2 minutes ago, Rooney said:

The while I do agree with your point about the there is a bit of denial and delusion in here, I also think you are complicating what is a simple issue.

Quite simply immigrants or non-native speaking English people is an easy solution to a complex problem. The whole issue is set up as a culture war to draw a line and make people pick a side. If you go back 20 years, whenever new countries joined the EU it was "oh we will be flooded with Polish people" etc. etc. - now it is born in to immigration. I could name you tens of examples of where taxes are wasted, the reality is people want their cake and to eat it and all that happens is you enable to Party that people have no idea what they are really voting for just like Brexit.

Because ultimately it’s an issue of numbers more than anything and that problem was never addressed. The problem with EU migration was that a lot of countries were a lot poorer than the UK. So they worked the same jobs here for a lot less than people were being paid.

You can’t import people who work for less drive down wages or drive people out of work altogether then create an unsustainable welfare system and blame people on that system. Tons had good paying jobs and they were decimated. There are consequences to bad policies. Nobody is a bigger enabler to Farage than the people who drone on about fascism and they never ever have accountability over the issues or problems being faced.

Their solutions are to say the problems don’t exist and if you say they exist you’re a negative label of some sort. They have no desire to acknowledge any problems so of course they have no solutions. They just oppose people who are acknowledging those issues and delude themselves into thinking that’s anti-racism. Totally clueless.

33 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

Because ultimately it’s an issue of numbers more than anything and that problem was never addressed. The problem with EU migration was that a lot of countries were a lot poorer than the UK. So they worked the same jobs here for a lot less than people were being paid.

You can’t import people who work for less drive down wages or drive people out of work altogether then create an unsustainable welfare system and blame people on that system. Tons had good paying jobs and they were decimated. There are consequences to bad policies. Nobody is a bigger enabler to Farage than the people who drone on about fascism and they never ever have accountability over the issues or problems being faced.

Their solutions are to say the problems don’t exist and if you say they exist you’re a negative label of some sort. They have no desire to acknowledge any problems so of course they have no solutions. They just oppose people who are acknowledging those issues and delude themselves into thinking that’s anti-racism. Totally clueless.

Your solutions to the issues though are just not feasable though. Ignoring a massive problem which everyone forgets about, which is the world moves on and companies have to adapt. Just like AI now, which companies are throwing themselves over. Some parts of it are rubbish, but ultinately if you don't innovate and follow the Market you get left behind.

What do you want next, Amazon and online shopping to stop so everyone is forced to return to the high street!?? Like I say, people want their cake and eat it.

The only thing propping up the labour market in the UK is immigration, the birth rate fell to 1.44 last year (lowest on record, since 1938) and it's likely to continue to fall. There are schools in the local area that are having to close because of rapidly falling pupil numbers. Therefore, we have to face the reality that the population of the UK is rapidly aging, a serious issue that Japan has been battling with since 1990 and has yet to resolve (despite finally relaxing its attitude to allow immigration). There is a structual ageing of our population, with all its associated problems, effectively baked in for at least the next century.

The protests against immigration are generally of the order of around 100 or so - they do not in any way represent the opinion of the wider public, and are massively dwarfed by the protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. However, the billionaire backed press, and recently regrettably the BBC, have decided it is in their interest to amplify the voices of wives of Conservative councillors who spend their spare time calling for the public to burn down hotels full of refugees.

This country has always had a mostly positive history with welcoming immigrants, from Jewish immigrants in the 1930s, the post-war rebuilding from the Commonwealth in the 50s and 60s and even recently the Ukranian women and children in 2022. An Estonian women in the town here built a business from scratch that has generated significant improvement to the area and brings in people from all around the local area - I think there are generally more positive cases that are, in general, largely overlooked.

On the OP question, I personally think that Reform have a very small chance of forming a government at the next GE, the polling has always overestimated their share of the vote and when it comes to a national election I think people are minded to retreat to the safety of what they know and trust, especially against unknowns that could be as damaging and potentially destructive as having Farage as PM. Our FPTP system actually works against any ascendant new party, so whilst they could conceivably rack up north of 20% that may only translate into 50 or 60 seats as long as there is collaboration with the more progressive voices and my god Starmer is going to make that incredibly difficult..

Finally - wrt benefits. A significant number of those receiving benefits are in work. Where you have a point is housing benefit, a huge sum of money handed over from us to wealthy landlords which is a huge waste and should be reduced with more council housing built and reduced rents offered instead of forcing everyone into an already saturated rental market.

2 hours ago, uhsting said:

embarrassing seeing these immigrant views coming as an immigrant myself 🤦

I have to agree, especially sitting as a higher rate taxpayer.

Hate to break it t you guys, but there are hundreds and thousands of white British boys becoming men every day who might do 'god knows what' to women and who aren't going to be high tax contributors. Meanwhile you tar all immigrants with the same brush and turn a blind eye to that. You don't realise it, but you're being encouraged to become racist. To put people in categories in your mind. The deserving and the undeserving. There are people on this very site you'll consider deserving who to all intents and purposes fall into all the categories that you purport to think are not worth it, or should be deported.

It's a bit freaky out there these days for sure. My grandmother was an ESL speaker. She was also an NHS nurse. She is the first in a line of NHS nurses in our family and teachers too. All because she immigrated to the UK. Starts to feel like that counts for nothing these days & instead puts me & mine's head on the chopping block despite our contribution.

1 hour ago, Rooney said:

Your solutions to the issues though are just not feasable though. Ignoring a massive problem which everyone forgets about, which is the world moves on and companies have to adapt. Just like AI now, which companies are throwing themselves over. Some parts of it are rubbish, but ultinately if you don't innovate and follow the Market you get left behind.

What do you want next, Amazon and online shopping to stop so everyone is forced to return to the high street!?? Like I say, people want their cake and eat it.

Just separate issues really. You can’t really throw those issues with this one.

But if we take what you’re saying it kind of only adds to the initial point. There are less and less jobs for various reasons so what would be the need for 800k people per year? This seems obvious. Ideologues are just positioning themselves into a completely ridiculous position to the point where they’re insulting people not wanting random unknown men hanging around their children. Truly lost the plot

15 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

Just separate issues really. You can’t really throw those issues with this one.

But if we take what you’re saying it kind of only adds to the initial point. There are less and less jobs for various reasons so what would be the need for 800k people per year? This seems obvious. Ideologues are just positioning themselves into a completely ridiculous position to the point where they’re insulting people not wanting random unknown men hanging around their children. Truly lost the plot

"There are less and less jobs". Honestly Liam I can see your view point on issues sometimes, but I'm sure if you actually looked at the unemployment and job vacancies statistics you'd see a complete different picture.

Doctor Blind put it far more eloquently, a lot of the problems we have currently are generational, there are no quick fixes to them. We have a large part of the country who are economically useless (retirees). It's why it will be far harder for people our age to retire, and lots of people are not going to be able to retire, as they won't be able to afford to. A large part of our problem is a lot of jobs require specialism in fields we do not have, we lack skills in engineering, maths, science - there are moves made to increase this of course, but it takes time, so how do you fill the gaps in the meantime.. you need immgiration of course. I'm not sure what your point is around random immigrants hanging around children is? I don't think anyone wants that. But the last time I checked, most immigrants don't do this. Then all you do is create a culture war where people so "oh look white people do it too". Fact of the matter is nobody wants this.

5 hours ago, J00prstar said:

I have to agree, especially sitting as a higher rate taxpayer.

Hate to break it t you guys, but there are hundreds and thousands of white British boys becoming men every day who might do 'god knows what' to women and who aren't going to be high tax contributors. Meanwhile you tar all immigrants with the same brush and turn a blind eye to that. You don't realise it, but you're being encouraged to become racist. To put people in categories in your mind. The deserving and the undeserving. There are people on this very site you'll consider deserving who to all intents and purposes fall into all the categories that you purport to think are not worth it, or should be deported.

It's a bit freaky out there these days for sure. My grandmother was an ESL speaker. She was also an NHS nurse. She is the first in a line of NHS nurses in our family and teachers too. All because she immigrated to the UK. Starts to feel like that counts for nothing these days & instead puts me & mine's head on the chopping block despite our contribution

Bit of a generic word salad mixed with pathos to be honest with you.

Removing the disingenuous framing of immigrants. The specific boat arrivals do not really fall under that bracket. These are often unidentifiable. So you cannot know their history. You don’t know who they are. This is clearly unsafe. To anyone sensible at least.

You not only do not acknowledge that reality but you’ve kind of justified anything that happens in your mind with ‘crime exists’ so if inevitably horrific crimes do not place well crime exists elsewhere too so what can you do. By that logic you can justify anything.

It’s literally as morally bankrupt as you get. Other people should be at risk because you cannot get your head around something obvious?

So the whole world is deserving of British public services? That’s your view? No undeserving or deserving? Let’s change it from NHS to WHS since it’s a world health service apparently.

There are millions of immigrants in the UK with various views and likewise every race has different views too so you know you cannot co-opt a term like immigrants and think it’s represented by yourself. I can promise you millions of immigrants in the UK have pretty varied views.

7 hours ago, Doctor Blind said:

The only thing propping up the labour market in the UK is immigration, the birth rate fell to 1.44 last year (lowest on record, since 1938) and it's likely to continue to fall. There are schools in the local area that are having to close because of rapidly falling pupil numbers. Therefore, we have to face the reality that the population of the UK is rapidly aging, a serious issue that Japan has been battling with since 1990 and has yet to resolve (despite finally relaxing its attitude to allow immigration). There is a structual ageing of our population, with all its associated problems, effectively baked in for at least the next century.

The protests against immigration are generally of the order of around 100 or so - they do not in any way represent the opinion of the wider public, and are massively dwarfed by the protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. However, the billionaire backed press, and recently regrettably the BBC, have decided it is in their interest to amplify the voices of wives of Conservative councillors who spend their spare time calling for the public to burn down hotels full of refugees.

Were people not told having too many kids isn’t good? Bad for the planet? And now we need immigration to solve a ‘crisis’ of what 74 million people by 2034? Besides most of the issues have nothing much to do with that.

To say not backed by wider public opinion is pretty interesting. Can’t think of an issue more one sided in public opinion. I think I saw 27 councils including various Labour councils considering legal action to remove such hotels so it’s clearly a widespread sentiment.

6 hours ago, Rooney said:

"There are less and less jobs". Honestly Liam I can see your view point on issues sometimes, but I'm sure if you actually looked at the unemployment and job vacancies statistics you'd see a complete different picture.

Doctor Blind put it far more eloquently, a lot of the problems we have currently are generational, there are no quick fixes to them. We have a large part of the country who are economically useless (retirees). It's why it will be far harder for people our age to retire, and lots of people are not going to be able to retire, as they won't be able to afford to. A large part of our problem is a lot of jobs require specialism in fields we do not have, we lack skills in engineering, maths, science - there are moves made to increase this of course, but it takes time, so how do you fill the gaps in the meantime.. you need immgiration of course. I'm not sure what your point is around random immigrants hanging around children is? I don't think anyone wants that. But the last time I checked, most immigrants don't do this. Then all you do is create a culture war where people so "oh look white people do it too". Fact of the matter is nobody wants this.

I mean all you see is people saying they applied for 2 thousand jobs or people saying they can get a decent job along with layoffs all over the place and automation becoming more commonplace so the direction is going to be the biggest welfare bill of all-time if you cannot control numbers.

If a country is run properly it can have healthy levels of immigration. This false dichotomy people have with immigration where you either support a nation states destruction or be seen as anti-immigrant is absurd. It is a whole industry now. A restaurant will apply for a visa for three cleaners and a chef from somewhere who can each bring 2-3 dependents and then they just say they’re Christian or gay and they can stay forever. It’s a very heavily exploited system. There is no desire by people to fix it or question it because essentially they’re open borders at heart and think opposing any immigration is prejudice so instead of accountability for their worldview causing havoc they insult those affected.

That’s literally the whole point. It is happening. Should we pretend it’s not because the denial brigade will bring up Jimmy Saville or something? You cannot just endlessly do things against voters wishes with horrific repercussions. Hence why yourself went from saying reform will implode to now acting like them winning will be inevitable. I’m not completely sold on it but if the collective head in the sand is the response to the average voters biggest concern how will they not win?

Can they? Yes. Will they? No. It's been over a hundred years since the last non-Labour or Tory government (don't count coalitions) so don't think that's gonna change now.

3 hours ago, Liam Sota said:

Bit of a generic word salad mixed with pathos to be honest with you.

Removing the disingenuous framing of immigrants. The specific boat arrivals do not really fall under that bracket. These are often unidentifiable. So you cannot know their history. You don’t know who they are. This is clearly unsafe. To anyone sensible at least.

You not only do not acknowledge that reality but you’ve kind of justified anything that happens in your mind with ‘crime exists’ so if inevitably horrific crimes do not place well crime exists elsewhere too so what can you do. By that logic you can justify anything.

It’s literally as morally bankrupt as you get. Other people should be at risk because you cannot get your head around something obvious?

So the whole world is deserving of British public services? That’s your view? No undeserving or deserving? Let’s change it from NHS to WHS since it’s a world health service apparently.

There are millions of immigrants in the UK with various views and likewise every race has different views too so you know you cannot co-opt a term like immigrants and think it’s represented by yourself. I can promise you millions of immigrants in the UK have pretty varied views.

Are you completely allergic to being polite or what?

I'm really holding myself back right now but you've gone right down in my estimation after making this post. Slagging my personal history. Acting like I'm stupid. Acting like I'm making things up, for what was a friendly warning to you and people like you to not let yourselves turn into basically monsters.

'You cannot know their history'. Yet that means you're going to assume the absolute worst based on nothing, based on prejudice because they're brown and don't speak English with fluency, that's enough to COMPLETELY damn them and throw in the bin any prospect that people have potential to change of grow or become something other than what they are at 20 or 30.

That was thr thrust of my post. Granny wasn't a nurse when she came, and she didn't have great English. She CHOSE to change those things, and she inspired her whole family to do the same, and as a result, the British state and British people benefited.

Would love to hear what your contribution is.

On 24/08/2025 at 22:18, Chez Wombat said:

I think the only hope we have is that some f***-up in the next four years of their own making destroys their name, it's definitely possible given they are a completely incompetent party politically and have no concrete plans outside of rage-baiting and keeping the media and far right on their side. I also think the Tories could clear themselves up if they got a more competent leader that can better put them as an alternative, Badenoch is completely holding them back. The locals will do wonders for them though and if the election were held today, they'd probably win big. It also will depend on what happens in the US election, a Democrat government I think would be less good for them with international relations.

It's really quite concerning with flags lining the streets and blatant misinformation and rhetoric being twisted in ways to paint migrants as the sole issue hampering our country and threatening our national identity (legally we have to house migrants while they claim asylum, anything else would be a violation of human rights, but that involves reading comprehension beyond the headlines). I think we're heading in a bad direction.

You wanna live in N.Ireland mate, flags up on every lamp post in some towns

2 hours ago, J00prstar said:

Are you completely allergic to being polite or what?

I'm really holding myself back right now but you've gone right down in my estimation after making this post. Slagging my personal history. Acting like I'm stupid. Acting like I'm making things up, for what was a friendly warning to you and people like you to not let yourselves turn into basically monsters.

'You cannot know their history'. Yet that means you're going to assume the absolute worst based on nothing, based on prejudice because they're brown and don't speak English with fluency, that's enough to COMPLETELY damn them and throw in the bin any prospect that people have potential to change of grow or become something other than what they are at 20 or 30.

That was thr thrust of my post. Granny wasn't a nurse when she came, and she didn't have great English. She CHOSE to change those things, and she inspired her whole family to do the same, and as a result, the British state and British people benefited.

Would love to hear what your contribution is.

Maybe I don’t read my posts back to see how it appears but I’m quite laid back just opinionated I don’t actually have any anger ever really in posts but the odd thing is irksome. People who are too deep in bubbles really have to understand that talking to people with subtle accusations and loaded statements isn’t being friendly. It’s quite insulting. And you’ve done this multiple times btw. You’ll say the most vicious hateful things then act like an empath. I remember when I showed the journalist who spoke to them people in that town where they went from Labour to reform and your comments were pretty unkind to say the least. I’m not swayed by emotional blackmail not least when the overall sentiment is to justify abhorrently dangerous positions while essentially calling victims of these positions benefit scrounging knuckle heads.

I was discussing the actual issue you made it emotive and personal and you seem annoyed I’m not manipulated by it. I get it’s very hive mind here and people come from a narrative where they’re used to having complete double standards where they can be wildly hateful towards certain people then be nose-deep in victimhood while somehow thinking that’s empathetic and kind but I’ve seen a lot of pretty ugly things and I know the actual consequences and the actual effects of certain crimes. It’s definitely been minimised by some here for sure.

You say I said you’re making things up(made that up)

While saying I’ve decided to judge people because they’re brown(completely wild accusation)

And this is the only way for me you can be comfortable discussing such an issue. To emotively place opposition views as motivated by prejudice while placing yourself as some cool calm caring person looking out for people.

The reality is you your worldview on this issue actively endangers people’s lives and because you can’t grasp an issue in a certain way and you’d rather insult and make pretty unfounded accusations at those who point it out while thinking this is an acceptable and nice thing to do? How is that friendly? Maybe you genuinely meant it in a friendly way but it seemed a little loaded to me

We literally have customs and rules over identity for a reason. Safety is a large reason. This is basic level obvious stuff right, surely? Your policy is let’s just hope people aren’t good? In what other setting would anyone think like that? Shall we have no checks for schools? No background checks anyone can be teacher or anyone can adopt? What world are you living in where this makes one iota of sense? You want other people to risk their children’s safety for the most ridiculous of stances and it’s just never going to happen and not only that when it inevitably goes bad you’ve positioned yourself where you’ll never change that view. So you can have all logic fact and evidence against it and still be stubborn and faux morally superior. Like I said before this isn’t a game this is real life. People have families and some people here have to be less selfish because your bizarre way of looking at things will never come before that.

I don’t really know what the rest is going on about do you really believe people don’t know immigrants or aren’t descendants of immigrants themselves to an extent? Do you really think immigrants all support unvetted boats? Where even do you guys live? I’m in Camden London one school I went to QK( Quintin Kynaston)was like 30% Muslim I’d spend a lot of time just learning the religion to essentially debate it with them because I couldn’t believe some things they believed. One Egyptian guy gave me a gold plated Quran as a gift and was like one day you’ll see the light. One of my friends brothers who was also at the school literally joined ISIS. To this day a Somali guy I grew up with iMessages videos with his dog as I cured his phobia of dogs. Yet you talk like I’m a 72 yr old bald fry up merchant who lives in the Isle of dogs or something. People are able to be immigrants make it their home and treat it like their home and most people do not want their home to be a free for all. This outdated notion that all immigrants are on one side and bald headed racists are on another is very out of touch and I can’t help but think people don’t really live among a lot of different people or escape their bubbles often not to get that by now. Hence why it’s hard to really entertain things where evidence and logic is overlooked in favour of weaponised buzzwords and think that’s really going to do anything? You need a substantial credible argument on the issue and yours seems to be the erosion of a nation state where border controls and background checks don’t exist and I don’t think that’s sensible or realistic

4 minutes ago, Liam Sota said:

The reality is you your worldview on this issue actively endangers people’s lives and because you can’t grasp an issue in a certain way and you’d rather insult and make pretty unfounded accusations at those who point it out while thinking this is an acceptable and nice thing to do? How is that friendly? Maybe you genuinely meant it in a friendly way but it seemed a little loaded to me

What is my worldview on this issue and in what way does it actively endanger people's lives?

I can go through the rest with you after we get that sorted.

As for not making it an emotional or emotive issue, I think that really is the meat of the whole thing. That you don't seem to understand that it IS an emotive issue when negative emotion that is then going to be, or is encouraged to be, directed against ALL immigrants or descendants of immigrants, is being stirred up by people who are white English. What may be a hypothetical for a white English person to talk about and maybe even get angry over and start hurling assumptions and accusations around, all as hypotheticals, can actually lead to REAL negative sentiment catching on with people like the rioters who then go on to ACTUALLY physically target anyone that vaguely fits that description in their mind, whether its because of the way they speak English or the way that they look.

Idk. I think the thing that gets me is that out of everyone on the forum I'm actually NOT particularly far left or have certain views that a lot of other people have. And I do believe in being wary around new people. What I can't get on board with though is logic like '5000 people came in on boats and 50 of them committed a crime since they came. That means that the other 4950 are just as guilty and they should all be treated the same'.

Oh dear, it seems Liam is presenting himself to us and it isn’t particularly pretty.

Where I can see some logic in what he’s saying (very warped and way too generalised logic) it’s clear that there is a bias there that he refutes.

It seems so easy for people to forget that the supposed dangers posed by immigrants are actually existing in the people who were born and bred in Britain.

The only pedophile I’ve ever known personally (and was friends with before I knew what he was) was a white British person. He didn’t present as some weirdo hanging around children. He was hiding in plain sight. He attended every social occasion and always had a girlfriend who was an adult. That is why when the truth was revealed, myself and my friends had one of the worst years of our lives.

Another white British person I’d been friends with in school is now into the second year of his prison sentence for rape. He was everyone’s friend, very popular in my village.

The point is that none of this has made me overly suspicious of white British people despite the only pedos and rapists I’ve known fit that box.

You can’t say ‘we don’t know who they are, they could be criminals, we won’t grant them asylum’ purely based on the actions of a few. If you then don’t do that for the people who live here already, I’m afraid that there is a nasty bias there.

Oh, and safeguarding checks are only any good if someone already has a criminal record. How do you think teachers and police who abuse their positions get there in the first place. If a criminal hasn’t been caught yet, there’s no way for any of these establishments to know what they are.

Edited 7 hours ago7 hr by T Boy

54% say justified

34% say unjustified

ya think? Look at the fucking headlines today (Farage planning to deport 600,000 migrants etc), manufactured consent is going wild out there.

Anyway, Reform have gotten the tacit approval of the Taliban to organise a returns process https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-uk-nigel-farage-taliban-migrants-small-boats-b2814040.html, so good to know their strategies to fix their pet immigration issue are going to be watertight and effective.

2 hours ago, Liam Sota said:

54% say justified

34% say unjustified

Just not going to reply to my last post then?

16 minutes ago, J00prstar said:

Just not going to reply to my last post then?

I just don’t think it’s a subject that can really be fruitful for the way you view issues. I’m a reality over narrative person. You can’t browbeat or guilt trip me into anything you need to show it’s factually wrong or logically wrong or doesn’t make sense.

I can’t really think of many other examples but if I remember the Huw Edwards case it was a very classic case of an obvious groomer and almost certain pdf and I think your take was to get stuck on the homophobia narrative which led to bad judgement on the individual and who he actually was. You simply cannot make mistakes when it comes to the safety of kids for narrative reasons. We literally had or still have one of the biggest scandals in British history due to exactly that happening. This boat stuff is 1/3rd of all asylum seekers most apply properly and are somewhat vetted. Unvetted is unacceptable as too dangerous since we don’t know who they are. Your position is it’s prejudicial to judge unvetted people before they do anything and it’s just dangerous and out of touch for me.

In all fairness on Huw Edwards, people only criticised posters calling him a pedophile before any charges were officially brought against him. In fact, only when the police had said they were not investigating him further. Not one person defended him following the announcement that charges were brought.

But there you have yet another example of someone born and bred in Britain who turned out to be dodgy. He didn’t come here on a boat, he has white skin. You’re preaching safety but the truth is there is no way of knowing if anyone is safe. Being born on these isles doesn’t mean someone cannot commit these crimes.

You’re not wrong that people need to be vetted but that’s on the government and public services to sort out. Just deporting anyone because of the colour of their skin and the fact they might not speak perfect English is racism. Deciding that they all could be criminals because of no evidence whatsoever other than they don’t look or sound like you is unfair.

It does seem like you won’t see sense on this. Your superiority complex is shining through.