UK needs immigrants to increase stagnating productivity. this has been the case for decades and it's why no government has done, or will do anything serious to curb it.
See figure 1.3a - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-advisor...
Note that to the best of my knowledge, these numbers don't include the Afghan resettlement scheme which would further lower the proportion of employment driven visas.
That's what pisses me off about the whole thing. People buy the crap the politicians are feeding them and the immigrants are the ones that pay for it. You'd think people would have realized after decades of this crap that neither party is going to do a damn thing.
Who indeed will pick the cotton.
Aren't those nurses needed back home?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehignett/2023/06/07/uk-...
https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/afr/afr...
The sorts of "progressives" who unconditionally support mass immigration are just useful idiots being used as tools by said elites to enforce their narrative. Just have to push the idea that "disagreeing with this is racist" and they'll all support it without question.
Progressives (in the US at least) generally support immigration with protections and fair wages. They also recognize, rightfully, that systems built for decades upon exploitative practices (low wages, no protections) if removed overnight will cause mass disruption of those systems.
Neither of these is in any way supportive of slavery, modern or otherwise. The first - suggesting that immigrants be treated civilly and paid a living wage - has been fought tooth and nail by 'free market' literalists. The second - that there will be disruptions in social and economic systems when an entire workforce is suddenly removed from the systems that it has propped up for decades - is common sense and historically founded.
You're conflating these things to try to justify a talking point that was just created three months ago.
Like, come on now. Give me a break. This type of reasoning is so caked with bullshit I don't think anyone on the right even buys it.
Sure, we can say maybe the left is arguing for exploitation, but certainly the right aren't champions of human rights. I mean, what's the big picture here? "Don't exploit the immigrants! Instead, violate their rights and force them into camps!"
We can solve the immigration problem overnight, if anyone cares. Just say that if you're found hiring undocumented people, you go to prison. I garauntee you, the problem will solve itself with such expedition it will leave you in awe.
But nobody on the right actually proposes this. Because they don't actually care about immigration. They care about populist messaging. They want you to believe there's an enemy within causing all your problems, and they they alone are the solution.
But no - they, too, directly rely on the exploitation. They won't ever patch it. It will always be lip-service, propaganda, and populist messaging.
Immigrants are the populist scapegoat needed to get the authoritarianism. They're an easy to blame demographic that are physically marginalized - you can literally see them with your eyes.
Without immigrants, this populist messaging problem isn't solved. In the US, we just used black people before. Chinese people for a while too. Japanese people. We increased surveillance, built camps, required registries, you name it.
That's just how the right operates and how their populist messaging works. You need to convince poor "incumbents" (usually white people) that there's some other demographic coming for their money and they're dangerous. Don't let them into your neighborhood!
But don't worry, we can clean it up! Just give us unilateral power and a surveillance state, and we promise these pesky brown folk will be gone. And then, somehow that will magically improve the quality of your life!
It's the same story again and again, over and over. If we haven't already done this a bunch, I might be inclined to believe you. But we have. So when I hear about some new dangerous, untrustworthy, mostly brown demographic taking over your country I just yawn.
Yeah yeah been there, done that. Just give the authoritarian's what they want at this point, they're not even being slick.
This conflicts with basically everything else you wrote. Not sure if you meant to do that, or meant to say something else, but the immigration issue is definitely driving the messaging from Reform and, to a lesser extent, the Conservatives. If suddenly the boats stopped, the Afghans were beamed away back to Afghanistan, and ~30 years of mismanaged immigration policy was reversed overnight I don't see how a) reform exists, b) the election at the end of this 5 year term isn't just about funding NHS and Labour holds a majority with the rest split between the Tories and the Lib Dems.
>So when I hear about some new dangerous, untrustworthy, mostly brown demographic taking over your country I just yawn.
People say things like this as a cryptic way to imply the person they're talking to is just a racist bad person and therefore anything else that person said is wrong and "bad", and then they get to sidestep any meaningful discussion about policy.
Honestly that's pretty much how we got to the place where Reform is leading in the polls by 10 points, so bravo for a very meta comment.
Yes, my point is that we've already done this countless times.
The messaging doesn't go away if you get rid of these particular brown people. They just shift to some other demographic, because that's how right-wing populist messaging works.
Nobody would actually be satisfied if the immigrants were beamed away.
> People say things like this as a cryptic way to imply the person they're talking to is just a racist bad person
No, it's not, and I don't think you're racist.
To be clear, I'm from the US, so I'm speaking from the perspective of what we've done and we keep having this same thing happen again. And again. And again. For literally hundreds of years at this point.
That's the meaningful discussion. I yawn not because you are racist, but because you are unoriginal.
All those other right-wing populist dilemmas turned out to be hot bullshit. Looking back, I don't know how people were stupid enough to fall for them, but evidently they were and we implemented a lot of surveillance and authoritarian laws. Luckily, many repealed.
But, I have no reason to believe this particular demographic panic isn't bullshit. They've always been bullshit. Just based off of track record it's not looking good.
The reason I bring up brown people isn't to imply racism, it's to call into question the legitimacy of the basis for this outrage.
It seems to me that, coincidentally, just like every other right-wing panic, mostly brown people are targeted. Hm. Interesting. Look at that. So why is this panic real, and not fake like the other ones?
>To be clear, I'm from the US
I'm also from the US, and am still able to discern that these immigration levels are unprecedented in history, in either country. So ... hand waving it away because it's icky isn't sufficient. Your position amounts to "immigration, in any amount, does not matter" which is a much more extreme claim than that of the "far right", either in the US or the UK.
>The reason I bring up brown people isn't to imply racism, it's to call into question the legitimacy of the basis for this outrage.
I don't know how to parse this sentence, other than for it to mean that as long as the immigration is from countries that are "brown" (your words) it's not legitimate to criticize it.
If the same thing keeps happening and we keep being wrong, I lose faith in the premise. I have no reason to believe the right is faithful on these issues, so I don't care. I'm just going to assume they're making a big deal out of nothing and I'm probably right.
The UK currently has a left leaning government. All governments love surveillance and authoritarianism.
I do not distinguish the far-left from far-right as they equally polarizing and extreme, and only seeks to pull people in the center towards them through violence, censorship and intimidation.
People in the center seeks a balance between the extremes. Some industries require immigration of labor force but it can't come with delusional ideologies that seek to manipulate the wages.
For cleaners it's a little less clear which employment visa they'd have been more likely to use. Potentially either depending on the specifics of their job, their income and the precise definition of skilled worker.
Do you really mean to tell me that none of those people can work as cleaners?
Study visas do not have a pathway to settlement. Students paying through the nose for the privilege of staying for a few years to study and then leaving (or getting work visas like everyone else) is hardly a bad thing.
"The use of the UN definition of long-term immigration means that whether someone should be counted as an immigrant or emigrant (and hence contribute to the net migration statistics) only becomes evident after 12 months.... Currently, the ONS publishes provisional estimates with a 5-month lag"
The discussion of international students is less relevant to employment related concerns, but still contributes to other aspects of population growth like rental housing demand or water consumption.
If you were a French or a German doctor or an engineer, would you spend 3 months fighting with the Home Office for the questionable privilege of earning £50K per annum in a country where a half decent flat costs £2500 a month?
Ultimately you have to balance the incoming immigration with the demands that produces, and that's where a lot of countries fall short. For being as similar as they are, Americans and Canadians have radically different experiences and opinions on immigration from India, for example. Why? Americans mainly think of them as either business owners providing needed services (even if it's just as the stereotypical convenience store owner) or people working in cutting-edge and important industries, because that's who American immigration policy allows in from India. Canadians have far less charitable views, because over the last decade or so, Canadian immigration policy has been far less discriminatory. Whether it should or not, this produces social friction with people who have roots in the society that receives the immigration.
https://niesr.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/JC760-NIESR-O...
It's not about productivity, it's about the gross GDP numbers (and initially new labour were 100% OK with a demographic transformation project at the same time)
Gen Z have never experienced economic growth. They don't know what it means to get richer.
In the 90s in the UK, skilled working class tradesmen making huge amounts of money was such a stereotype that there was even a comedy character about it. I can't imagine seeing that happen again.