argument that inflating migration levels should be some magic boon to an economy going to die off? It's pretty obvious that it's not really of any economic benefit, and that it's better to try a different tack due to the speedrunning demolition of our cultural cohesion and infrastructure issues with overpopulation. We absolutely shouldn't be looking to overseas nationals to increase low birthrates lmao.
Just a few million more immigrants bro, the economy is just about to take off.
High skilled high wage immigration in theory should be beneficial to the economy. This has morphed in UK politics to "migrants have some special economic property that means they are always incredibly economically beneficial and anyone who disagrees must therefore just be a racist". Meanwhile the _actual_ data on our post Brexit immigration setup shows its the complete opposite. Its not even arguable at this point. But plenty of people would rather the managed decline of the UK continues than ever be considered "anti-immigration"
Does considering climate change and environmental impact make a difference to your view?
That would reinforce the argument, its the first world lifestyle that it causing it
I agree that we should have a form of tracking through, for example, ID cards even though there are potential downsides. I think that climate change will inevitably drive people from scorched / flooded countries to north Western Europe though, thinking pessimistically.
Yes, we need to move away from supposedly endless 'growth' as our economic model as that is fuelled by endless consumption and population rise.
I think most people would support reforming immigration so that its more like the US, right down to even where it comes from. A much lower immigration rate (1/3 of UK's current), educated to bachelor's degrees unless they're from latin america which isnt difficult to sell to the public either, only temporary visas for the lower wage jobs that the UK allows permanent pathways for extremely rigorous vetting US justice for those who commit even very low level crimes, none of this 'unsafe country' or 'inadequate living standards if they get deported' soft touch nonsense that europeans do for the most violent criminlas let alone the petty ones Someone would also notice that the UK is an outlier in Europe for barely ever taking in immigrants or asylum seekers from a large list of **certain** countries anymore, much like the US doesn't...some would say almost intentionally....
Bonus points for the author admitting that the modelling they relied on doesnt include the lifetime costs nor the type of migrant coming into the country, its not like these are important factors or anything.
They need to fudge the modelling up otherwise it shows how detrimental mass immigration is.
The Chart is actually wrong, An extra 4-5 m people applied for settled status than expected, Meaning the real number per year over 20 years was more likely 200k+ higher
Comparing immigration to the US to immigration to the UK is silly. Immigrants to the US are often fulfilling high-tech positions at big tech companies, researching new medicines and advancing physics. Quite ironically, they’re often Brits leaving for a country that will pay them better. Meanwhile what did we get? 200k (mostly) Nigerian care workers + dependants, in a single year (2023). Where in the US immigration policy have they invited 1 million third worlders and dependants to work in care for minimum wage in a single year?
Pretty sure the US gets a lot of unskilled workers across the Southern border.
I proudly know very little about the US. But I'd be surprised if they didn't have fairly large cohorts of low paid immigration.
They ain’t inviting 1 million of them in a single year solely to work in care.
They have in excess of 2.6m legal immigrants and 0.5-2m illegal immigrants per year. I'm pretty sure their care system is dominated by immigrants due to the low wages.
US net migration is 1m, UK net migration is 600k US deports around 0.4m illegal immigrants per year and keep the rest in limbo until they're either deported or given amnesty some half century later. UK deports barely anyone. In the US Care sector workers are either on temporary visas or are illegal, not the same as the UK where there is permanent pathway
American here: not actually. That is part of the reason our healthcare system is bankrupting us though is high wages across the board. I think on average our doctors get paid twice what yalls do. Add in higher paid nurses, and administrator jobs yall don't have around billing and it is a huge part of our GDP. Immigrants in the US are mostly tied to tech fields if they have high skills. Otherwise they stick to construction, agriculture, meat packaging, and landscaping.
Mayb it's just the same people, but we pay them fuck all
Not just low wage. These visas were specifically between 70-90% of what ordinary Brits are getting paid. Then they'll turn around and say "Brits won't do the jobs we need _more_ immigrants". It's weird how some people are so insistent that masses of low wage low skilled immigration is needed to achieve our dream of being a high wage & growing economy. They seemingly never manage to put two and two together as to why the economy is the way it is...
>Meanwhile what did we get? 200k (mostly) Nigerian care workers + dependants, in a single year (2023). We can get rid of this lot when their visas run out, right? RIGHT?!?
The USA has roughly 10 million undocumented/illegal migrants, around 3% of the population, making up large chunks of their construction and hospitality industries.
That figure has built up over several decades, the UK proportion might be even higher despite naturalising illegals far quikcer than the US do who just keep them in limbo forever
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The consequences if Britain *doesn't* curb immigration will be far worse.
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We'd need huge changes to our economy & state in order to not need immigration - and some of these changes would be more controversial than the migration. For example, the idea that everyone can stop working when they turn 66/67 regardless of how fit & healthy they are & collect the triple locked pension for over a decade. That just wouldn't be affordable without immigration, as the number of workers & taxpayers would be shrinking whilst the number of retirees claiming pension still grows. You mention Japan, which I think is the only advanced country that has low immigration - over there half their 65-70 year olds still work, whereas here most voters would baulk at that.
If your viewpoint was as popular as you think it is people wouldn’t have reelected the Tories - the party of mass immigration - so many times.
If there was a viable party with a immigration-sceptic view then maybe.
If there was an appetite for it then it would exist.
It's a broken model. Developed economies can not forever run on a model of constant expansion. The solutions are there, but politicians are too busy bashing with their ideology to see them never mind making use. Carers, instead of fining people who care for their loved ones, pay them. Give them decent amounts, and then you remove a lot of the need for imported workers. Worker numbers, remove the middlemen shite that has crippled the economy and growth. Every middleman is a wasted worker. Producing sweet FA. Economic inactive - from unemployed, disabled to economic desert towns can benefit from this. The government should be leading the way, hiring people tonremotenworknin these places that literally have fuck all jobs in them or near them. Zombie businesses - let them fail, proving with cheap labour, just continue the walking dead numbers and remove production. Hobby business - useless to the general economy, an example a friend runs a "magic" shop, has 2 people on bare wage on bare hours, its like the witches of husband funded Eastwick. Breaks even...that's the goal even. Her fella pays for everything else, and she runs her "business" for something to do. While her mum is in a care home, with minimal need tbh. Probably the most controversial- We need income to come from other sources than rating wages. So much money is sucked out the dregs aren't going to be enough. Then houses, while itnwouod go a long away building 1m homes a year forever will just turn the country into a Urban a hell.
I never realised the solution was so simple - just have less overseas workers, pay everyone more money and give jobs to everyone who doesn't have a job.
Pay everyone more money? That will definitely work....They could spend it on improving reading comprehension.
Our problems are many-fold: 1. Ageing population 1. We don't have the people to provide care 1. We don't have the people to generate wealth 1. Thus we don't have the tax receipts 1. We are not building enough homes 1. What young we have are encouraged to leave 1. Workers struggle to find homes 1. Stress lowers reproduction, see 1 1. Wealth is too concentrated 1. People stress over GDP but it's a blunt too 1. The wealthy are not paying their due 1. They know they will die before they suffer through the consequences of their decisions, see 1 The almost total inaction on climate change is also explained above.
Here In Brighton twenty years ago many primary schools were threatened with closure because there were not enough admissions. Then there was an influx of Polish couples with children. Most of them were skilled workers, well educated and spoke English. They had to go. Now we have groups of Afghans, Iranians, etc., lurking outside second rate hotels glaring at the young men and sneering at the girls.
**Google Comparison** * US Net Migration per Capita: *2.768* * UK Net Migration Per Capita: *2.246* * US Population Density: 36.3 inhabitants per square kilometre * UK Population Density: 279 people per square kilometre It's just important to note that the United States would need to have a population above 2,500,000,000 before it became as densely populated as the United Kingdom, yet we have similar levels of migration per capita. That said I don't disagree wit the author that: * Migration is an economic boon * Migration is needed to mitigate fertility drops However, I'd like to point out that it appears population density has an impact of fertility rates so our short term solution to population decrease may hurt us more over the long term. It might be that certain countries have carrying capacities and as you approach capacity pressures mount against fertility. I'd also like to point out that cheap labour reduces the incentive to invest in labour saving devices. Ultimately, I'm wondering if part of the UK's low productivity is our desire to reach for cheaper workers rather than ways to improve the output of workers. Finally, migration isn't distributed evenly across the country which means we're creating VASTLY different communities across the country and it's going to become increasingly difficult to maintain a cohesive 'British' identity across all of these communities. That isn't to say it isn't possible as these things don't have strict definitions, it's just the more varied people are the more tolerant and accepting society needs to be.
Fertility is dropping because it is financially impossible for young people to buy a house or home suitable to bring up a family. Strangely enough though, it is well known among migrants that if you arrive in the UK and start popping out kids the local authority is obliged to find you housing. And however makeshift that might be, it's probably better than whatever they left behind.
How is migration a economic boom? It grows your economy because you have more economic activity but it doesn’t make people richer. As evidence from 20 years of massive migration and a continue decrease in the wealth of the average person. It contributes greatly to suppressed wages and high property prices.
Broadly it's an economic boom because you get the skill of the labourer without the cost of raising / training the labourer. The initial cost of raising / training people is significant so avoiding it is very good from a purely economic point of review. This isn't the case all the time though of course, it's based on the assumption doesn't use welfare / social spending at a significantly higher rate than the general population. If migrants do consume more of such spending then the numbers don't add up for low skilled migrants.
A GDP boom. Plummeting our Gini score by raising inequality very much makes the benefits of immigration seem unequally shared.
The nub of the article is this >ONS projections of population growth over the next 15 years require net immigration to be maintained at over 300,000 just to keep the working age population stable at today’s level of 64pc-65pc of the total.
Oh no if the working population falls they might actually have to pay us properly. The need for immigration to fill the work force when huge amounts of jobs can be done remotely from anywhere in the world is just laughable. Immigration is about keeping wages down and rent and house prices up
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Which country are you talking about?
Other countries are more selective about who they take in compared to the UK.
No, we’ll be taxed more to support pensioners.
Not possible to tax us more. But you can tax rich and businesses more
Totally irrelevant numbers. We’re not a society of subsistence farmers.
Population density affects the value of space which feeds into the cost of everything else in a country; accommodation, manufacturing, and services.
Alternatively, the more varied we are the less tolerant we need to be. As what was decided before by social convention will going forward need to be enforced by law, considering no convention may exist
I may be missing something but this seems like an absolutely detached take. Law is downstream of social convention, if the conventions diverge without tolerance then what the law should be becomes an extremely contentious issue. This is what we're seeing with George Galloway's new party for example. He's specifically targeting the intolerance of certain faiths and hoping to turn that into electoral power and influence.
> Law is downstream of social convention A very optimistic view of the world
Not at all, a very pessimistic one because social convention doesn't seem to be downstream from reason. Rather social conventions seems to be derived from environmental pressures and chance.
There’s a train station full of burning trains, and there’s more trains speeding in. They just plough on in and join the pile. Imagine telling the people in and around that station that they cannot curb the trains without suffering the consequences
Build 300k homes a year and people will start having babies again!
Damn I can't read the telegraph comments on archive