Hacker News Reader

Comment by Earw0rm | Hacker News Reader

Uncontrolled immigration to the UK is a myth. If you've ever tried to get permanent residence for a non-EU citizen, you'd know just how controlled it is.

Granted, yes, we had little control over migration from the EU from 2004 to 2016. But very few of London's working poor are of Eastern European heritage - anyone from there who finds it too difficult here tends to head back.

Asylum seekers / "small boats" migrant numbers are absolutely tiny relative to the London population.

London does have a high % of first-generation immigrants - but most of them are now-elderly Caribbeans, South Asians, Mediterraneans, West Africans who came over in the 60s and 70s. Outside of a few areas, non-Anglo-looking people in their 30s and under were overwhelmingly born here.

View on HN

"the Office of National Statistics suggest that total net migration was 504,000 in the year ending June 2022. This was substantially above pre-pandemic estimates of between 300,000 and 400,000 (depending on which measure is used) " [1]

It's clearly not controlled enough. That's a city approximately the size of Leicester every year. Nobody voted for this.

[1] https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo....

For all the flaws of UK democracy, the majority who votes for parties supportive of current immigration levels is vast. So even if you were right nobody explicitly voted for this, opposition to it is weak enough that the vast majority does not see it as a sufficient priority to change their voting patterns.

The English deserve to get what they voted for -- and will get it good and hard.

The problem with this argument is that completely ignores the die-off rate of the population or the demographics. On average, our population is dieing off at about 600k per year - 500k immigrants does not even break even. We have a negative birth rate. We need new blood - ONS projection for population growth between 2020 and 2045 is under 6%. To compare - mid-1995 and mid-2020 it was just over 15%. We are old-age-heavy which is really bad for the economy and taxation. The mindset should align with data.

So your defense has changed from "it's not happening" to "it's happening and it's a good thing"?

It's not a defence. The "new city" per year is a scare mongering tactic that presents only a partial data picture as its basis.

It's a new city every year of only small boat arrivals. As others have pointed out the the wider picture is even more absurd. Largely of people not fleeing war or real conflict or difficulty either. But people who cannot support themselves.

Can you please define how an objective simple piece of data is somehow biased?

And, for avoidance of doubt, I do think immigration is both a good thing and a necessary thing. Of course, being an immigrant, I am somewhat biased.

> Uncontrolled immigration to the UK is a myth

Demonstrably untrue. 1 in 5 people are foreign born. Over six million people received indefinite leave to remain specifically through the brexit process. "Small boat landings" brought a city the size of Canterbury to the UK last year alone fleeing France. Over one million visas were issued last year.

Can you explain what's controlled about small boat landings?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com