General British politics discussion thread

Effectively, yes. Political discourse is so warped here that only the James O'Briens and Ian Dunts are going to notice.

Of course, long time observers know that the sovereignty and border control narratives were always lies as most immigration was from outside the EU anyway. We Brexited in 2020 and still don't have border control. It says much that nobody is pointing this out.

Farage only ever mentioned the white Commonwealth nations in a positive light. I doubt he cares one whit about Indians struggling to move to the UK.

Immigration from the EU has decreased. Those workers are getting replaced by workers from Asia as a result. This was always going to the case even with the best of intentions which was of course not what Brexit was about. Either breed a workforce or import it. It's that simple.

That sounds about right. Most EU countries are quite wealthy. A lot of Asia is still quite poor so of course anyone who moves over will want to take their families.

Part of the reason I emigrated was to do my own thing. It's also possible to get to most of the EU in a few hours by air. India, Pakistan, the Philippines and so on are so far away that seeing family regularly becomes impossible, even with Zoom, etc...

The irony is that the people who spent so much time complaining about multiculturalism to the point where they did this to their country over it have reduced the flow of ethnically Christian migrants so workers need to be attracted over from non-Christian countries to make up the shortfall.

Always helps.

Freedom of movement was never presented as anything other than a burden to the British. Contributions of migrants, both cultural and economic were and are ignored. The education systems here in the UK and in Ireland don't place much importance on language-learning due to the hegemony enjoyed by English. Of course, plenty of people retire to places like Spain but not enough that freedom of movement is seen as a benefit.

Of course, many younger people were happy to live abroad and most went to Ireland IIRC.

Anyone coming from India aspiring to bring elderly parents over means problems for an overburdened health service.

Part of me is wondering if this is some sort of scorched earth policy designed to cripple the next government. The new "There's no money left" note, perhaps? Then again, you see people like Suella Braverman in government and maybe it is Occam's razer: they're just that venal and incompetent.

There are a good few world-leading Universities here. More importantly, they're directly responsible for new sectors in which Britain is a leader such as Biotechnology. That sector would be significantly bigger if it weren't for Britain's anti-growth politics. Crippling them like this will make the country appear more of a banana monarchy than it is now.