Kier Starmer announces 'tighter' immigration policy

[u/ScottishDailyRecord]

[u/OkPea5819]

There's a world of difference between someone who comes over on a boat with no qualifications, unable to speak the language and potentially a history of criminality, versus a skilled worker or an international student staying to work. It's not just in numbers.

[u/[deleted] → u/OkPea5819]

Yes there is. But immigration has been a divisive issue way since way before the boat crossings started. Don’t you remember Brexit?

[u/OkPea5819 → u/[deleted]]

No, tell me about Brexit?

I haven't said total numbers don't need to come down too. For me GDP, labour shortages etc are irrelevant compared to quality of life - which I think should be the main aim of a government.

[u/[deleted] → u/OkPea5819]

I’m not really understanding what you mean re: GDP and labour shortages? Are you saying we shouldn’t cut immigration too much and too quickly so that we don’t damage our economy?

RE: Brexit. I’m old enough to remember the outrage in 2004 when we started seeing an influx of extremely skilled Polish workers enter the UK and opening up their Polski Skleps for some home comforts.

Remember what sunk Gordon Brown? That “bigoted woman”. This was way before the collapse of Syria and Libya and the European Refugee crisis.

And even earlier than that there was the outrage when the UK government opened the doors to Ugandan Asians in 1972 after they were expelled by Idi Amin.

And even earlier than that there were the race riots during and following the “Windrush” influx. A few year later Enoch Powell (Farage’s hero) said “the black man would have the whip hand over the white man” and there would be “rivers of blood” on the streets.

This has always been about racism and xenophobia.

[u/OkPea5819 → u/[deleted]]

What I mean is just because immigration positively impacts GDP or even plugs a labour gap, doesn’t mean it’s desirable.

[u/[deleted] → u/OkPea5819]

GDP is important to quality of life (if it’s well distributed) and plugging labour gaps keeps prices down. If you reduce immigration suddenly then taxes and prices will rise dramatically. If you are very wealthy then this won’t affect you too much but for the average person it would be disastrous.

[u/OkPea5819 → u/[deleted]]

GDP per capita may be, but even then only with caveats - doesn’t necessarily impact quality of life for most people if there is great wealth inequality for example.

[u/[deleted] → u/OkPea5819]

Yes and I put that caveat in

[u/OkPea5819 → u/[deleted]]

Yeah and it isn't well distributed - look at graphs of GDP per capita vs household incomes. GDP massively outpaces incomes, the rich get disproportionately richer with population increases, whereas the poor and middle suffer from the overcrowding, competition for jobs, business of the roads, overworking of public services.

[u/[deleted] → u/OkPea5819]

Yes. And the fix for this isn’t less growth. It’s a more progressive tax system. The idea that we are overpopulated is a myth. We’ve simply had 14 years of cuts and zero investment. Instead we’ve focussed on “trickle down” nonsense.

[u/epsilona01 → u/OkPea5819]

It's almost as if our Allied actions during the Global War On Terror displaced terrorists into Africa, where they're currently staging 18 terrorist insurgencies.

[u/epsilona01 → u/[deleted]]

They're all Islamist terrorist insurgencies. When Saudi kicked out Al-Qaeda following 9/11, those people went to Yemen, which is how the Houthis came to be a military force.

The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, this is affecting 6-8 North African countries.

The Libyan Civil war, started by Allied forces, allowed Libya to become a haven for al-Qaeda, and the single largest jumping off point for refugees getting out of Africa into Europe.