Far too many more people come to live in the UK every year. It is the main reason we are short of homes, and leaves us struggling to provide enough NHS appointments, large enough waste water pipes, sufficient roadspace for all the cars. Most of them come legally.
It is quite easy to cut the numbers. The last government tightened rules last year. They need to be tightened further.The government should say to get a work visa the pay should be at least £50,000 , cutting out most jobs. We need to make more efforts to get the large numbers of people not working into jobs.
Student visas should only be available for reputable Colleges offering approved courses. Students should not be able to stay on after the end of the course. They should not bring in dependents.
The government needs to do much more to stop illegals. They should not be put in hotels. They should be questioned about how they got here and who they paid. The boat drivers should be arrested and prosecuted. They should not be allowed to start a claim to stay here if they have entered illegally.There are plenty of legal routes to claim asylum.They should need to show their passport or other ID document.
May 10, 2025
In fact there are no legal routes to claim asylum. That’s why the boats keep coming. Provide legal routes and you destroy the evil business at a stroke
Reply There are plenty of legal routes. The way to stop the boats is to ensure that is not the way to claim asylum.
May 10, 2025
Even if you have even more legal routes those who cannot use these will obviously still come illegally on small boats unless we have some real deterrents.
From the Times today:- The Home Office fears that annual net migration is going to settle above the 340,000 PA level expected by the government unless radical policies are introduced.
Even this 1/3 million is totally unacceptable.
May 10, 2025
But but but the uniparty has encouraged immigration. No effort had been made to stop the boats. From Osborne to Starmergeddon immigration is seen as a driver of increased GDP. This has been tried to death but politicians relentlessly continue to hope it will work.
Along comes Trump and Farage and the blob see their positions being threatened so new immigration policies are quickly released. We know it’s only flannel from past experience so no one is listening. The First World is awakening to the destruction foisted on them by immigration net stupid and globalisation and they are rebelling.
May 10, 2025
Today as wind continues its sabbatical we are Importing 31% of our electricity at £81 per mwh
Actual cost I’d £40 per mwh before taxes and levies so we are effectively giving the taxes to foreign governments.
May 10, 2025
Indeed and strangling all our energy intensive industries and the economy.
May 10, 2025
If there are such legal routes as you claim, perhaps you can provide us with an answer to the Tim Loughton question that the former Home Secretary completely failed to answer at Select Committee.
May 10, 2025
There are plenty of legal routes and your absolute denial paints you as womithout credibility.
You and your ilk have held sway in the debate fotmr too long with the results we see today.
What Sir John has written above is the minimum we should be doing to protect ourselves from these chancers.
May 10, 2025
Surely we do not want legal routes for the people we do not want do we? Only legal routes for the few highly skilled non criminal people who are of net value to the UK!
May 10, 2025
I do not blame the “Chancers” but the Con-Socialist and Labour. I might well do the same as these “chancers” in the same circumstances and with the many UK incentives offered.
May 10, 2025
Please tell us what these legal routes are. Imagine I’m oppressed for my religious views in Iran or Sudan, what is my “legal route” to apply for asylum in the UK?
May 10, 2025
Scallion
Would you not be happier applying for asylum in a nearby safe country where language, religion and other important societal attributes are in line with your own.
Why traipse all the way to the UK?
May 11, 2025
So you admit there are no legal routes
May 11, 2025
No that’s not what I said nor implied Scallion
But I note you carefully avoided answering my question.
May 10, 2025
@Ron gray – there are stacks of legal routes, but genuine asylum seekers are blocked by the amount of criminal entry stealing their places. One is genuine fleeing from oppression the other is criminal activity
May 10, 2025
People who are turned down for asylum via legal routes will then come on the boats instead. Legal routes will only stop the boats if you approve every single legal application. There are anyway several legal routes – for example come on a student visa then claim asylum.
May 10, 2025
+1
May 10, 2025
Are there legal routes to claim asylum in the UK, for those who are coming from or via EU countries?
Were such options not closed-off/down some years back, the rational being such people are coming from or through safe countries, from whose governments they should be claiming asylum from. By extension, was that not also one of the reason why successive UK governments opted out of some or all of the EU ‘social chapters’, such as the full Schengen Agreement, being immigration via the backdoor.
Given the unlikely resurrection of anything like the Rwanda scheme, at least as enforced relocation, if not hotels, given the usual NIMBY objections to building (duel-purpose) social housing or using MOD barracks etc. What do the naysayers suggest, beyond rallying soundbites…
May 10, 2025
If you are trying to claim asylum having come via boat from northern France, then you should have claimed asylum there or in other countries you passed through. If you flew into France or other EU countries then you required ID etc. Asylum dismissed – eject.
May 10, 2025
+1
May 10, 2025
The last official text being applied right now that I found: commonslibrary.parliament.uk 07/10/2024 ‘Safe and legal humanitarian routes to the UK’.
Being discussed right now : commonslibrary.parliament.uk 02/05/2025 ‘Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill: progress of the bill’. Second reading was passed by 333 votes to 109. The report stage is scheduled for the 12th of May.
May 10, 2025
You are obsessed with mechanics, never ideas.
May 10, 2025
@LA; Whilst you (and others) are obsessed with soundbites, never ideas that will pass the ‘mechanical’ test, you’re not so no different to the green blob, just different issues.
May 10, 2025
No need to be so dismissive Jerry
Rather poor by your usual standards.
May 10, 2025
I think we all know what ‘should’ be done. The problem is no Government is actually doing it, and there is no sign that anything is going to change any time soon.
May 10, 2025
+1
May 10, 2025
It will change in 2028 if/when Labour really becomes frightened of losing the election, or 2029 when a Reform-led government takes over.
We will need to revive the Rwanda scheme, and recreate it in other countries as well in order to deport all the new arrivals. However, 2TK will almost cetainly try to introduce an amnesty before the election, in an attempt to allowing many thousands to stay permanently.
Unfortunately big business continues to bully government and the civil service to allow so many economic migrants in legally. That has to stop now. In 2010, Cameron set the target at less than 100,000. Just three years ago, 250,000 a year was considered far to many, now the Civil Service is happy with 350,000. To quote a Great Lady : No! No! No!
May 10, 2025
The few who believe our government is serious about cutting illegal immigration would believe practically anything they were told. The rot started years ago and it’s plain we need a complete change of politicians to get anything done.
As for legals, it’s more hidden from view but still in plain sight. The India deal and EU mobility scheme show Labour want to increase it. Giving Hong Kong citizens the right to a passport and inviting in Ukranians showed that the Conservatives had no qualms about increasing it, either.
If you’re working class or poor and British you are fed up with immigration and the lies and spin, but you might not vote in elections. If you’re an upper middle class, comfortably off “anywhere” you probably think immigration is a good thing, and you vote accordingly. Until the voting balance changes nothing of substance will change on this issue.
May 10, 2025
Under Boris one year the net legal immigration number was 1.2 million. So I don’t think we or Starmer need any lectures from Conservatives on this topic.
May 10, 2025
Hi sir John
People are going on about the illegal boats
There are still hundreds if not thousands still coming illegally on the back of lorries
This hasn’t changed and will get worse if the channel route becomes more difficult
Thank you
Reply More action was taken to stop those, with better enforcement. How many do you think still come this way and what is your source?
May 10, 2025
Plus the student entry then claim asylum route, the tourist visa then asylum…
May 10, 2025
@LL; What do you suggest, the North Korean approach, a closed off country?!
May 10, 2025
Hyperbole from you Jerry, quoting North Korea.
We used to have immigration level for many years in the tens of thousands per annum.
Which was reasonable and manageable.
Now we are at one million per annum.
Two cities the size of Southampton are need to be built every year.
It is unsustainable.
Is there a level you feel is right?
May 10, 2025
@Sam; “Now we are at one million per annum.”
What is our current permanent loss to the national economy due to illness, retirement and death; what was our birth rate 20 years ago, in other words how many from our indigenous adult population are entering the workforce whatever their grade/qualifications; thus is our economy shrinking, expanding, or stagnant as a result. Unless you can cite meaningful statistics for those basic questions how do you know 1m pa is “unsustainable.”. If we are loosing 3m people Net from the workforce (and perhaps society), but only have 1m indigenous adults entering pa we could likely accept twice the number of immigrants you suggest. If we are only loosing 500k people pa, clearly you are correct.
“Two cities the size of Southampton are need to be built every year.”
Well if there is no sensible policy to disperse migrants!…
How many houses are there in Southampton anyway? What if the UK simply, and relatively cheaply, built half a dozen new homes (be they houses or flats), using well proven and thus cheap build technologies, in each and every town over say 10k population that has, or is close to, centres of commerce. Such a policy would have little or no effect on public other services, if not sufficient, how many would need to be built in such town, how many new schools etc?
Just to be clear, the all of the above questions are *not* rhetorical, I do not know the answers, and I suspect you do not either, you just repeat others soundbites, who also likely as not also do not know (as they never cite such statistics themselves).
Reply Nonsense. We do not have enough teachers, medics, sewage pipes, surgeries, electricity anywhere to accommodate an extra 750,000 people a year You do need to build 3 Southamptons a year with all facilities and staff them.
May 11, 2025
Your usual waffling response Jerry
Going off on a tangent.
And failing go anywhere near answering my original question.
As Sir John says:- nonsense
May 11, 2025
@JR reply; I was asking for some facts, statistical evidence, to support the argument against immigration, so far all is hearsay, assertions and opinion, so my comment was hardly “nonsense” to ask for some hard statistical evidence, unless of course there is only hearsay…
We did not have enough houses, teachers, medics, sewage pipes, surgeries, electricity,
town gas etc anywhere in 1950 either, the decades that followed however proved to be ones of both population and economic growth, never mind mass-immigration. We would only need to build “3 Southamptons a year” if we choose to ghettoise new arrivals, not disperse them across the UK, requiring them to assimilate into existing communities.
Reply Existing communities do not have that scale of spare capacity. You could build dozens of new villages instead of 3 cities, but you need extra utility, public service and housing capacity.
May 11, 2025
@JR reply; “You could build dozens of new villages instead of 3 cities,”
That would still create ghetto, what I;m asking is why we can;t simply add a modest number of homes to many existing Cities, towns, even the larger villages.
None of the towns, and perhaps few cities, in 1950 had such a scale of spare capacity either, but it was found on the environs or as infill (once the slum housing and factories had been cleared), the infrastructure improved etc, yes News Towns were built but many Towns and Cities were enlarged. Nor were the 1950s an anomaly, much the same happened between 1919 and 1939, if you doubt me go study some OS 1:2500 scale maps for the past 150 years.
If we can not increase our housing stocks, perhaps even our sock of industrial building, due to an UNEXPLAINED inability to improve said infrastructure, what does such a message tell our indigenous youth who also want their own homes, or our industry who want modern new larger buildings, or perhaps the same arguments don’t apply…
May 10, 2025
For a few years – yes absolutely to immigrants.
May 10, 2025
The number of workers building our new nuclear power station, Hinkley Point C, has surged to 26,000 as the project hits peak construction.
Around 18,000 people are working directly for the project in Britain. Around 12,000 are working on the site itself, with 3,000 more expected in the next 12 months.
With the fit-out phase now accelerating, an additional 8,000 people are supporting the project as part of the supply chain, including factories in Bristol, Somerset, Wales and others right across the country
The project is sending out major economic ripples across Britain — especially in the South West. Fresh figures from the 2025 Socio-Economic Report show that £5.3bn has now been spent with suppliers in the South West alone, helping to supercharge local growth and skills.
A British supply chain of over 4,000 firms has now built up the skills and capacity to feed into the new nuclear project at Sizewell C and small modular reactor schemes. No lies here John
Reply So what? We all know if a government project spends lots of money it will generate jobs. No one here opposes more nuclear power,, though there issues about costs and delays
May 10, 2025
@Sir John – good morning
The UK construction industry is gaining valuable experience of building EDF’s EPR design and the second station at Sizewell C will suffer less cost over-runs and delays. My view that we also need to rapidly start building a fleet of SMR’s and Milliband needs to place orders with Rolls Royce to build demonstration plant ASAP
The two new nuclear power stations will provide base line generation of 6.8 GWh to the grid (about 14% of current electricity demand), reducing our dependence on inefficient and expensive gas-fired generation and to reduce imports via the interconnectors. Nuclear will provide the essential element of “inertia” which failed in Spain earlier this month
May 10, 2025
Strange how the Koreans manage to build 3 nukes for the Gulf States in half the time and half the cost without employing half the customer’s population.
May 10, 2025
Stred :
A very good point.
It is wrong to base the costs of large nuclear on the building of the EDF EPR Hinkley Point C (HPC) as this project was deliberately made to be expensive in order to promote renewables. Firstly with OTT regulations and then selecting Chinese funding. Professor Dieter Helm of Oxford University told the BBC in 2018 that the cost of HPC would have been halved if the Government (Cameron, Osborne & Davey) had borrowed the money itself instead of using Chinese capital at 9%:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44363366
Exactly the same EDF EPR technology was used to build the plant at Olkiluoto, Finland, which is supplying electricity at £53/MWhr which compares to the current CfD price for chaotically intermittent offshore wind of £84.97/MWhr such as for Hornsea Project Four. But note that Orsted have just decided to discontinue with Hornsea Project 4 saying it is not commercially viable…
It is obvious that nuclear will be cheaper, as well as more reliable and secure than than weather dependent, chaotically intermittent low energy density renewables. And even eventually with hydrocarbons if it is not already. All the AI companies are now developing their own nuclear plans.
May 10, 2025
You mean 6GW not 6 GWh the former is power the latter is a unit of energy like a Joule – so if you use GWH you would need to say 6 GWH per day, second, year… for it to make any sense!
May 10, 2025
You are splitting hairs. If a power source can continuously provide 6 gw, it is supplying 6 gw for an hour or 6 gWh
May 11, 2025
No, it is supplying 6GWh each hour or 6GW of average power! If you do not know the difference between energy and power and the units used to measure them is perhaps best to go and mug up before you contribute – if you want to be taken remotely seriously.
May 11, 2025
@Mike Wilson you say:-
“If a power source can continuously provide 6 gw, it is supplying 6 gw for an hour or 6 gWh”
This does not follow either. If a power source “can” supply 6gw says nothing at all about what it is actually supplying does it?
May 10, 2025
Far too expensive compared to gas and coal generation per unit of energy plus nuclear is not at all good or efficient at providing back up for intermittent wind or solar. When compared to gas or coal, though their efficiency is cut hugely in intermittent use as back up. Thus pushing up the cost of gas and coal generated electricity and their capital costs relative to output delivered.
Renewable plus, nuclear, plus enforced heat pumps and EV cars is an insane agenda and largely incompatible agenda. No competent engineer would take this route (perhaps engineer Kemi might spot this). It will mean vastly more electricity demand in winter, a vast grid capacity increase circa 10-30 times for some winter days wasted the rest of the year. And if you try to use nuclear as back up that will be even more insanity!
If we heat, cook, heat hot water etc. with gas or oil or solid fuels we do not need much more electricity at all given LED lighting!
May 10, 2025
@SG; The issue is time, not cost, given the UK has shut down so much existing capacity, to meet a mythical target reduction in CO2. How long to build a single nuclear reactor of established design, how many coal/oil/gas fired power stations could be built in the same time scale, never mind for less cost of that one nuclear reactor…
I fully understand why RR keep pushing their modular reactors, they have invested in R&D and clearly want payback, but why do so many others chirp the same tune, unless also protecting their own (unwise?) investments.
May 11, 2025
Indeed and gas (or coal) are far better than nuclear for ramping up quickly and down to cope with the intermittent wind and solar. Though all work less efficiently when forced to do this.
May 10, 2025
SG as with all French projects the bulk of spending will go on French companies and personnel. EDF is a wholly owned company by the French government and the minimum will be done to benefit Britain
May 10, 2025
To reply “We all know if a government project spends lots of money it will generate jobs” well yes but largely parasitic ones and the extra taxes needed to fund this (usually mad) government project will kill far more real jobs usually the ration is x2 up to x50+. Examples of mad net harm government projects HS2, the Millennium Dome, the net harm Covid Vaccines and net harm Covid Lockdowns, Net Zero, the Climate Change Act, subsidies for wind, Blair’s mad wars, solar, EVs, Heat-pumps… see also the book “the blunders of governments” which needs updating!
May 10, 2025
Wow – I wonder how many jobs the 25 Chinese Nuclear Power Stations, announced recently and to be completed in 2030 (like Hinckley) will create?
Of course these are wealth CONSUMING jobs not wealth CREATING jobs.
Unfortunately it is a resource that will not compensate for the government destroyed coal fired power stations either.
Personally I can’t see the point of it. If we are going to be without electricity how does spending all of this money help? We should invest it and hope we can buy some electricity from China in 2030. They seem to have a plan and an intention to have energy to hand.
May 10, 2025
You would ‘hope’ China would sell us electricity? Give them all the trump ( sorry) cards?
Why does everybody seem to hope our ‘friends’ will be kind and sympathetic to the mistakes we made in the 2000s if not earlier, and ever since?
May 10, 2025
Who are our friends? I think we have to hope our enemies sell us energy. We do that now!
May 10, 2025
Correct, nothing quite like providing us the rope to hang ourself with.
May 10, 2025
I do not oppose Nuclear power other than it is v. expensive (absurdly so in the UK due to legal and political objections) it is also not very good as back up (to be rapidly ramped up and down) for so called “renewables” rather better called the “unreliables”.
May 10, 2025
Good morning.
No ! They should ALL be arrested, tried and returned to the last country of origin. There should be special courts set up to deal with this 24/7. Once convicted, they should be put on the first Eurostar back to the EU. And as said by someone here some time ago, if the EU refuses to take them, we should cancel one fishing license each time.
But alas we won’t because previous governments have clearly signed up to a secret deal in which we ‘take our fair share.’ 😉
May 10, 2025
Stop blaming the EU and particularly the French for the UK policy of attracting migrants with free everything. Put the illegal migrants into detention camps with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Once they are fed up, they will volunteer to return home. Meanwhile, others will stop coming when they see it’s a dead end.
May 10, 2025
Exactly, expose to the grim British seasonal weather, dormitory housing, a very basic British staple diet, spuds(chips!) and veg.
Perhaps they would start to wonder why they came.
May 10, 2025
Well we wouldn’t be able to heat them in Winter. After all, we’re supposed to be saving the planet.
May 10, 2025
The answer is ID cards and tents – lots of them,.
May 11, 2025
Why on earth do you need ID cards when they take fingerprints – do they not?
May 10, 2025
They shouldn’t be allowed to land.
Stop the draw, stop the boats.
May 10, 2025
Its the only way
May 10, 2025
Seems to. They will keep coming and the numbers will keep increasing unless we have some real deterrents is this not obvious. The government has the reverse agenda of incentives. The only current deterrent the UK will become such an overcrowded and unpleasant place then eventually more will leave than come! That or windy weather and rough seas.
May 10, 2025
In the meantime we are bleeding out young, talented, high skilled potentially invaluable workers for our future. Why should they stay here, all the signals say the end of a decent lifestyle is nigh …we are headed for the bottom of the barrel, go and God bless.
May 10, 2025
The French are not allowed to ‘refuse to take them’ under international law. We have the right to return them from whence they came.
The Government is concerned that is the stream of illegals was cut off, those already here would riot.
May 10, 2025
On rioting the offer to repatriate would be made. This would involve evidence of country of origin and ability to send back.
May 10, 2025
It has been government official policy for decades to repatriate. Both main parties. Did you not know? Maybe because they don’t implement their official policy.
May 10, 2025
My ‘offer’ would not be a choice!
May 10, 2025
The recent India deal just adds to the problem, and tips the balance if ever there was one, to employ an Indian immigrant over a local, because it’s cheaper, with no National Insurance to pay for 3 years..
May 10, 2025
I understand that the situation concerns secondment only. It is reciprocal and in general only senior staff are seconded. Also this is apparently the position atm. There is also a winding down of this position in the agreement.
I’m sure JR will correct me if I am wrong.
May 10, 2025
Why would secondment (to do what we can’t do?) require unlimited numbers?
May 10, 2025
Secondment is within international companies. And it is reciprocal. I’m assuming the have not specified how many can be seconded – 2 – 4 etc?
I’m just telling you what the deal says. It does not say ‘unlimited numbers of Indians can come and don’t need to pay NIC.
Seconded personnel continue paying NIC or the equivalent in their home country.
Let’s panic about real things. If I’m wrong, I’m sure you will find the quotes from the treaty to put me right.
May 10, 2025
I will not spend my time reading and guessing what are loopholes in the treaty, I have simply taken as correct the media briefing on it. Of course the media is about spin so anything is possible. You have made it all sound like a non-event so Starmer is trying to make something grand out of close to zilch?
May 10, 2025
If you truely want an immigration policy that works you will have to await a Reform government. Members of the present Parliament will talk about it but only fiddle about on the fringe of it. The latest Indian trade agreement will probably exacerbate the situation, which is why it is short on detail.
I have oft told, whoever cares to listen, how to deal with illegals , but nobody in Parliament is listening. Remove all incentives such as hotel accommodation, phones etc and replace it with detention camp and removal to an offshore work camp. West Falkland is ideal. That would kill the northbound Channel flow in its tracks. The introduction of a biometric ID card for all citizens, enabling the estimated 2 million illegals to be removed. For those who argue against ID cards, do they realise that the ballot card listed some 22 ways to identify a voter other than a passport. However it does not suit those who run Parliament so it won’t happen in the next four years.
May 10, 2025
If we send them to a third location of our choosing, we have ‘accepted them’. So your proposal surrenders our only viable legal stance which is NOT to accept them.
Why should any third country or territory have them? They can only go back from whence they came I.e. France.
May 10, 2025
As a young soldier, I was stationed at a camp that had wooden “Spiders” – six huts connected by enclosed corridors to a central toilet/bathroom. They were single skinned huts (no insulation) with a central stove for heating. We took turns to get up at 5.30am to light the fire and warm the room above freezing by the time everyone else got up at 6.30. I can’t remember exactly now but there were about 12-16 men per room (6 to 8 beds either side). It was very basic but much better than being outside in tents (which we also used when on exercise)…
If someone comes here uninvited, I think such accomodation should suffice (and would certainly be better than the ‘Jungle’ in Calais) and perhaps remove part of the incentive to come here. We may have a duty of care but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be the most basic kind. We all survived it… 🙂
May 10, 2025
I predict the new migration policy will be very similar to the old one: hundreds of thousands will be allowed into the UK every year from poor, culturally and religiously incompatible countries, and existing British taxpayers will be required to subsidise them.
It’s the only migration promise they keep …. the promise they’ve made to the UN to level down the UK (Agenda 2030) and the WEF to give them a constant supply of cheap foreign labour.
May 10, 2025
There is no longer the need for migrants to provide a few years of ‘cheap foreign labour’ before claiming citizenship and benefits for life.
They move straight into luxury accommodation – and trash it.
I wonder the cost of dilapidations that the government meets?
May 10, 2025
It is long past the time to put the No Vacancies sign up on the cliffs of Dover.
We are full.
Until the old political parties understand the depth of concern and the depth of discomfort being felt by urban British residents, due to immigration numbers, voters will continue to vote for the only party that is prepared to speak truth to power on immigration and its negative impacts.
Labour are still fixated on open borders and the Tories talk about migration control then do nothing. Sadly it is worse than that. The Tories declared control of migration down to tens of thousands in 2015 but then allowed the numbers to rise, by policy decisions, to over 1 million/year in 2023.
With that background, why does anyone wonder why people have abandoned the Tory Party?
May 10, 2025
A better neon sign might be ‘welcome to your own version of Hell’, possibly in the 3 most common languages of the illegals.
May 10, 2025
The Channel migrant issue is deeply disturbing: some are terrorists, many are criminals and many are a serious threat to the safety of women and girls. They are here forever and continue to arrive unchecked. Parents of a school in our area now operate their own safeguarding of the children, being present in numbers at the beginning and end of the school day because there is a migrant hotel nearby with migrants stalking the children. This is the most visible representation of politicians’ wilful destruction of the English way of life.
May 10, 2025
We need to do a complete reset over what we mean by asylum. Asylum is for people the UK considers have value, like nuclear weapons experts. Asylum is not for cowards who run away from aggression, like for every Taliban 30 Afghans are running away from him.
If all the people in the world that qualify for asylum on current rules had the ability to travel, the UK amongst others would be truly overwhelmed. All we get though is fit young men who have the means to make the journey.
May 10, 2025
The UN Migration Pact that was signed by Theresa May without debate agrees that the UK will accept economic migrants as though they are refugees and that we assist migration. This is what the civil service and politicians are doing.
May 10, 2025
We can ditch the treaty. South Africa did. Treaty law is very low level, overridden by all other levels of law.
May 10, 2025
I vert much agree. Britain now has by far the highest population density in the Western World. Using population per square mile it is 745. By comparison France is 315:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-by-density
We were told from Blair onwards that mass immigration is good for GDP growth. But where is it then? With 28 years of unprecedented levels of immigration we should be growing comfortably above our long-term growth rate but we are still struggling to grow above 1.5% / year.
The immigration experiment was wrong – it never accounted for the drag on GDP growth with the gargantuan cost of housing, health, education and welfare for all the migrants. We didn’t take in the professionals and entrepreneurs we needed, we took in anyone even and most of them will spend years / all their lives on welfare and housing benefits. It was an abnormally stupid move. We all pay the price for that every day with higher taxes, lower living standards (GDP / capita) and a damaged country.
Regarding illegal migration I feel the only solution is to declare a State of Emergency and send them all back to where they came from. If that means negotiating / paying the Afghan, Iranian and Syrian regimes then so be it but they are going back whatever the cost. The reason is it is cheaper to have a deterrent that works and stops them all coming over every day than one that does not and they all keep coming here in perpetuity and we will pay GBP hundreds billions for them all across their lives.
If > 150,000 illegal migrants entering our country is not a national emergency then a national emergency has no meaning. It is an emergency and it has got to stop right now. Ted Heath called an SOE over strikers in the 1970s, Spain recently with the energy blackout, Donald Trump has with illegal borders crossings in to the US. So why don’t we?
May 10, 2025
“The government should say to get a work visa the pay should be at least £50,000 , cutting out most jobs.”
Which would include key public sector roles such as classroom teaching and nursing.
On that basis, what would you do to ensure that the UK is completely self-sufficient in those roles (as that is what your proposed policy would require) and has the ability (and appropriate funding) to train and retain sufficient classroom teachers and nurses.
What policies would attract someone to, for example, teach mathematics rather than getting a much better paying (and much less hassle) job in finance or IT?
Reply You may need extra pay for scarce professions in teaching. Standard teachers pay scale extends up to £49,000 and then there are other allowances for additional duties and good performance. Why are you against getting good senior teachers above £50,000?
May 10, 2025
If someone wishes to come and settle here, they need more than just a good salary job. They need to embrace the British way of living and seek the prosperity of this country. They need to change allegiance to this country, and be prepared to sign up for our armed services if called upon. Our TV screens far too often shows images of people who wish to transfer their failed countries’ of origin lifestyle to our country, and display allegiance to where they came from.
Look at those Iranians that have been arrested recently. Why were they allowed into this country in the first place?
Please let us be open to immigrants, but let us not be played for fools.
May 10, 2025
Where have I stated that I am against teachers earning above £50,000?
One thing I will point out is that the standard classroom (main) pay scale is currently £31,650 to £43,607 which is well below the threshold you are proposing.
May 10, 2025
I take it you mean a qualified teacher likely starts on £31,650? For how long?
May 10, 2025
Until such time as they move to the next point in the pay scale or that point in the pay scale is increased.
My point is that if we want and need qualified classroom teachers, setting a visa threshold at a minimum salary of £50,000 is not going to help when classroom teacher salaries are well below that level.
Your point is?
May 10, 2025
“It is quite easy to cut the numbers.” I don’t think it is, otherwise it would have been done long ago, to win votes if nothing else.
A much more interesting post would’ve been asking why it is so *difficult* to cut the numbers. Or rather, who is making it so difficult to cut the numbers. We know about the human rights lawyers, among whom we have Keir Starmer, as Boris Johnson pointed out recently. Who are they working for? Who pays them? And who else wants large numbers of migrants in this country? What influence do they have on GB political decisions? There’s a whole lot of useful questions that could be asked (and I can imagine someone like Rupert Lowe doing a good job of asking them). It’s time we had answers.
Reply It is easy. The Home Secretary just has to change qualifications to get a visa to greatly reduce numbers of legal migrants. It didn’t happen in the last 5 years because government and Parliament welcomed in Hong Kongers , Ukrainians, Afghan etc and had very lax rules on who gets a work or student visa.
May 10, 2025
I’m afraid you’re still not engaging with my point. Yes, the mechanism to cut the numbers is straightforward, but actually using it seems to be very difficult. The important questions arise at that point: why is it so difficult and who is making it difficult?
May 10, 2025
The politicians are afraid of the violent people. That is what ‘makes it hard’.
May 10, 2025
Violent people? Surely not. If you can afford to pay ‘human rights’ lawyers, you don’t need to be violent. Nor do you need to be, if you’re running the Deliveroo economy, want cheap labour, and having good lobbyists working for you.
May 10, 2025
I think that every non-UK passport holder should pay a bond when they come to the UK (let’s say it would cost about £18,000). It would be fully refundable when they leave the UK within their allowed time.
Most reputable people, including most tourists and business people, could cover this bond using an insurance scheme. Only the most unreliable would have to pay the full fee up front.
If a company was very keen to have them work here, they could put up the bond themselves.
I believe that this kind of scheme would immediately reduce immigration numbers and ensure that those who come here are actually needed.
May 10, 2025
Sir John
As we know this century the usual form from a corrupt Government and Parliament there are the promises to get elected, then the inactivity once there.
When was the first time a UK Politician promised action against criminals entering the Country?
When was the last time a UK citizen got a free pass for criminal activity?
It is not about migration but the two tier legal system and Parliaments attitude to criminal activity. Even in German entering with out papers is a criminal act and you are rejected and look at the size of their land border.
It is not just the Government of the day it is the whole of Parliament in neglect of their duty and purpose to keep us safe and secure
May 10, 2025
We should have learned by now that there is only one immigration policy, no matter what it gets called or apparently changed it still works out to more people coming in.
With the signing of the Indian trade deal we can expect to see a lot more Indians coming to work in the UK ….. at some advantage to themselves.
Can anyone really believe that we need to import so many extra workers into this country – Not on your nelly!
The government is clearly imposing conditions against British workers while at the same time they want to change the structure of our society to favour the religion of those that come in without a passport.
Never mind that that we are being deindustrialised and cheap imported labour is going to take whatever jobs are available, HMG is encouraging this to happen because they believe more in globalisation aims than they do about the true British people.
May 10, 2025
I disagree that always “Students should not be able to stay on after the end of the course” for the USA derives benefit from allowing those completing degrees to stay and work for an extra year.
Schemes are mainly Optional Practical Training (OPT) that allows a 12 month stay (or 24 months for STEM degrees but numbers are rationed) and employment must be related to the field of study. Those “uniquely qualified” can stay and work for up to six years (H-1B visa) and employers of OPT students can apply to convert visas to H-1B. Employers of H-1B visa students can apply for them to obtain a grant of employment-based permanent residency.
In light of the numbers of new arrivals at present, would we be so much harmed if we had schemes for student graduates able to gain employment like those in the USA?
Reply Yes there could be an extension for approved types of employment, but not to get any job
May 10, 2025
Reply to reply,
Completely agree. In my own field of electronics I would welcome a competent engineer regardless of where s/he comes from. All I would ask is the candidate has a willingness to integrate into this country.
What we shouldn’t have is large numbers coming to do low skill jobs, simply because the UK population can’t be bothered to do them or travel to where the jobs are.
May 10, 2025
Yesterday, I had to drive my bird to a hospital in East London after she had tripped on a cable run across a footpath to an electric car and landed on her head, damaging her eye. She had difficulty understanding a nurse who was probably from somewhere south of the Sahara and kept saying “Databurt”. After a while she realised that this tickbox was not about data but she wanted her date of birth.
Of course the NHS is the biggest immigration agent in the UK and if my bird had been unable to speak English she would have been given a translator.
On the way home I had to turn left at very slow traffic lights and was half way past a bus at a stop when it signalled right. I stopped to let it out and then a member of the Middle Eastern horn blowing tribe started up from a few inches from my rear bumper. It’s rare these days for me to drive anywhere in London without someone blowing their horn at me for driving in the British way. We are tight on the edge of London and will soon be evacuating.
May 10, 2025
London, like Birmingham and is lost. Soon the caliphate will stretch across the midlands cutting the north from the south.
I understand for one of its ‘Green’ MPs that Bristol is now a ‘sanctuary city’. Glasgow is in the brink of major violence.
I hope you and your bird like the country life. You need to choose a nest very carefully.
May 10, 2025
Stred
Afraid few sensible traffic laws are now followed in London or any other major City.
Far too many signs to read instead of the driver actually concentrating on what is actually happening on the road in front of them.
Far too many camera’s willing to record and eventually fine you for perhaps a simple error caused by someone else who ignore’s common-sense, road craft, or simple road courtesy.
Then we have ULEZ, the congestion charge, Controlled entry and parking, speed humps, chicanes, worn out lines on box junctions, timed bus lanes, constant speed limit changes, etc etc.
Driving now not a pleasant experience.
May 10, 2025
you don’t mention cyclists’ behaviour putting you at serious risk of unintended killing them.
May 10, 2025
From the impartial BBC
‘US agreement leaves the UK open to do a much more significant EU deal’ – going on to suggest 2TK and team will slide us back into the EU by suggesting the laws and rules handed down by the EU and with them (the EU) in control of our Country should always be the aim.
They don’t seem to like the idea of a UK in control of its self, its people and becoming a strong sovereign democracy. The World in their impartial view needs to be ruled baya World Order not the people. How far can the BBC and the rest of the media fall?
May 10, 2025
“How far can the BBC………………. fall”. ?
A lot further, just wait and see.
May 10, 2025
Ian, what on earth are you still watching/listening to the BBC for? There are better alternatives, if you want to find out what’s going on in the world.
May 10, 2025
@Ian B; In other words Labour Party policy has not changed since of June/July last year, as set out in their election manifesto.
Were you against the 1975 EEC Referendum, given Heath had won a clear majority in 1970 with a stated manifesto aim of joining the EEC; That Labour 1975 referendum, a 1974 manifesto pledge, took place a mere three years after the UK Parliament had approved the EEC Accession Treaty; it has been five years since we (effective) left the EU, eight years since the Brexit referendum.
No future government can be shackled to the polices of a previous government. If that was not true why then was our host advising the Thatcher govt. on privatization, someone should have been advising them on further nationalizations (!), what is more given how the Blair government signed us up to Lisbon Treaty etc, all off the back of massive election majorities, how come Cameron was able to legislate and hold a Brexit referendum. What’s democracy, do you know?
May 10, 2025
Jerry, you ask, what is democracy..do you know.
If we were allowed a referendum on whether to leave the EU or stay in the EU, then we should be allowed a second referendum before Labour use their large majority to overturn the decision of the voters in that referendum.
To me this would be a respectful decision and a positive bolster of democracy.
Whatever the result might be.
May 10, 2025
@MiB; How you love referendums it seems, assuming you think you’ll win of course…
Perhaps we should have held referendums on each of the Thatcher era budgets; before allowing cruise missiles; before selling off BT, the energy companies, heck even BL; Londoners should have been asked directly before the GLC was abolished; what about govt policy towards BSC and the NCB etc; why no boarder poll in NI. The list of such UK referendums, had your logic held sway in the 1980/90s, could have made Switzerland look like rank armatures in people powered democracy.
Unlike you it seems, yes I do understand what our democracy is, it is groups of people (constituencies) electing an MP, 650 of them to make up a parliament, out of which a government is formed, and then allowing all those representatives to argue, debate and decide our best course; the only thing worse than to many cooks in a kitchen, to many skippers on a ships bridge.
May 11, 2025
Your list is about genrrsl Government policies.
The decision about being, or not being in the EU, is an issue about who governs us and it is a unique constitutional issue which requires a referendum.
In my opinion.
If you might allow me to have one Jerry.
May 11, 2025
@MiB; A country either has a functioning parliamentary democracy or they have a non functioning rabble! Nor are referendums any more democratic, in 2016 more that 25% cast no opinion with regards our EU membership, would you really have wished to have compulsory voting, how might that have affected the outcome?
Yes the issue is how we should be governed, and just as with the question about our status within the EEC/EU (which changed fundamentally during Mrs Thatchers time in govt. by the way, but no referendums were ever called), there are many other fundamental issues that affect how our four nations are governed, mostly dealt with via policy, yet referendums are rare, the matters are decided by parliamentary votes.
Of course you have your opinion Martin, just a pity you (and Sam) object whenever I dare to offer an opinion, whatever.
May 10, 2025
UNHCR states that there are 8 million ‘asylum seekers’ awaiting the outcome of their applications. South Africa has withdrawn from the UNHCR scheme.
No asylum should be granted without proof of identity so that it can be assessed whether the individual has escaped ‘war’. Being granted asylum should NEVER lead to citizenship or leave to remain. It should be temporary and housing should be in hostels. When the ‘war’ in each country is over, all those nationalities should be returned.
Peter Hitchins observes that since VE Day ‘we have failed to remain British’. That is a virtual suicide. It may be too late to do anything about it, even if those incompetent fools in Government had the stomach. Those are the signals that Farage is giving too – he is considering bringing Began ‘home’ and putting her in ‘a high security prison’ so that he can then propose that the cost of £100k pa is too much so she should be ‘released’.
Incidentally, my genetically British family who stupidly remained in the ex Dominion of South Africa are paying a fortune and waiting 18 months before receiving their birthright citizenship in the face of a white genocide – there are less than 5 million whites now in the whole of Africa.
May 10, 2025
Interestingly the number of jobs in IT in the USA has fallen to effectively zero. From coders to systems analysis – nothing. AI has taken over.
Without energy what specialist jobs will remain unfilled in the U.K.?
May 10, 2025
The UK unemployment rate was 4.4%, and 1.57 million people aged 16+ were unemployed
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9366/
With 1.57 million people unemployed …why do we need immigration?
May 10, 2025
Foreign students shouldn’t been allowed to work nor receive any benefits ….if they haven’t enough funds to support their studies and living they shouldn’t be here !
May 10, 2025
The Conservatives got punished in the GE and recent local elections because of their refusal to do anything about immigration, legal and illegal, so they will have a tough time trying to convince voters they are serious about taking proper action to stop it.
Labour will suffer the same fate at the next GE because they want immigration, even from cultures and religious systems which oppose our values. So whatever they propose will be a joke and never followed through. We have a weak PM and a weak Home Secretary, who give in to any pressure. To steal someone else’s words, ” they both, like a cushion, bear the imprint of the last person who sat on them!” I am amazed at the way politicians take no notice of the voters who elect them, whether Labour or Conservative.
So it seems Reform is our only hope!
May 10, 2025
Just watched a film about Chongqing, the largest city in SE China which is a centre of the electronics industry with an incessant demand for new labour to work in its factories. The oddest thing about the place, there are many odd things about it, is the fact that all the people seemed to be Chinese. Also for people who are, we told, slaves of the CCP, they seemed quite cheerful in their servitude.
The city rises steeply from the confluence of two rivers but the transport infrastructure appears to cope well with massive flyovers running over each other and various forms of public transport operating. One fourteen story apartment block was built in a day using pre-fabricated modules and was then ready for occupation. The only low rise buildings were in the ancient parts of the city which dates back more than two thousand years.
May 10, 2025
“The government needs to do much more to stop illegals. … They should need to show their passport or other ID document.”
How does a legitimate, if illegal, refugee/asylum seeker show ID or a passport when they might well have been denied such a privileged document in their own country, or there is no legitimate extant government to issue such documents? Talk about dog whistles and soundbites!
May 10, 2025
They throw their documents into the English Channel quite deliberately Jerry.
May 10, 2025
But we know were they’ve came from, we track every boat …100% from france, we don’t need documents, just our wits, our eyesight and modern technology ….they’ve even escorted from france
May 10, 2025
They should be made to retrieve them.
May 10, 2025
Sam, have the decency to actually read what I said. Do you really not understand the difference between those legitimately fleeing persecution, were they are often denied the privilege of official documentation, and those seeking economic advantage?
May 11, 2025
The problem you are failing to realise Jerry is how therefore are you going to decide who is legitimate if they deliberately throw away their documents, passports, phones and then refuse to say who they are or where they are from.
May 11, 2025
@Sam; I am not failing to realize anything, that is what you and others are doing, in your haste to lump everyone into the same boat (pun intended), via legislation that is never thought through properly, simply responding to the dog whistles stage right.
Why do you think economic migrants started to pretend to be legitimately fleeing persecution, doing so by throwing away their documentation and mobile phones mid channel, lying about age, their country of origin et al, after many legal options used previously by economic migrants were closed. A moot point perhaps but, staying outside of the Schengen Area might have been one of the UKs biggest follies, yes the freedom to enter, but also the freedom to simply leave, without risk.
May 11, 2025
No actual answer to my question Jerry, just off at a tangent again.
Plus a little right wing slur as well.
May 11, 2025
@Sam; Except you asked me the same question I had asked our host, now you are in effect claiming I have not answered my own question! Whatever.
May 10, 2025
Probably raising the pay limit to £50,000 is not the best idea as the most needed types of migrants, junior academics and researchers and indeed junior doctors are not paid that much. It would be better to replace that and all immigration categories with just one overarching and capped (say at 20,000 a year now and perhaps 50,000 in a few years after the system has bedded down) category, a ‘public interest’ category by which it is only those people whose entry into Britain to work is of the most urgent public interest (such as sizable business investors in Britain or those taking up academic posts in Russell Group Universities or senior researchers or medical doctors) would be allowed to do so. Others such as curry chefs or care workers that could be done by native workers or are not that essential should not be allowed in to work.
May 10, 2025
We only need more doctors to tend the millions of people who should not be here. Why do the English feel obliged to pay foreign doctors to treat their own people on our chit?
I told a Dr relation that all the foreign Doctors should go. They were winding up to tell me just how stupid I was – the numbers …. Then I said all the foreign patients should also go. They thought of their ward and counted the foreigners. I got no response, just a weird repeat of my statement as the repercussions sank in.
I’m afraid Doctors in general are not very bright. They have specialist knowledge but you have to do their thinking for them.
May 10, 2025
If we don’t replace our Civil Service and Parliament they are going to replace us.
I am reminded of the Roald Dahl pig poem which ends:
“And so, because I feared the worst,
I thought I’d better eat him first”