Today we are promised a paper from the Home Secretary to reduce migration. She has the advantage that last year the Conservative government raised the amount you needed to earn to get a work permit and cut back on student dependents.
The two largest categories of migrants remain people getting work permits and students. The numbers get swollen by allowing dependents, by granting students a transfer to a work visa, and. y people failing to return home when their visa runs out.
We hear the government might ask for a degree level qualification, cutting out lower pay and lower skilled jobs. There might be an A level requirement for English. These changes are unlikely to make much difference to numbers. Las t year brought a net increase of 728,000. It would be good to get net numbers down to near zero to relieve pressures on homes and public services. It is going to take tougher controls than are likely from this Home Secretary.
May 12, 2025
Morning sir John
We have heard all this before nothing will change. labour have had a kick up the arse just as in the past it will be all talk we will be told the court’s won’t allow this and won’t allow that
A get out for government
Thank you
May 12, 2025
Pixie was on all the channels yesterday refusing to set a target as these are never met and embarrass the government
One clown said immigration would settle down around 350,000 per year. That is the size of a significant town annually.
The uniparty has no intention of reducing immigration as they still believe it increases GDP
May 12, 2025
@Ian wragg; People need to do some mathematics, rather than blowing dog whistles, and that applies to the utter ‘balls-up’ at the Home Office too!
“One clown said immigration would settle down around 350,000 per year. That is the size of a significant town annually.”
It is also a likely a smaller number than the number of those placed in grave yards here in the UK annually, and remember that number will be increasing year-on-year for the next 30 or so years as the baby boomer generation die. Tell me (please), what were the annual UK birth rates over the last 30 years?
“The uniparty has no intention of reducing immigration as they still believe it increases GDP”
Filling otherwise unfilled job vacancies is far more likely to increase GDP than cause stagnation or decline. The real question is why these unfilled vacancies exist, yet the UK is apparently bursting at the seams with Degree qualified graduates, not students, working in supermarkets, fast-food and coffee shops.
May 13, 2025
What is your actual point Jerry?
Do you feel the numbers of new arrivals is about right or too low or too high?
I look forward to your forensic response.
May 13, 2025
@MiB; I do not know if the number of arrivals is to high, or to low, that is my point, and I bet you most commenters, perhaps even our host, don’t either.
No one is willing to cite any real world numbers, such as indigenous births and deaths, how the size our economy will expand, shrink, or stagnate depending on what we do about immigration/work visas. All we get is meaningless comments about having to build another “Southampton” or two, as if every immigrant is going to settle in a single location.
I get the feeling that numbers are not actually the issue here, hence why some want zero migration, not even net zero…
May 13, 2025
The point of the “A city the size of Southampton” is that it is a metaphor giving an idea of the difficulty in keeping up with the need for additional infrastructure.
I’m puzzled why you say no real world numbers as there are numerous government statistics published on immigration.
PS
Disappointed in your virtue signalling slur in your last sentence.
Very poor Jerry
May 13, 2025
@MiB; We had no difficulty keeping up with such metaphors, and the need to improve our nations infrastructure in the 1950s trough to the early 1980s; in no particular order, Harlow, Crawley, Cumburnought, Peterlee, Bracknell, Runcorn, Cumbernauld, Cwmbran, Milton Keynes, just to name a few, some extended an existing conurbation, others were green-field development, all required improved infrastructure. But then far more people needed new homes, industry needed new buildings.
If this or a previous government has published the demographic figures I; asking about how come it is so difficult for someone to cite them, after all it wouyld go some way to back up that ‘metaphor’…
As for your last paragraph, I agree, the apparent switch from being a can-do to a can’t-do nation is very poor – I have no idea what *you though I meant*.
May 13, 2025
In the decades you mention Jerry, immigration was a fraction of what it is currently and has been in the last twenty years.
It used to be in the tens of thousands per annum and as you explain to us we built many new towns to manage that modest number of new arrivals.
Just imagine what is needed today.
PS
I’m still puzzled why you cannot find current statistics on immigration numbers.
They are available and well publicised by the media.
Perhaps try an Internet search.
May 14, 2025
@MiB; Pro-rata to the UKs then population figure, there was mass immigration into the UK during the 1950s and ’60s, much of it uncontrolled, hence why immigration from the Empire and Commonwealth was progressively restricted.
If you have the stats I’m asking for, or can supply a .gov.uk citation why don’t you save our hosts moderation time; the fact that you and others repeatedly fail to do so suggest such figures are not as easy to find as you suggest. Of course I know there are ‘unofficial’ websites that claim to know, but they are often highly polarized sites pushing an agenda, thus unreliable, a bit like asking the old GDR politburo if the GDR was a democratic country.
May 14, 2025
Look the figures up Jerry, come on it isn’t difficult.
They are stated on news media like the BBC regularly.
May 13, 2025
Automation is far more likely to increase GDP (particularly GDP per capita, which is the important measure) that importing hundreds of thousands of low-skill, low-wage, culturally incompatible immigrants and their extended families every year.
May 13, 2025
@Donna; “culturally incompatible immigrants”
The sound of the hammer hitting the nail?…
Many tasks can not be automated, not done via AI, for example vehicle manufacturing is highly automated these days, and even uses AI, but no vehicle would ever get designed, never mind manufactured without direct involvement by humans, often the low skilled, low waged, production-line jobs. How does automation help with house repairs, re-modelling, new build, AI might design your new kitchen or house though.
May 12, 2025
A city, actually. Somewhere between Leicester, 11th on the list of biggest urban areas in the UK, with a population of 330K, and Stoke-on-Trent, in 10th place, with 361K.
May 13, 2025
@S_W; Why do some always assume immigrants will all live in the same place! Why not just add ‘x’ number of new build homes to existing conurbations, and that assumes no properties become available due to deaths, the owners going into a care setting, or even one person living with another as a couple/family due to first or second marriages etc.
‘x’ being the never quoted real world number, the apparently unknown-unknown, yet we need another “Southampton” or two.
May 13, 2025
Because Jerry new arrivals naturally tend to congregate in areas where their fellow nationals already live.
As Brits do in Spain for example.
So they come to major cities (or their outskirts) where there is relatively cheap available housing and jon opportunities.
PS
For numbers of yearly immigration try a Government website search it will inform you what X is.
May 14, 2025
@Sam; Stop projecting the “British problem” (not willing to mix) upon others, I have spent quite sometime touring and living in Spain over the years, the only people who needed their own pubs, shops, cuisine etc. were British, others were happy to mix ‘n’ match.
I agree that for many years immigrants into the UK tended to congregate in areas where their fellow nationals already lived, but that was never due to their traits, it was due to the British trait of not wanting immigrants to mix with us. Or immigrants congregated in areas of available employment, often for the reasons above.
PS If you have the .gov.uk URL that gives ‘x’ why not cite it…
May 14, 2025
I’m glad you agree with my point about Brits in Spain.
I never mentioned “traits”
PS
Please give proof that British people didn’t want to mix with newcomers from other countries.
I live in a city where the welcome and mix has been very good.
Rather poor comment from you Jerry which flies in the face of the harmony in UK cities between different people.
May 12, 2025
Agree it will be same old same old. Labour DO have the advantage that thousands of wealthy Brits are moving abroad so that helps net migration figures – although it screws Government finances.
May 13, 2025
The ‘migration of British millionaires’ is something recently in the news following an analysis by Henley & Partners. So looking a bit at it. This company established about 25 years ago has since had 25,000 clients. Those clients are both people looking to leave Britain and some willing to come to Britain. Recently the news was of Americans leaving Trump’s USA to come and settle in Britain, 6100 of them, so not everything is as bad as it seems.
ibtimes.co.uk 11/03/2025 ‘6,100 Americans applied for British citizenship in 2024, …’
spearswms.com 18/03/2025 ‘Surge in Americans seeking British citizenship’.
moneyreign.com 12/05/2025 ‘Wealthy Americans flock to Cotswold post-election’.
May 12, 2025
Quite so, and there will be some massaging of figures too no doubt.
May 12, 2025
Quite so, as usual the present government, is it Labour or Conservative… are just performing politics and fiddling around the edges. ECHR exit and enclosed camps for illegals is needed.
BTW, a ‘Net zero immigration’ level would mean a declining overall population, since our birth rate is below 2.
May 12, 2025
Our birth rate is below two due to the cost of having children and finding a home.
Reducing immigration will reduce the costs of living and increase wages. Perhaps our birth rate will increase.
May 12, 2025
and with a death rate increasing for younger and middle aged people as a result of a major reduction in NHS referrals during ( and since?) Covid, the population increase might be held back!
May 12, 2025
Starmer is on telly at the moment. Apparently it was all the Conservatives fault, but Labour will fix it.
May 12, 2025
@George Sheard – Governments are there to create/make, amend and repeal all laws, rules and regulations, they are not beholden to anything that they were left from the previous crowd.
They Courts only do what the Government of the day instructs them to do, Governments can amend or repeal anything. Bad outcomes are the result of a Lazy free-loading Government and Parliament.
Knee jerk, WOKE, bad Laws are all 100% down to Government and Parliament. Even the ECHR is down to lazy Government and Parliament we empower and pay them to make Laws that affect us in the UK they refuse and use an undemocratic system. If they(Government/MPs/HoC) cant be bothered with the basics they need to go
May 12, 2025
What Starmer just said about the total dishonesty of 14 years of the Tories on immigration was all valid. But Starmer as we know was/is also for open door immigration see his many past statements. He too is totally dishonest, you have to judge such people on their actions, his recent India agreement, all his votes to prevent evictions and deterrents and similar ever changing the law on evictions of criminals… how do you tell when Starmer is lying – his lips are moving!
May 12, 2025
most of the supposedly “highly skilled” workers we let in have degrees in plagiarism from ( poor foreign ed )colleges.
mostly feedback from the people that work with them is that the quality is poor, and the average local can do the work of 6 of them.
quality of UK output has crash dived due to their use, and destroys our ability to charge a premium on world markets.
the ruling class are clueless.
May 12, 2025
Like a dentist I used who kept getting everything wrong. I am sure she was a quack.!
May 12, 2025
With regard to plagiarism in degrees, my daughter is concluding her degree today at a reputable English University. ChatGPT should be awarded her degree and not her. The University doesn’t seem to care so long as she pays her fees through the rip off student loan process.
May 12, 2025
John,
I love you. The way you change everything I say into something more tolerable by the chattering classes reminds me of my lawyer. Its hilarious in its own way.
But this dancing around the handbags is a large part of the problem, nobody is prepared to discuss the straightforward truth. One of the reasons our supposed democracy is a joke. The truth is the truth, it is not biased.
Sorry
May 12, 2025
Today we are promised a paper from the Home Secretary to reduce migration.
I have the same paper on a 200 roll in my smallest room in my house only that my paper is of more use
May 12, 2025
But unlike the white paper on immigration your roll will not be recycled by the next government.
May 12, 2025
I have frequebtly offered a solution to this problem. Current HoC politicians divide befween a few who agree with me, some who are on the journey, and a vast majority who will say anything to get elected, but do nothing. I await the next GE, where I suspect the electorate are of my opunion.
May 12, 2025
Good morning.
No! I want zero immigration. No more work visa’s and no more foreign students etc.
End of.
May 12, 2025
Yes, and “net zero” immigration would not be good enough.
In the past the term used was “would-be zero” immigration:
https://cps.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/111028112116-welcometotheasylum.pdf
“In 2000, 97,000 people claimed asylum in the UK. This is in a country which since 1962 has claimed to pursue a policy of ‘would-be zero immigration.’. What ever happened to the policy?”
May 12, 2025
@Mark B – and the criminal ‘boat people’ the drain on your pocket, what about them.
May 12, 2025
Agree ….lets face it, our government can’t even cope with the million+ overstayers
May 12, 2025
Mark B
Looks like Starmer is going to allow unlimited access to the UK by European students aged under 30 under his new proposals being discussed with the EU at the moment.
Left hand stop, Right hand come in, he does not seem to have a clue what he is doing, how can you control immigration if you are allowing unlimited free entry to European students, many of whom were illegal a few years ago, but now Nationalised.
Clueless, absolutely Clueless..
Could not organise a Party in a Brewery springs to mind
May 12, 2025
Many of them have newly become EU citizens – many hail from far off lands.
May 13, 2025
globalcitizensolutions.com 05/05/2025 ‘How to obtain EU citizenship in 2025: Everything you need to know’.
First one has to get citizenship from one of the 27 EU countries, with a dedicated passport from one given country, which allows working (under specific conditions established by the various countries) in any of these 27 countries.
Depending on the country, citizenship can be obtained by
– birthright (as some countries allow anybody born in that country to claim citizenship, but far from all 27 have that),
– ancestry,
– naturalisation, after 5 or more years,
– marriage (which might (or not) decrease the 5 years delay),
– investment (a somewhat decreasing or becoming even more expensive possibility now that Malta, Cyprus, Portugal, Greece, Italy, Serbia, Latvia, Italy, Spain, Hungary are revising their levels of investment required to allow citizenship to be obtained, after a variable while). And that obviously relates to people able to bring at least €1m to the table or buy a property or business of an equivalent amount.
In most cases, immigrants have first to get a residence permit (which already takes 18 months to 3 years) then possibly apply for citizenship, so at least a five-year process.
So without a proper reference from Lynn I doubt that many ‘hailing from far off lands’ have recently become EU citizens.
How comes that so many who do not care to search for proper information can say and repeat this continuous BS? Do you really think you get to the EU27 and get right away a passport?
Usually people have to have been legally in the country for five years, with no police record, an intermediate mastery of language, a steady job, and/or a proven way to be able to pay for one’s needs before applying for citizenship.
connexionfrance.com 15/05/2024 – 21/02/2025 ‘How to get French citizenship – the 2024 requirements’ gives in English a fair description of what is needed, usually thought to reflect what is also required for settling in Germany, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, …
May 12, 2025
On language qualification, A level would challenge the indigenous population. Better use the international pilot qualification where grade 4 gets you a pass and grade 6 is speaking like a native.
May 12, 2025
Indeed despite getting As in all my science GCSEs and five A levels I only scraped a C in English and this second time. Cs or better in English and a Foreign language were needed for Cambridge Maths at the time, Latin used to be too the year before. But due to scruffy left handed smudged writing and being a bit dyslexic this was a challenge, not that they did this dyslexia think in my day.
My wife and children have British and Italian Passports so I can get one too it seems, if only I were to able to pass an Italian Language test? Perhaps some smart apple or Rayban translating glasses will come to the rescue? Or maybe I can get an old age or dyslexia disability dispensation?
May 12, 2025
I struggled learning Spanish in Spanish A Level. But after getting a job in Madrid, when young, and going to the bars and speaking Spanish, I became fairly fluent in the language within a few weeks.
Lesson learned: forget learning foreign language at school unless you’re naturally talented. Instead, go abroad, work a bit in a foreign country and learn the language there. Much more fun and you learn much, much quicker (and for nothing – except for the cost of beer – or cerveza – and delicious tapas).
May 13, 2025
Indeed and do it when young if possible. I had a French Parisian girlfriend for a while in my youth and spent several. months in Paris, but still rather learned little as her English was far better than my French! If you speak 3 languages you are trilingual, two languages bilingual and one English as they say.
May 13, 2025
So much education is a waste of time. Unless you’ve got a reasonable chance of going to the top universities, and in particular to study Engineering or Medicine, most people should just be studying – only – Maths (to the best level possible), English (to the best level possible) and Logic (short course on how to think logically). And so most pupils should be leaving school at 16, lots at 18, and perhaps around 25% of current students at university going to university. This would save our pupils / students so much time, reduce anxiety, save money on university debts, and begin work earlier to start buying a house.
How do we get this into Conservative policy?!
Also, would give more young people the opportunity to travel, learn a language abroad, do short, practical courses to help get a job, and so on.
May 12, 2025
Immigration seems to be driven and sponsored by the Treasury in the pursuit of higher GDP “growth”. A return to Balance of Trade as a key metric would remove this incentive but is unlikely to happen. It would expose the very severe inbalance in this area (especially with the EU) so best not to mention it and just talk about ‘Growth’ instead..
It’s a very long time since I read Ceasars ‘Bellum Gallicum’ at school. As I didn’t go on to study medicine, botany or chemisty, Latin wasn’t exactly an essentail skill in my working life. However, it was part of a good education at the time and I am certainly grateful for that. On my next taxi ride to Heathrow, I’ll look forward to asking my driver “Quantum erit id? when we arrive. Maybe he’ll understand that better than he did my English last time?
May 12, 2025
You could take a “Use of English” test if I remember correctly, which focussed less on whether an adverb described a verb or whatever, and more on being able to communicate ideas through essays-essential in the Oxbridge system of the 70s.
It’s probably what should be introduced here.
May 12, 2025
A foreign language to study Maths?
May 12, 2025
Also, be great to focus on giving pupils and students a short course on how to think logically,
The best two hours of my education was when my English S Level teacher spent two hours teaching us how to think logically based on philosophy of logic. Brilliant. He really seared it into our brains! (And it’s been so useful outside education, too, in work and in private life including dealing with a legal issue that the lawyer messed up).
May 12, 2025
why are you bothered about your exam results at your age?
May 12, 2025
There is no such thing as an Italian passport. You get an EU passport. What is the official language of the EU?
May 12, 2025
It would challenge “Release the Sausages” Starmer too I suspect! How would he define “far right” and “political prisoner” I wonder. Given the moronic energy, economic and net zero policies we suffer under, we perhaps need people with A levels standards in Physics, science and Maths. Not morons in the cabinet who think that mass torture and rape of young girls is just a dog whistle issue! Though she read Chemistry at Oxford.
May 12, 2025
When I was at school, A level English was concerned with English literature, not language. But then, with the dumbing down of education, A level is the new O level.
May 12, 2025
@agricola – that realy the problem when they will do nothing about the swarms of criminals entering daily to remain and cost ‘you’ money
May 12, 2025
A degree level qualification? We have quite enough people with rather worthless degree level qualifications in rather dubious subjects and at dubious universities with £50k plus of debt to repay. Will PPE Oxon qualify? Ed. Miliband, Cameron, Cooper, Handcock types are doing and have done vast damage.
So Chris Philips says to Camila on GBNews that would be like “Liz Truss on Speed” yes that exactly what is needed – but concentrate more on the cuts in waste and government first – before the tax cuts. On another podcast someone said Truss blamed the BoE for her own F*** ups. She was quite right to do so, as has been admitted.
Good to see David Davis doing all he can for Lucy Letby in the Sunday Times and her clearly unsafe 15 convictions and outrageously denied appeals. There is no real evidence any crime or murder or manslaughter was committed at all. Let alone 15 by Lucy Letby. Our sick joke “Rolls Royce” justice system fails again.
How too is Lucy Connolly, Starmer’s political prisoner and mother of a 12 year old, getting on too.
May 12, 2025
Evette Cooper Balls yesterday said the perpetrators (rapists and torturers) “let their many white girl victims down”. Rather more than let down dear! The authorities culpable too it is still going on too thanks to the government’s inaction.
May 12, 2025
The only way to control immigration is to declare a virtual moratorium. The failure of successive government home secretaries to declare what number they will target as a maximum is revealing. Yvette Cooper on the Trevor Philips show would not even declare a figure below 500,000 net. Philips kept suggesting 350,000 net was the target but Cooper would not even go near naming a number.
We are full.
We have 11 million not working people out of the total working population in this country all being supported by the tax payers.
We do not need to import more people. We need to redeploy those already here, maybe offer them gainful employment, instead of benefits?
May 12, 2025
@Rod Evans; “We are full”
So how come there are so many empty, or grossly under used, domestic properties; how come so much prime in-fill building land is lying derelict (often the site of a previously demolished building) due to developers waiting to maximize their profits, not solve the countries housing problems. Of course the developers might be waiting for the NIMBYS to either die or get feed up objecting to ever planning application.
“We need to redeploy those already here, maybe offer them gainful employment, instead of benefits?”
There is already a requirement for those claiming out of work benefits, via Universal Credit, to seek paid employment.
What you appear to be calling for is the Direction of Labour – good luck putting that to the electorate!
May 13, 2025
Yesterday Jerry, you wanted organised repatriation to areas of your choosing to reduce the pressure on existing cities or the need to build new cities every year.
Now here you say you dislike that policy.
May 13, 2025
@Sam; “you wanted organised repatriation to areas”
I said nothing of the sort, stop putting YOUR words into my mouth.
I merely pointed out that, like the indigenous population do, immigrants will disperse across the entire country, by taking employment were they wish or can. Non of my family, for three generations, ended up living in the places of our births, a pretty common occurrence since 1939 I suspect.
Try learning some new tricks Sam, we know you have learnt to obey the dog whistle.
May 13, 2025
Well you were talking about distribution of people around the country to reduce the burden on large cities Jerry.
So I’m hoping you might communicate a bit clearer in future so that we can all better understand your many and varied opinions
PS
No need for sarcastic passive aggressive comments at the end.
May 12, 2025
I hear a lot about how hard it is to control immigration. Nonsense. The government could switch off most immigration within 24 hours and the rest within a week.
The British people have been treated with disrespect on this issue for many years. This Labour government is no different. They take us for idiots. Very rude!
May 12, 2025
Have you thought about applying for Home Secretary? There might soon be an opening.
May 12, 2025
@Kenneth; How do you propose to “switch off most immigration within 24 hours and the rest within a week”, how would you mitigate the proven consequences of stopping all lawful avenues?
Past UK governments have shut down most if not all lawful means of migration from mainland Europe, the result has been an increase in detected illegal migration, and no one knows how many slip in under the radar. The only winners often being the dark economy, worse, the crime gangs.
Beware of unintended consequences.
May 12, 2025
You copy Mertz who has closed the German border – 5 hours notice, he’s in Shengen, if he can do it what can’t Mrs Balls?
May 13, 2025
@LA; “copy Mertz who has closed the German border”
Tell me Lynn, what exactly did you not understand when I said “Past UK governments have shut down most if not all lawful means of migration from mainland Europe”? Duh!
May 13, 2025
Your solution is what exactly Jerry?
May 13, 2025
We have demonstrated that we are very good at controlling our borders. We did so in the 1940’s.
If we removed most of our armed forces from various overseas operations and brought them back home, I am sure we would do a good job again.
We could then replace “border force” with a proper border force
May 13, 2025
@Kenneth; “We have demonstrated that we are very good at controlling our borders. We did so in the 1940’s.”
Nonsense, this country had a problem with German spy’s during the first half of that decade, and our borders were pretty much open in the second, refugees from central Europe, economic migrants from the Empire/Commonwealth.
May 14, 2025
Appoint Tom Homan as consultant advisor along with a new government.
May 12, 2025
The government thinks it ought to look tougher on immigration so it can take the wind out of Reform’s sails. It’s not convinced about changing policy, it just wants to pretend it “is listening”.
Despite the best efforts of the leftist MSM to prop up this ploy, I think most people understand that whatever we get is just window dressing. Migrant numbers will still be damagingly high for a country that’s living on borrowed money and time. God knows what we’ll be like 4 years from now.
May 12, 2025
We need much tougher rules for both legal migration and illegal immigration and a few A levels and exams aren’t going to sort it.
The whole system of immigration is out of control.We cannot be sure of whose coming in, whose already here and where those people are;I’m afraid to say that Yvette Cooper is not the right person to be overseeing what is now the major problem facing the UK.
We need strong regulations to be in force and capable of being legally enforced without recourse to the Courts or the ECHR.
We need to ensure no-one can come into the UK before obtaining a work permit showing they have a job offered and accepted, they have accommodation and they have a certain amount of finance to support themselves.This needs to be checked prior to arrival and closely policed when they are here so they return when the visa expires or is renewed.
All other illegal immigration needs to be stopped at the ports and sent back to their original destination.
We need to stop paying hotel bills and giving money to immigrants and make it difficult for them to come here unless they have first made an application to come to the UK before they arrive.
The £4 million per day we are spending has to get to zero so that this money can be channelled back into essential services and infrastructure,NHS, roads, transport, schools and housing and paying off the UK debt.
Trump is doing it in the USA and so will Farage here but I very much doubt Labour or the other parties will even touch the surface of this ever growing problem and it will continue to be with us for the lifetime of this Parliament.
May 12, 2025
It seems unlikely that immigration will reduce until one basic problem is solved – the very low indigenous birthrate. Like many western countries – including Japan – women are having fewer children and many are choosing to not have any at all
Having made sure that the highly skilled Polish, Italian, French etc workforce left the country after Brexit, their numbers are being replaced by New Commonwealth immigrants, asylum seekers from war zones and African economic migrants
As AI technology becomes more established here, there will likely be huge numbers of ex-civil servants etc entering the private sector, starting businesses (Latin translation services anyone?) or claiming sick benefits for stress, mental health issues etc
It’s time the government recognises that free access to the NHS, benefits and subsidised housing are major attractions to migrants. We are widely seen as a soft touch. Deny them access to the welfare state and they will go somewhere else.
May 12, 2025
So you think the indigenous population should have carried on increasing its numbers without limit. But as they have chosen not to have so many children your punishment is to allow and encourage other people’s children to come here in unlimited numbers. No doubt you have a plan to increase our land area tp accommodate them.
May 12, 2025
“Having made sure that the highly skilled Polish, Italian, French etc workforce left the country after Brexit,2
No, not true at all. 6 million continentals from the EU signed up for permanent residence here after Brexit and had to pay not one penny in fees, courtesy of a virtue signalling Parliament. You may be confused by the Somali population in many English cities which came in from Finland, Holland, Sweden, and Denmark on their EU passports.
May 12, 2025
Are you suggesting we should abandon all family planning services, products and facilities?
May 12, 2025
SG
Your argument is forgetting that all immigrants (and their dependents) will get old and then need social benefits, NHS help, State pensions and care in old age.
You are advocating for a huge Ponzi scheme.
PS
First you argue for more immigration next you say because of the impact of AI huge numbers of people’s jobs will be replaced.
I don’t see how your logic works.
May 12, 2025
Family reunification is another large contributor to the numbers and is only going to get worse. The more immigrants we accept here, the more (large, extended) families apply to join them.
It is going to take far more than a White Paper from the red branch of the Uni-Party, tinkering around the edges of the problem and desperate not to anger the “Special Community” for fear of losing what remains of the block vote, to get immigration under control.
May 12, 2025
I agree, Donna. Family reunification is a cheap way to enter the UK, as there are no fees. Come to the UK and apply for asylum, and everything is free. Even if these people are refused asylum, they still get housing,
help with prescriptions for medicine, dental care, eyesight tests and glasses, and a payment card for food and toiletries. It’s all on the government website.
The whole system needs Reform before this country is bankrupted.
May 12, 2025
There will be no true reduction in immigration under Labour. Why would there be? For one it goes against their ideology and now more than ever they rely on immigrant votes.
I don’t know if this is a misquote of Starmer or not, but I see where he’s alleged to have said ‘speak English or leave’.
Well, who will make them leave? You can’t even make those that have entered illegally leave, or those that have committed crimes leave, in fact you ensure they can stay.
Speaking English is an extremely weak point and on the scale of things it is very low down on my priorities on immigration.
Speaking English as a criteria still leaves the door open for millions + of people from all over the world.
We don’t have shortages, we have too many people here and a system that seems hell bent on ensuring our own people are kept out of training to acquire the skills we need. Even if they have the skills DEI can block their path.
Enough is enough.
May 12, 2025
Michelle : “For one it goes against their ideology and now more than ever they rely on immigrant votes.”
In the past certainly, but could it be that they are finding they are losing more core voters than they are gaining from immigrants, particularly as immigrants are now voting for “independents”?
May 12, 2025
I have simply given up on thinking Governments want to control immigration, too many false dawns.
The problem now is too many with money leaving, too many with nothing who need expensive support arriving.
May 12, 2025
If true “The problem now is too many with money leaving…” the solution the political class will propose is to prevent extra-territorial wealth transfers (bless Sir Geoffrey Howe for abolishing the Exchange Control Act) so perhaps leave soon before they do?
May 12, 2025
Oh there are ways and means. I got a lot of money out of South Africa which imposed draconian exchange control.
May 13, 2025
Indeed I can remember when Harold Willson was PM we were only allowed a limited amount of money to take with us when we took a holiday abroad.
Think it was £50 at the time, but that was when few had a credit card, and electronic banking did not exist.
May 12, 2025
Frankly I have zero interest in this topic done to death by the meaningless vaporings of a succession of deceitful politicians over decades and reported ad nauseum.
Not because I don’t care but have better things to do than listen to more fatuous promises that will be a scratch on an elephants hide to the problem.
Judiciary out of control, border force/immigration departments woefully under populated, and any political will only forced by the rise of Reform and an overall woke reluctance to to take truly tough deterrent action.
We have been fed lies, lies and more lies and I , for one, am not listening anymore.
May 12, 2025
@ NigL – you speak for England! Thank you.
May 13, 2025
Two-Tier knows that thanks to Sunak’s very belated (and far too weak) restrictions which were put in place towards the tail-end of his administration, legal immigration is likely to reduce by around 300,000 this year. It will drop from an outrageous 900,000 net to around 600,000 net.
He’s just tee-ing himself up to claim the credit for the very slight improvement.
No-one is going to be fooled by his ridiculous performance today.
May 12, 2025
“She has the advantage that last year the Conservative government raised the amount you needed to earn to get a work permit and cut back on student dependents.”
She also has the advantage that the Conservatives deliberately increased the annual number of legal immigrants to such ridiculously high levels (1.26 million in 2022 for example) that almost anything she does will be an improvement on that. Still, I’m sure the Conservatives will continue to give her advice on this topic – they have no shame.
May 12, 2025
Yes, it’s frankly unbelievable. Schooling by failures. But still 20% blindly tick the box.
May 12, 2025
And we now see that after over a decade of failure the Tories have the bare faced cheek to say Starmers ideas don’t go far enough.
May 12, 2025
Just a decade of failure? We have had Tory governments for 32 of the last 46 years.
May 12, 2025
Indeed Kemi has still not really moved to sensible policies (ditch net zero, halve the size of government, cut low skilled migration to zero, ditch the ECHR, cut taxes…) and even if she does she then has the impossible task of convincing the public that if elected they would actually deliver this time – after 14 years of defrauding voters.
May 12, 2025
I am sure all people here have looked at gov.uk 27/02/2025 ‘Summary of latest statistics’ before writing (some clearly have). And also that they had looked at the illegal and legal immigration since, say, 2010 looking at the results obtained by the successive Home Office Secretaries T.May, A.Rudd, S.Javid, and since Brexit (01/2020) P.Patel, S.Braverman, J.Cleverly, and Y.Cooper, and how they all have been successful.
fullfact 31/05/2017 ‘What’s happened to migration since 2010?’
gov.uk 26/04/2024 ‘Additional statistics relating to Illegal Migration (April 2024)’
migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk 02/12/2024 ‘Net migration to the UK’
gov.uk 27/02/2025 ‘Summary of latest statistics’
May 12, 2025
I don’t think anyone needs to read government papers to understand the full extent of how this country has changed thanks to mass immigration. The issue is not what official papers to read, but how to get decision-makers to reverse the disastrous course this country has pursued for the last 20 years also. That can only be done by identifying those who benefit from mass migration, and then curtailing their influence.
May 12, 2025
It’s so sweet that you think these numbers are accurate when we know they are not even in the right ballpark.
May 13, 2025
Wel Lynn, I am waiting from the proper numbers from your dedicated sources, with references, please.
Will those be from Pravda or Izvestiia?
May 12, 2025
And your point is what hefner?
May 13, 2025
Sorry, I thought you could figure it out by yourself.
The point is that, during the years 2010-2024 (up to July) immigration both legal and illegal had decreased to less than 10k/year, as had been announced during the 2010, 2015, 2017, 2019 election campaigns and in multiple declarations by the successive (and how successful) Home Office SoSs. Obviously after the July 2024 election campaign and under Y.Cooper’s supervision, the immigration has ballooned to millions requiring the creation of multiple Southamptons.
I hope my idiotic answer aligns with your idiotic demand.
May 13, 2025
Obviously not hefner which is why I asked.
And in return we are given yet another of your sarcastic and aggressive posts.
PS
You remind me of 1970s teachers who got cross if a someone dared to ask a question.
May 12, 2025
The forgotten issue is overall migration, not simply the net figure, changing our whole culture, and not for the better. The chief issue being Islam and its cultural values, so different from our own.
May 12, 2025
Regarding work permits specifically, when I was 24 I considered applying for a work permit to work in the US (not a green card). The overarching requirement was the employer would have to evidence they could not fill that role locally in order for a work permit to be granted to a foreign applicant. My specifics aside, it was clear America had an effective work permit policy.
Why don’t we do the same and ensure the Home Office refuses any work permits where employers can fill those vacancies domestically?
May 12, 2025
The immigration figures for 2022 and
2023 could be regarded as ULTIMATE IMMIGRATION. Given we were in the aftermath of a global pandemic, this was GROSS irresponsibility.
How many people were allowed in during 2020?
May 12, 2025
And how many from China? You would nearly think that they wanted the virus to be spread worldwide.
Stupidly the first thing I would have done was impound and quarantine Chinese aircraft and passengers and inform them that no more would be allowed to land.
May 12, 2025
I am all in favour of reducing immigration (net and gross) but until the benefits system is overhauled we will not attract domestic workers to replace them.
These are two sides of the same coin and need to be addressed simultaneously.
May 12, 2025
‘Home Secretary to reduce migration’ This is just headline grabbing from a defunct Government with the support of Parliament. It’s pure electioneering.
From the Guardian regarding the illegal criminal entry into the UK “a report by the National Audit Office, the government spending watchdog, says that number is now estimated to be £15.3bn”
In a nutshell they won’t do anything about the criminal activity, block criminals entering the Country but they will block people that have come here to ‘Work’ and hopefully pay your own way. But if you want to sponge of the Taxpayer, come and abuse the UK’s legal system – that’s OK.
May 12, 2025
Also doing the rounds of the Media over the weekend – ‘Farage is a snake-oil salesman’: The unions left reeling by Reform’s working-class surge, the Labour Parties sponsors/paymaster
They(the Unions) cry “it’s a trick, and it’s a clever trick, of the populist Right” That word again ‘right’ meaning the centre and those that can see through the smoke screen.
So, it’s a trick to work with and support the Country and its People, instead of sponging off the taxpayer to fund strong Labour funding Unions. Union members particularly those that receive State/Taxpayer funding then pay the Unions to fund Labour – who is up to trickery there?
May 12, 2025
Well it’s somehow taken a Labour government, seeing the polling stacking up against it, to hit the panic button. Such a pity that the Tory governments of 2016-2024 couldn’t have been induced into this mode by their complete failure to take back control of anything! All it needed was enough right-minded Tories to secede from Tories to a Farage-led party, be it UKIP, Brexit or Reform, and we could have saved ourselves an awful lot of Brexit incompetence, Covid financial and (im)moral stupidity and several million migrants.
Instead Tory party wreckage was clung to by the fingernails. Until it sunk.
May 12, 2025
I’ve just listened to Starmer on the radio. It all sounds great, but when he’s previously campaigned for the opposite, I don’t believe a word!
It’s just sound bite to ward off Reform. But there’s been too many lies, for too long, that people don’t believe him any more – or the Conservatives for that matter!
May 12, 2025
This immigration saga is illustrative of the worst of our politics. The Conservatives are saying the measures do not go far enough but despite previous election promises to cut immigration, the only Cabinet Minister who had any real intent to take serious action, Suella Braverman was blocked by Sunak, Hunt and the other Cabinet Ministers, including Badenoch.
As for Labour apart from previously opposing restrictions on immigration they have taken over 10 months to even propose anything at all and even now their unveiling proposals to act will probably just provoke even more immigration in a rush to get immigrants in before those proposals come into effect. There is no word of emergency , practically immediate legislation to bring even this into effect.
It seems this U-turn from both the Conservatives and Labour has far more to do with panic at Reform’s success in the local elections and in the opinion polls just days ago than with any genuine conviction.
May 12, 2025
Sir John
Surely it shouldn’t be incumbent on the taxpayer to make way and pay for the homing of even those that want to come here and work? It should be left to those that wish to take them on.
May 12, 2025
Surely it is time we looked at the actual reasons why so many people want to come to the UK and did something about that.
Those 2 treaties signed off by May that gave priority and privileges to migrants — If people are coming here then they should not expect better than what we all get.
Let’s stop offering our welfare system to all and sundry – there should be a 5 year qualifying period in work before access to the NHS is possible.
The same should apply before anybody is allowed to be given money for being out of work, with no golden ‘hellos’.
People who come here sick to use the NHS should be sent back home immediately.
Lawyers defending immigrants obtain vast sums from the state – let’s curtail what they earn from such work.
By making the UK unattractive to those that just want to live off the state would change the situation over night!
May 12, 2025
The Conservatives promised in their manifestos in 2010, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024 to reduce immigration, and did the exact opposite. So the wipe-out in the 2024 GE was their own fault. The recent local election results show that the trust they lost remains lost. Why believe a word they say?
Labour remains a joke when it comes to immigration and you might as well use their white paper in the toilet!
Why do our governments ignore what voters want?
Can Reform sustain its momentum to the next GE? We will see, but they appear to be the only hope of proper, serious action being taken. The very least required is a 3 to 5 year no immigration policy to get on top of the problems. Every problem in housing, schools, the NHS, and GPs, jails, the justice system is made worse by uncontrolled immigration. Are our MPs blind or stupid?
May 12, 2025
It isnt going to happen. If the Government carries through with their idea about not recruiting overseas people to work in the care sector, it will be a disaster, and they will soon have to backtrack. I cant see them being able to recruit from the UK only, as many here don’t want to do those jobs.
They are making all those ‘promises’ because Reform did so well in the Council elections. I don’t believe a word of it, and I know I am far from alone. They are trying to take us all for fools, and it isn’t going to work!
May 12, 2025
Media round up
Sir Keir said: “Make no mistake, this plan means migration will fall. That is a promise.”
And the criminal entry aided and abetted by government paid for by the taxpayer? The bit the National Audit Office, the government spending watchdog, says is now estimated to be £15.3bn taxpayer hit – that can carry on the growing, 2TK will do nothing
Labour’s immigration plan ‘more empty rhetoric’, claims Braverman, and as part of the previous collective responsibility cabinet she was involved in encouraging the problem to grow – read she did nothing!
“disentangling ourselves” from the ECHR?, Sir Keir said: “No, I don’t think that that is necessary. I also remind myself that the ‘international agreements’ we’ve signed have given us the basis for the deals that we’ve struck on illegal migration. (Should read this Government, the HoC, the UK’s Legislators, the ones the people empower and pay, are too lazy to create and manage its own laws. Instead, they suggest an undemocratic unrepresentative Court and Law maker is the UK’s overriding power)
May 12, 2025
“On the day of Keir Starmer’s big fightback against Reform UK, 250 young men are already crossing the Channel by 8am. How many are Iranian terrorists?” – Reform UK leader Nigel Farage
2TK and the Uniparty all think we are all stupid!
May 12, 2025
I can’t see Labour getting much in the way of an opinion-poll bounce from this but they’re outflanking the Conservatives – who should have done more in their final years of government rather than leave an easy problem for the successor government to fix. Reform? It will be able to dance to the right on this issue, maintaining ‘clear blue water’.
My advice to Badenoch? Mirror Reform’s policy, making clear, unambiguous commitments. She must do this now. The Spectator, I see, has already raised the prospect of Bob Blackman being the only Conseravtive MP to survive the next election.
May 12, 2025
Even if we allow foreign immigration into this country, why would we not be highly discriminatory over whence it came? It is very clear that there are parts of the world from where the immigrants are highly toxic to our culture and way of life so why allow any of them irrespective of any other mitigating factors?
Furthermore, we have laws on our statute book which have been instigated by an alien race, within, which should all be repealed because they are there to harm us and immunise them from the consequences of their concerted actions taken against us.
The idea that all humans are born with a tabla rasa is also bunk. Behaviour is very largely inheritable like any other attribute like intelligence or eye colour determined by genes so the idea that foreigners will change their ways to be more like us is also bunkum.
At some point we will need to address the fact that expecting the English to tolerate ad infinitum those who have degraded our way of life is unsustainable.
May 12, 2025
Apparently statistics for immigration and emigration are compiled by the ONS (Office for National Statistics) so doubtless they must be correct, or are they as good as their financial statistics?
May 12, 2025
Immigration is easy to control if you have the will to do it. Impose an immigration moratorium. Declare that we will not accept any asylum seekers and return any that arrive to France. There, that wasn’t difficult was it?
The fact is there is no desire by the deep state to control immigration, and there never has been since the 1950s. Government has all the powers to stop immigration. They choose not to do so.
May 12, 2025
I saw the PM press conference on immigration today and I am not convinced
He does not believe his own words
Reducing the number by 100k by the end of the parliament does not cut it
I look forward to him being voted out
May 12, 2025
232 criminals arrived in the UK yesterday; from the safe country of France…
May 12, 2025
GC :
Not “arrived in” but “encouraged to come to” the UK today. Why?
May 12, 2025
There is no such thing as ‘a nation of strangers’. The whole point of a nation is that everyone is related. Else it’s NOT a nation.
Britain is now a country occupied by strangers with little in common jostling for dominance for their various ‘cultures’. All predicted in detail 60 years ago.
This will end badly.
May 12, 2025
So now we know that mass illegal and legal immigration was, to quote our PM who said today: “A one-nation experiment in open borders conducted on a country that voted for control.” Described by him as a “lab experiment”. They treat us as if we are mice and rats.
May 12, 2025
PS :
They’re also rushing ahead as fast as they can to see how far they can take us mice and rats down the path of de-industrialisation and impoverishment with expensive, chaotically intermittent, low energy density and hence insecure electricity generated by infrastructure they can only buy from a country our security services describe as “hsotile” before we finally eject them from office. Another “lab experiment” using the BBC, the Guardian and even the King to falsely scare us into believing that we must decarbonise all our energy and consumption by 2050 to save the planet.
May 12, 2025
The PM has confirmed today that the multiculturism “lab experiment” has failed. Worse still we are finding that not only are first generation immigrants not wishing to integrate, learn the language and accept the laws and values of the West but neither do the second and third generations despite being born, educated and living in our country. Being born in a stable does not make you a horse and this is why immigration from countries with different laws, customs and values should be ended if we intend to remain a prosperous, safe and cohesive nation.
May 12, 2025
The PMs rhetoric today on curbing immigration is not serious and is purely a smokescreen to hide the millions of naturalised EU youth immigrants he will be inviting into the UK using the EU Youth Mobility scheme. Note that as usual there will be no records kept or any control on who is coming, from which countries they originate from, or whether they ever leave.
May 12, 2025
Interesting to hear the admission straight from Starmer’s mouth that we have now disproved that immigration increases GDP. He said, the fact that we’ve had the highest immigration on record, and flatlined GDP at the same time, disproves the models.
That is quite something, because only a few years ago we had several models from prestigious bodies proving that immigration made us all better off, except perhaps for the very poorest.
Probably came from the same kind of people who gave us the 4% hit to GDP from Brexit model. So why should we believe any of their models, now that the PM has stood up and said they were wrong about immigration and GDP ?
May 12, 2025
More claptrap from Starmer. How’s the gang smashing coming along?