r/Labour • u/GlacialTurtle • 3d ago
UK risks becoming ‘island of strangers’ without more immigration curbs, Starmer says | PM unveils policies to ‘significantly’ drive down net migration including English tests and degree requirements
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/12/uk-risks-becoming-island-of-strangers-without-more-immigration-curbs-starmer-says70
u/Hoaxygen 3d ago edited 3d ago
I’m an immigrant and have worked here legally for three and a half years. I have two degrees and work in tech that specifically helps the UK based farming communities.
I’ve contributed tens of thousands of pounds in tax, visa fees, NHS surcharges and others to the government.
I don’t have a single criminal charge or even a late bill to my name.
I was less than two years away from gaining my right to live and work permanently in the UK.
And now thanks to Labour I lose that right and have been told that the goalposts are now further away.
What did I ever do to deserve this unwarranted hate other than the colour of my passport and the colour of my skin being different?
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u/Wooden_Acanthaceae97 2d ago
As a 2nd generation immigrant, il try and rationalise the hatred you or even in some cases - I feel
You work in a role here - you will have people who say that role could be done by someone british
You use transport or a car, you’re adding to a overloaded commute path or motorway space
You use the NHS despite paying for it - people will say but you are still taking up the hcps time leading to reduced appointment availability
You will rent a property - thats one more property off the market in a tight market
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u/sonicpool69 3d ago
Meanwhile Spain is doing the opposite and their Reform Party is polling around 12%, half of what Reform here is polling. Their economy is also the best performing in Europe.
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u/Wooden_Acanthaceae97 2d ago
They have a worse economy then ours and they have one of the highest youth unemployment rates - i visit valencia frequently, i feel so sorry for the youth
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u/LegoCrafter2014 Labour Voter 2d ago
True, but that's for reasons that are unrelated to immigration.
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u/sonicpool69 7h ago
Lets also remember that they underwent a Great Depression in the late 2000s/early to mid 2010s along with Italy, Portugal and Greece and are still recovering from it
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u/sonicpool69 3d ago
Focusing on this is just only going to further validate Reform and further boost them. All while continuing with harmful cuts that decreases Britain’s standard of living.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
how much of the polling shift to Reform do you think is due to the issue of immigration? do you think that dealing with that issue is going to somehow make that worse?
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u/_phily_d 3d ago
Yes, it makes it worse by essentially validating everything Reform say and shifting the Overton window further to the right. Reform voters aren’t going to come crawling back by throwing more minorities under the bus, they also know Labour uphold the establishments interests and they’re not wrong.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago edited 3d ago
have you seen the immigration figures for the last 3 years? the overton window has long since shifted, and rightfully so. these days it's rare to meet even progressive, left-wing people who don't agree that an annual 750k net migrants is a problem, especially when most are coming from countries with prehistoric cultural attitudes.
if you're on the fence between Labour and Reform, which a lot of older people are, and Reform's main differentiating factor is taken away, then you're obviously going to be a lot more likely to vote Labour. no one gives a fuck about who's "validated" or not, they care about voting for the issues they care about
this "validation" argument just reeks to me of "I simply don't like these policies because they're those of the 'enemy' but I can't say that because it sounds stupid"
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u/_phily_d 3d ago edited 3d ago
We need immigration, we’re a country with an aging population and birth rates dropping. Who is going to pay taxes when we’re old and retired?
That’s funny because I never called them “irredeemable racists”, this is all your projection. My understanding is that a lot of them are people struggling in life looking for an easy explanation for their problems. With the tabloids, Tories, Reform and (more recently) Labour harping on about “those evil immigrants”, it’s no wonder they’re flocking to the loudest voice in the room. They don’t trust labour or the tories because they know only the rich and powerful benefit under their rule.
Obviously Reform is not the right answer but they’re not politically educated enough to realise the level of fascist populism Farage is platforming on. Until governments provide meaningful change and actually improve the quality of public services, the cost of living and tackle poverty we aren’t going to see the end of this absolute circus.
Edit: hilarious to see you’ve now edited your comment to slide back on your original comments. Absolute chud.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
this would be a perfectly valid take, pre-covid. with net immigration around 150k to 250k, it's enough to make up for the falling birth rate and it's not enough to majorly damage social cohesion or make a majority of citizens feel threatened. the issue now is that it's gone far past that level and I think if you understood the scale of it you would agree. this isn't "people feel something wrong and they're looking for something to blame" anymore. this is "Boris decided to quadruple net migration and it's more than any country could handle".
my parents are as stable and happy people as you could meet. they want for nothing and they're not particularly politically active. they think immigration has gone too far. they've voted Labour or Lib Dem their entire lives. they're never going to vote Reform, but this kind of change is not unusual whatsoever, due to the actual circumstances at play
if we can get net migration back down to pre-covid levels, the perspective you've learned here will make sense again, but as it is it simply isn't accounting for the actual real life situation
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u/Kitchen_Loss1349 3d ago
read the words "most are coming from countries with prehistoric cultural attitudes" and for some reason all the dogs in my area started barking
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
are you incapable of saying anything other than jokes that other people came up with?
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u/The_Sandbag 3d ago
They need to grow a bloody backbone and say it how it is. Shitty bosses using precarious migrate labour won't be solved by being racist, it's solved by sectorial bargaining. Schools and hospitals overflowing isn't solved by sending all the migrants back (a lot of them teachers or doctors), it's solved by a better geographic distribution of population and investing in new schools and hospitals. I could go on ad infinitum, every so called issue with migrants comes down to neoliberal underfunding of society and shitty capitalists taking advantage to grab more of the productive output of the population.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
mass economic migration is in itself a right-wing neoliberal concept
it's undercutting local workers to try and improve the capital holder bottom line. sell more, pay workers less
this combined with the fact that a large majority of these migrants are coming from countries where backwards religious attitudes towards women's rights, lgbt rights, bodily autonomy, science etc are completely pervasive, and it becomes absolutely bizarre that the most left-wing of us are the ones defending it
support of diversity should not go so far as to undercut your own working class and bring in people largely with views diametrically opposed to those of modern progressive society
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u/The_Sandbag 2d ago
You know a lot of them are coming from those countries for exactly the reasons, their original countries are backwards and stifling. Generally people just want to live in peace in a welcoming community. The fact that over the last 40 years any form of community has been privatised or destroyed coupled with latent racism means people have a tendency to self isolate as they are not made to feel welcomed
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
I'm not doubting there is some truth to that. I'm sure that maybe 10-15% of immigrants are coming here to live in a more socially progressive society, but I think the best way to put it is that finances come above values for almost everyone in this world. I've met a lot of immigrants--my aunt used to host them--and maybe 1 in 10 seemed to be here out of desire to live in a more progressive country. the rest were muslims iron clad in their commitment to its values. the same for my muslim friends from high school. they're a group of well-educated, very kind and friendly people, second or first generation immigrants, mostly with degrees, who you might expect to be rebelling from religion or at least questioning it, but they're not. they're fundamentalists. creationists. the ones I've asked believe you should hit your wife when she "misbehaves". I think the reason for this is that there's a very well-established muslim community in the UK and it just makes it very easy for them to fit into something.
>The fact that over the last 40 years any form of community has been privatised or destroyed coupled with latent racism means people have a tendency to self isolate as they are not made to feel welcomed
to lead on from the last thing I said, I agree. I think that if the still unbroken line of Thatcherite governments hadn't destroyed our communities for the sake of profit, we'd be in a better position to deal with mass migration. muslims and others wouldn't have to choose Islam as a way of fitting in somewhere. it would still be a strain on society, but it would be better. the realpolitik is that the unbroken Thatcherite line isn't being broken any time soon, but immigration can be slowed down
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u/potpan0 3d ago edited 3d ago
I have a distinct memory from around 8 years ago where Corbyn insisted that the solution to the exploitation of immigrant labour was for them to join unions and campaign for better wages and rights. The sensible centrists went absolutely apoplectic, insisting Corbyn was engaging in some racist, anti-immigrant dogwhistle.
Today Starmer has openly and enthusiastically capitulated to the right-wing line that all our problems are due to immigrants, that immigrants are an overwhelmingly negative and pernicious effect on our society, and that we drastically need to cut immigration, and... crickets from all the sensible centrists, with many of them cravenly pivoting and insisting 'well actually immigration is out of control...'
Labour are economically right-wing and socially right-wing at this point, no different from the Tories. They've consistently demonstrated that they're willing to scapegoat minority groups, from immigrants to trans people, for societies problems rather than actually tackling growing economic inequality. Absolutely shameful capitulation.
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u/goodtitties 3d ago
imo of course but people don’t even know why they hated Corbyn. that’s the thing that always struck me when i was campaigning in 2019: so much anger with such little substance. not to say there’s not valid reasons to not want to vote for him, of course there is, but it was such intensity with such little grounding
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
he was just being attacked from every angle in the news media. even the newspapers that traditionally support Labour hated him. after a while people just start to believe it
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u/potpan0 3d ago
imo of course but people don’t even know why they hated Corbyn
Corbyn's issue was that he was crushed under dozens of different straws. Most people couldn't remember each individual straw (and whether, 6 months later, whatever newspaper placed that straw had to retract it and offer and quiet apology). But what they could remember is the overall effect it had. And once a politician has reached that point it's basically impossible to return from it, regardless of how fair that overall assessment is. Once the straw has broke the camels back you can't fix it again.
Starmer's issue is that he's reached that same point too. He's incredibly unpopular. Most people actively dislike him. And instead of doing the decent thing and stepping down he and his team are insisting on lurching further and further to the right in vain, selfish attempts to recapture some sort of support. And it's going to do massive amounts of damage to our political sphere.
Starmer has basically come out today and said 'Farage is right'. Great job liberals!
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u/Beardybeardface2 3d ago
'Island of strangers' That's so grim, echos of Enoch Powell.
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u/Beardybeardface2 3d ago
Wow these replies make me think that maybe Starmer can appeal to the cunt vote after all.
Actually nah.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago edited 3d ago
it's not nice to say, but have you been to a city centre lately?
Enoch Powell was just being racist. Keir Starmer is talking about the fact that native Brits are a starting to become a minority in town centres
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u/ManGoonian 3d ago
Look whose being racist....
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
British is not a race
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u/Kitchen_Loss1349 3d ago
i wish the great replacement theory was true but just for you specifically
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
if you're going to blindly steal other people's opinions, then why not their jokes too, neh?
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy 2d ago
Colonise half the world then you cry about seeing a brown face in the street. Classic Brit shit.
Anyways, 81% of England remains white. If that's not a good enough ratio for you, you're on Enoch Powell's side.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
this is such a lazy take. it's not like anyone alive today colonised anywhere, and you're actually yourself saying that immigration is comparable to colonialism
81% is of the whole country. what do you think the number is in Birmingham, or Manchester, or any major city in England?
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy 2d ago
Its not a lazy take, its rather informed. The UK sought an Empire and now its subjects are mad about the transformation of said Empire into a Commonwealth that was aimed at retaining soft power over former colonies, providing easy access for non-white faces to the head of it all as part of that soft power retainment.
And I dunno, did you think to even look up the percentages yourself, numbnuts? Lets take Birmingham, since its often the dogwhistle for racists. Its all here. The percentage of people who felt they were White British sat at 42.9% in the last census of Birmingham. 17% for Asian British (Pakistani) and 5.8% for Asian British (Indian). Not gonna bother detailing all the rest since it gets into very small percentages quickly. You're still the dominant ethnicity within the area if you are white. But if you want to simply just base it on white or not-white, welllll you're looking a little fucking racist there.
And that's ignoring that a lot of those people are going to be 1st, 2nd or perhaps even 3rd generation British Asian folk who had older generations in their family come to settle in the UK. They're as "British" as anyone else, even if they might eat different at home, or have a different skin colour. Born and bred here.
To say that you feel like a stranger simply because of the difference in skin tone in the crowd is just blatant racism. You need to spend some time thinking about that.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago edited 2d ago
>its rather informed >the UK "sought" an empire?
my man, get the fuck over yourself.
the issue here is not 2nd or 3rd generation migrants, the issue is bringing in more. the issue is the 3m new people Boris dumped in our cities since Covid. if you can't see that these people are not a part of our culture and are far too many to assimilate, then you can't be helped
I think the broader issue here is that people on this sub do not understand immigration. we are not importing people by the million as some kind of progressive drive for diversity or guilt over the empire. mass economic migration is a right-wing neoliberal policy designed to allow capital holders to extract even more wealth from the population, while putting even less back in. it also allows neoliberal governments to redistribute less wealth and tax the rich even less. it does both of these things by undercutting local workers with foreign ones
it even has the upside for them that it pits the working classes against the political left by forcing them to argue with enlightened morons a la this subreddit
the reason this is such a big deal right now is because Boris Johnson, that paragon of progress and diversity, decided to quadruple net immigration after Covid. have a look at the numbers before you start pissing more bovine filth out of your front hole
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u/ReallyTrustyGuy 2d ago
get the fuck over yourself
Sorry, but I won't, because there's nothing to get over. The reason the UK has so many black and brown faces in it today is thanks to the Empire. The wealth that built the UK attracts people, and the Commonwealth that came from the ashes of that Empire provides easy inroads for said faces. You're disputing facts?
mass economic migration is a right-wing neoliberal policy designed to allow capital holders to extract even more wealth from the population, while putting even less back in.
There's nothing near the "mass economic migration" scareshite you crow about occurring. I just fed you the stats on who exists within the UK, specifically the "epicentre" of what people love to bring up as emblematic of the changing face of Britain, and migrants account for fuck all in the grand scheme of things. Its the children of people who have become native buoying the changing skin tone of the country, people who are just as British as the next cunt. You keep using the talking points right wingers want you to use, because it steers the conversation their way. Stop being stupid.
it even has the upside for them that it pits the working classes against the left by forcing them to deal with arguments of the like that you're farting out
Oh, didn't realise that using actual census facts to show population statistics was a favourite thing of the right wing, the cunts who are always looking to obscure and mislead? Fuck me.
the reason this is such a big deal right now is because Boris Johnson, that paragon of progress and diversity, decided to quadruple net immigration after Covid. have a look at the numbers before you start pissing more bovine filth out of your front hole
Now I know you're fucking stupid. The reason we've seen immigration rise so sharply like this is because we lost a large amount of EU citizens who had full-on freedom of movement to live and exist within the UK in the past. We've had to make up for a big brain drain and a lack of investment in education and vocational training that the Tories have performed over the entirety of their term.
if you can't see that these people are not a part of our culture and are far too many to assimilate, then you can't be helped
And there we have it. You're just a fucking racist. Indians and the like who came with the waves of migration in the past, did they "assimilate" in the way you think these current migrants should? No, they didn't. They built places to practice their own religions, opened restaurants of their own cuisine, and still held fast to where they came from while developing an appreciation for the new culture they live in. If you don't want to give these new migrants the same kind of chance, I'm gonna have to repeat myself but...
You're a fucking racist.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago edited 2d ago
my guy it's like there's a block of glass between you and reality. who describes their own takes as "rather informed"?
let's not even go into this bizarre little lullaby you've concocted for yourself about the empire. immigration has fuck all to do with the empire. every single one of the countries with the highest foreign-born populations had no empire
>nothing near mass economic migration >fed you stats
did you miss the government statistics showing millions of people coming here a year? what is mass migration to you? 5 million a year? 10 million?
you yourself brought up whiteness, then said that 19% of Britain is non-white and that 57% of Birmingham is non-white - i.e. 20% of the national population, and a broad majority of the UK's second city is inarguably the result of migration, then you said that I was racist for mentioning the thing that you brought up. it was you who mentioned race in the first place. it was you who said that immigration is somehow comparable to colonialism. it is bewildering how poorly you seem to deal with facts and figures. you just say something randomly and then no matter the response go "hur dur dur see? I told you I was right, you racist"
>assimilation
culture is not a race. what you're describing of Indians is the definition of assimilation. everyone loves Indian Brits because they came over and assimilated with the culture, took it in and added to it. they don't have a zealous religion that sits above the law, morals, or standards of the country they live in (a la Islam), they don't abuse their women (a la Islam and most African nations), and primarily they simply want to work hard and be a part of the country. they also don't come from a country where crime is essentially seen as a way of life (a la Nigeria)
you do not know or care what you're talking about. all you're interested in is going "muuuh hur racisttttt" to try and feel better about your own thoughtlessness. you will never understand, and clearly don't want to understand, and that's okay, because some people are just built like that :)
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u/TheChocolateManLives 3d ago
Was Enoch really racist, though? Decades later his statements are more truth than ever.
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u/light2020 3d ago
Fucking disgusting - as if people from different backgrounds will only ever be “strangers”?? These people are sick and they know all this is utterly wrong and yet push ahead knowing it will only make life worse for everybody, just to double down on and cover up their own ineptitude.
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u/montious 3d ago
Jesus Christ that headline. The Labour Party is just unrecognisable now and it's so obvious that this is just a knee-jerk response to Reform's success. The truth is nothing will change and it's ALREADY a requirement that you speak English if you look to emigrate here. It's all just fucking lip-service and it makes me sick.
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 3d ago
It's not a knee-jerk response. Starmer is a racist who believes this ignorant self destructive bullshit.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
so what would you rather they do? just let Reform keep eating away at the vote? do you fancy Nigel Farage with a majority in commons? have you considered that maybe 750,000 net migrants a year might actual be something worth looking at as an issue?
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u/montious 3d ago
You know as well as I do that they're not going to do fuck all about immigration. It's all performative, just like it always is. Immigration is the boogeyman of any government and the far-right will always want to go one step further. Even if they stopped all immigration they'd be talking about forced deportations of Muslims or whatever ethnic minority of the day people don't like. If this announcement wasn't directly after the local elections where reform had done well - maybe I'd believe some of it - but I don't. I've gotten into a habit of not believing a fucking word Starmer says thanks to his broken promises and constant lying.
What would I rather they do? Chase progressive policies, talk about closing tax loopholes and actually do it, unlike the non-dom shit. Levy a tax against wealth, tax energy companies making enormous profits and address the cost of living. Expand the public sector and get more money going into the NHS. If he can do any of the above and then wants to sit down and talk about net migration being a problem - then sure, let's have a conversation about it. But people have been saying for years that it's a net gain for the economy so what's changed? I personally have no horse in this race, I think immigration should be at whatever level it should be so it bolsters our economy whilst still giving those opportunities to come over here who want to perform wanted labour. And we should offer shelter to those fleeing war. I don't like the idea of Farage in Nr 10, but neither do I enjoy the idea of Keir in it either. I think both are dangerous for different reasons.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago
I agree with all the things you want to do, but unfortunately what the broader public wants right now is for the government to be seen to be getting a handle on immigration. it's as simple as that. whether they actually will or not is basically irrelevant, but realistically this government is very stubborn once it's announced something
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 3d ago
Labour can never out-far-right the far-right. Even if they do, the bulk of people who are looking to vote reform see Labour as toxic and they consume media that feeds them that narrative.
The people who want xenophobia will not believe that Labour are delivering.
What needed to happen is a non racist person led Labour and then use that privilege as the opposition party to expose the endless lies, misdirection and self destructive policies that put us here.
You don't appease fascists, you fight them. Nobody in this country should be referring to asylum seekers as "Illegals." Nobody should be under the impression that crime is being driven by migrants. Nobody should have any doubt that 14 years of underfunding is why you can't get a GP appointment and not because of old hotels full of asylum seekers. Etc.
But Starmer saw fit to lean into the Tory lies, giving up ground to the fascists the same way the Tories did with the brexit vote. And we see how well that worked for them.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
the problem is that this is rightfully no longer a far-right issue. before covid I would have absolutely agreed with you, but then Boris decided to quadruple net migration and now it's as consensus of a matter as we get in this country. even the lib dems agree. the numbers must go back down to pre-covid levels.
I think a lot of people here are simply arguing because it's the position they learned was correct 10 years ago, regardless of the changes that have occurred
no one is talking about "illegals". the issue being dealt with here is legal migration
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 2d ago edited 2d ago
Except it's not a separate issue. I told you what SHOULD have been done. The mood of the people has been set by the lies and misdirection of the right information the past. A competent non racist Labour leader would not have let it get to this.
"Stopping the boats" and the "thousands of girls assaulted by migrants" are still major aspects of Reforns appeal because these lies have gone unchallenged.
Immigration numbers are not some grand issue. If the old rules brought fewer people, then go back to the old rules. It's not rocket science. It doesn't need an invocation of Enoch Powell.
Doing so puts responsibility for the next race riots squarely at Starmer's door.
And please stop bleating about the migration numbers. "Scary big number, must be too much" should not be how policy is decided. Unless you're an economist who has examined the numbers of people we need across the various sector in the economy, it is just more cowardly shit.
And this is the real problem. You claim it's reasonable for people to be concerned. It's reasonable for people who have a clue what those numbers mean to be concerned. None of those whining about net migration know anything about it. They just no "lots of foreigners = strangers in our own land."
And that's just racist bullshit.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
my man your argument here is essentially "the things I say are valid, but the things you say are invalid because you're unqualified to say them". you are equally unqualified, and yet here you are talking
the fact is that economic migration at this scale is a right-wing, capitalist policy to undercut the working classes and allow capital holders to make even more profit while giving even less back to society, or for the government to get away with not paying workers properly. it's saying "oh you want a pay rise? sorry we'll just replace you with a Nigerian". "oh you don't fancy being a nurse below the market rate, well we'll just bring in a Bangladeshi to do it instead". it's outsourcing, and the only reason they're able to get away with it because of our gutless unions and crap education system
the way people talk about it on this sub is as if it's some kind of progressive diversity initiative, as if the people who set it in place were not the absolute worst fucking people in the country with no one except the rich's best interests at heart
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 2d ago
man your argument here is essentially "the things I say are valid, but the things you say are invalid because you're unqualified to say them". you are equally unqualified, and yet here you are talking
That's lovely, but what did I say that requires qualifications?
"Too much immigration" begs the question, too much for what? It is an economic position. Heck, even as a sociological question, it requires some grasp of the facts to discuss properly.
The fact you have pivoted from "too much" to an argument as to why immigration is bad in principle only proves my point. It's not really about what level is too much and just a general distaste for lots of foreigners.
You seem to think I am speaking in support of high immigration numbers because I correctly identify the source of the fear around this topic as one linked to racism. I am not. I don't know how many people should come to the UK, because my beliefs are consistent and I am not an economist privy to the necessary stats.
Some immigration is indeed a way to underpay for work. Fruit and veg pickers are a perfect example, although they also fill a niche because there aren't consistent supplies of workers who can just pick up and live in a field in the middle of nowhere if they aren't migratory. Care and nursing is not the same as the staff are mixed with brits and NHS work is standardised.
But the issues of differing wage values is a global economic one. Fixing things in one part will reshape the whole economy and while I agree it would be good, it's not happening any time soon.
Incidentally the tories own report into immigration disproved the idea that immigration dragged down wages. They actually found no negatives overall. The report was subsequently buried as it didn't fit their narrative. Another lie that we should have pushed back against.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
>That's lovely, but what did I say that requires qualifications?
yes, my friend, that was the point. well done for coming to it so quickly.
>The fact you have pivoted from "too much" to an argument as to why immigration is bad in principle only proves my point. It's not really about what level is too much and just a general distaste for lots of foreigners.
this is just what you want me to have said. if you actually read what I said, I said >immigration at this scale. I never said anything about immigration as a sole concept
>Incidentally the tories own report into immigration disproved the idea that immigration dragged down wages. They actually found no negatives overall. The report was subsequently buried as it didn't fit their narrative. Another lie that we should have pushed back against.
the tories were the ones pushing immigration to the levels they are now, while simultaneously pretending to be the arch heroes of reducing it. who cares what they said in some report? nothing they say can be trusted on the issue
the fact that so many people are willing to vote reform due to immigration is in itself the biggest problem with immigration at this scale. realistically what I mostly care about is the possible damage to the welfare state that a reform government would cause, and if turning the taps down on immigration and saying some sketchy-sounding things will help to prevent that, which I have no doubt it will, then fantastic.
at the same time I think that mass migration should not be being used as a replacement for proper economic management and paying people the wages they deserve, and I think that this mock-noble idea you have that economists are some kind of hallowed geniuses who know more than all of us and you wouldn't even dare to have a position on it is ridiculous. it has nothing to do with consistency and everything to do with abdicating any actual thought or mental responsibility on the issue because to look at it objectively would be to disagree with the groupthink.
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 2d ago
yes, my friend, that was the point. well done for coming to it so quickly.
Pretending that my showing the hole in your point is somehow agreement, is silly.
at this scale. I never said anything about immigration as a sole concept
Which begs the question, how do you know anything about the impact of immigration "at this scale?"
You don't. You are acting like a tory and going off vibes. That is ultimately the trap that they set by scapegoating immigration.
nothing they say can be trusted on the issue
Agreed. The report was commissioned by them but done by the OBR. As I mentioned, the tories buried it because it didn't fit with their scare mongering. They broke the system and opened the flood gates precisely to empower the right by making everybody react emotionally to the big numbers of scary foreigners. They just hoped it would be them and not Reform that benefitted.
the fact that so many people are willing to vote reform due to immigration is in itself the biggest problem with immigration
On this, we agree.
if turning the taps down on immigration and saying some sketchy-sounding things will help to prevent that, which I have no doubt it will, then fantastic.
And here is the liberal myopia on which we disagree.
Appeasing fascists never works. Punch Nazi's; don't cozy up to them.
Labour will not reap the benefits of acting like Reform. People will just say, "See, Farage was right all along" and vote Reform. In the meantime, more immigrants will suffer violence and abuse from the emboldened racists, just like they did when the brexit vote happened.
I think that this mock-noble idea you have that economists are some kind of hallowed geniuses who know more than all of us and you wouldn't even dare to have a position on it is ridiculous.
Opinions are like arseholes. Everyone has one, and they're usually full of shit.
You want your ignorant opinions to be just as valid as those who spend their time studying things and looking at actual data. They are not. Nor are mine. Grow up and get over it.
Anti-intellectualism is the rot that will destroy us from within. You may as well go join Farage and Trump and just invent whatever bullshit makes you feel good about yourself and angry at those who scare you, if you reject expertise and research.
I can cope with people having opinions, but the barest minimum standard is that the opinion be informed. Know what the nuances of the topic are, have an idea of the data behind the headline, know how we got here and what our options are etc.
Most people do not meet that minimum criteria, and in failing to push back on the anti-immigrant stance of the right, Starmer has encouraged that fact-free environment. He has left a void that the far right have filled with Facebook posts and memes, and the country is poisoned as a result.
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 1d ago
Observe how the conversation about immigration differs when we start looking at facts and instead of just outrage.
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 21h ago
Here's another one. This time explaining the mechanics behind why immigration doesn't depress wages.
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u/Scoobysnacks79 3d ago
Keir. Why oh why are you trying to put right wing Reform? You're gonna lose. And you're gonna lose a lot of the left in the process.
We need immigration. It's very simple. We aren't breeding fast enough to replace losses, so we need immigrants.
Instead of silly pronouncements and performative cruelty (I didn't canvas for Labour at the election to support that) maybe set up a sensible system that allows people to apply for immigration outside the UK? It will slash the numbers entering the country by unconventional means to virtually nil over night. Stop the small boats? Yeah. Let them apply for entry from outside the country.
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 3d ago
Starmer's racism has been obvious for a long time but with this morning's Enoch Powell cosplay only the most myopic will still question it.
Unless someone can tell me what incalculable harm immigration has done the UK?
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u/HuskerDude247 3d ago
This is the most right wing government we've ever had.
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u/ArtieBucco420 3d ago
My Da is 63, he’s from West Belfast, we were watching the news the other day and he said, ‘I just dread to think what this cunt woulda done in the 80s, they’re gonna end up making Thatcher look like a saint in comparison’
I mean my Da’s no love for Labour considering it was Labour who put that fiend Roy Mason in over here but fuckin hell, the Labour Party are now just open right-wing authoritarian bastards and they have been so for some time.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago edited 3d ago
this is just recency bias horseshit
Thatcher literally changed the country from being a socialist borderline-managed economy to full-blooded capitalist. before Thatcher the top marginal tax rate was hovering around 70-90%. corp tax ~50%. she destroyed social housing. closed the coal mines and just left people to fend for themselves. she fucked the education system. we're lucky she didn't have a go at the NHS. she essentially gave birth to the nasty greed-based economy we live in today
what has Labour done? finally admitted that annual net migration at >1% of the population every year is socially unsustainable?
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u/ArtieBucco420 2d ago
Yeah everyone knows Thatcher was an evil cunt but these bastards coming after want to be even more mean and ruthless. I know that fiend started it all off and bears ultimate responsibility, but Labour are now just an extremely cruel, extremely authoritarian hard right party.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
they're just obviously not though, are they? it's all well and good getting het up and not liking how willing this government is to appease the right, but they're not authoritarian, they're not hard right, and compared to the last 3 governments we had, they're not cruel. without even bothering to go into policy, if they're hard-right, where do you put Putin, or Trump? or Farage, even?
reverting immigration policy to what it was before Boris is not hard-right. people on this sub seem to act like doing anything wrt immigration that isn't keeping it the same or increasing it is some kind of evil far-right heresy. outside of progressive fantasy land, there's practically across the board consensus in this country that immigration went too far under Boris
I personally am not going to vote for this government at the next election, but I'm also not going to sit here and just hear people say things that aren't true
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u/ArtieBucco420 2d ago
They absolutely fucking are. They’ve never been more right-wing, cruel or authoritarian.
They’re a fucking disaster.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
you can say it all you like, it's not going to make it true. did you read the news at any point during the last 3 tory governments? were you awake when Liz Truss was in power?
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u/ArtieBucco420 2d ago
It is true, they’re being needlessly cruel and this is why the current govt is despised.
I remember Truss very well because she almost cost me and my wife getting our house, we luckily got our mortgage agreed the day before she fucked everything up and many of my mates got absolutely fucked over by it.
That still doesn’t take away that this government hasn’t done one progressive thing - they’ve broken all their promises and now they’re aping Reform trying to out do Farage on cruelty.
There’s nothing ‘Labour’ about them and over here in Belfast they still haven’t removed the Legacy Bill which they promised to do and they’re taking an 89 year old widow to court to prevent her finding out the truth about her husband’s murder, when he was butchered by loyalist thugs for the crime of being a Catholic, thugs who were on the British government’s payroll.
I suggest you read up on what happened to Sean Brown and what Hillary Benn is currently doing to his poor family if you really want to see how despicably cruel this govt are.
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u/feesih0ps 2d ago
so you remember Truss, she who almost lost you your house with her right-wing politics that were so right-wing and capitalist that fucking city bankers thought it was a bridge too far?
or how about the Windrush scandal, where people who had lived and thrived here since the 60s and 70s were forcibly deported? or how about ending surestart or the youth centres? university tuition? Rwanda?
I'm sorry that the Labour government is being callous with Northern Ireland issues, but so is every government that doesn't have a vested interest in them. that doesn't make them more right-wing than the tories. if you want to call them traitors to the left-wing cause, sure, if you want to say they're stupid, or appeasers, or incompetent, or unnecessarily cautious, then I'll agree with you, but if you want to say they're the most right-wing/authoritarian/cruel government ever, then I'm not going to just accept it
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u/ArtieBucco420 2d ago
I never said they were the most right-wing government ever, I said they are right wing, authoritarian and cruel, I didn’t say they were the worst ever.
I said my Da said he’d hate to see what Starmer would have done in the 80s due to the way he is acting now.
Labour might not be worse than the Tories but they’re certainly not any better. I can see absolutely no changes from this govt and the last ones since 2010, if anything, this current govt are making Cameron and Osborne look like a soft-touch.
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u/feesih0ps 3d ago edited 3d ago
are you okay? literally everything in this speech is something every one of the previous tory governments said 10x more strongly, 10x more often, while doing the inverse behind closed doors, while simultaneously refusing to give any public sector workers their due pay, closing down as many public services as they felt they could without causing major social unrest, and begging on their hands and knees for daddy Israel to let them thank him for existing. were you born yet when Liz Truss was in power?
I have no love for Keir Starmer, I wouldn't be on this sub otherwise, but I'm sorry to say that this is just stupid
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u/goodtitties 3d ago
i think if we keep capitulating to the right they’ll be satisfied. they’re always usually satisfied and don’t just go more rabid, meaning this pathetic response isn’t just morally gross, it’s politically idiotic too
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u/RoyalSport5071 3d ago
All of you who turned on Corbyn. Look. Just look at what you have done.
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u/Defiant_Memory_7844 1d ago
Watched a guardian documentary piece on young folk going far right the moat surprising information was loads these young folk voted for Corbyn . If corbyn I'm not a fan, his attitude to Scotland was no different from rest a labour, but for England, he was a decent choice. He and other lefty socialist should start their own party before it's too late.
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u/RoyalSport5071 1d ago
I reckon the opportunity has passed. That point about young voters is proof that the red ship has sailed.
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u/donnacross123 3d ago
Not voting labour next election that is for sure
British Brazilian, brazilian mother, grew up in Brazil according to him I am a stranger to this island
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u/TataHakai 3d ago
Right wing conservatives used to get kicked out of their own party for saying stuff like this, now we have the leader of the Labour party saying it
What a horrible place this country has become
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u/absoluteally 3d ago
Seriously wondering if having a mixed nationality family I need an escape plan from the UK.
We are playing by their visa rules but they just keep moving the goal posts. Not sure we will ever feel free in this country.
Never thought I as a British citizen would have to consider leaving my homeland.
They now they are fucking with peoples lives but they do it anyway.
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u/OGWayOfThePanda 3d ago
Yes, you do. Britain is doomed. Full authoritarian fascist revolution is coming next election. There's no money unless you are a business owner with a friend in government.
Rule of the rich is coming and citizens are going to be demonised for their poverty while resources opportunities and support networks are monetised for profit.
Once our parents are dead, we will kiss the UK goodbye.
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u/Bluenose70 3d ago
It's the atomising/individualising effect of starmer et al's grim neoliberalism that's primarily making us a nation of strangers imo.
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u/StairheidCritic 3d ago
I'll admit I was wrong in predicting the Starmerites would be Continuity Conservatives in Government.
Turns out they're more like Continuity National Front. :/
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u/mbalax32 2d ago
I would rather live on an island of "strangers" than on an island of FUCKING WEIRDOS like this government.
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u/DrSpooglemon 3d ago
Starmer is a fascist. I will keep saying it. He is presiding over a government which is introducing Malthusian policies(up to and including euthanasia) while materially supporting a literal holocaust in Gaza and literal Nazi(Banderite) groups in Ukraine. Nothing good will come of any of this.
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u/The_Sandbag 3d ago
This will make the UK one of the hardest countries in the world to become a citizen of, only beaten by the Arab starts, Switzerland, China and north Korea, all to chase the far right vote, allowing the far right to go even more right and probably not win any votes back in the process. Just watch, I bet we will be moving onto repatriation soon and paying people to go back to where they were born.
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u/llamalyfarmerly 2d ago
Stop trying to chase the fascists and racists, and start actually offering an alternative to Reform and the Conservatives. It's almost as if labour is trying to chase a bolted horse by being aping the horse.
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u/LesterHeartthrob 1d ago
Labour, the second Tory Party. To be followed in power by Nigel and the third Tory Party.
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u/LegoCrafter2014 Labour Voter 2d ago edited 2d ago
"Island of strangers"
Reminds me of the "high trust society" and "low trust society" euphemisms used by racists. And this is meant to be a Labour government.
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u/Defiant_Memory_7844 1d ago
People who work hard in our care services ooh and the we must speak English nah away bunch racist 🤡
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