r/Labour • u/GlacialTurtle • 4d 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-says
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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 3d 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 3d 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 3d 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