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UK around Brexit time thought kind of similar: let's keep the "riffraff" immigrants out by applying higher criteria. The narrative also changed this way: we don

UK around Brexit time thought kind of similar: let's keep the "riffraff" immigrants out by applying higher criteria. The narrative also changed this way: we don't want immigrants in general, but you, with your highly paid PhD-requiring job, you can go in, on a 2 year rolling basis. Then everyone's a winner, except for unwanted, unskilled labour. But a lot of skilled labour left anyway. Partly because the general atmosphere got unpleasant. But also highly paid people have spouses, children, parents and other relatives. Once you are told you barely cleared (very high) criteria, you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you. So the effect may well be that the kind of people whose productivity and tax bracket makes a 100k fee justifiable simply choose to go elsewhere. Especially when the administration makes their contempt for any rights they have so obvious.

gdulli 1y ago
It should be the most obvious thing in the world that whether you take a fundamentally welcoming and positive mindset towards people vs. a negative and unwelcoming mindset, the effects of either will propagate and magnify themselves over time. But when you're insecure the feelings you get from the latter are more comforting in the short term.
- ajross 1y ago
  The principle is better stated as "don't be an asshole". HN's insistence on decorum is just really poorly suited to the moment.
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    I can assure you the decorum isn’t exactly being maintained and downvotes don’t exactly do much when there’s a consensus that a certain thing is okay to do.
- s5300 1y ago
  [dead]
someperson 1y ago
> you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you The immigration system should be designed to block retired parents from moving country to live with their working age adult children who have migrated. One reason to have immigration is to improve a country's dependency ratio: the ratio of working age population to children and retirees. The ideal immigrants are young well-educated parents that can stay in the workforce for 40+ years with healthy children that are just about to enter the school system. That way the receiving country didn't need to invest in educating the parents originally, don't need to pay the healthcare costs of very young infants, and it provides the best possible addition to the the receiving country's demographic structure so the host country benefits from a whole working life of tax payments and all the value created by their work output. The economic case for even skilled immigration is far less compelling for a receiving nation without such restrictions on immigrating retirees.
- dotnet00 1y ago
  Your ideal immigrants are young parents with healthy children, who are apparently willing to abandon their own parents? And somehow this is a good thing?
  - someperson 1y ago
    Abandon is the wrong word. Should the country receiving the immigrants let elderly grandparents be cared for by their own country's pension and aged-care and healthcare industry, instead of burdening the receiving countries? Absolutely unequivocally yes. The grandparents can always come visit on tourist visas and the immigrants can visit their original country too.
    - alwa 1y ago
      What if, as a condition of the visa [0], the sponsoring high-performing immigrant guarantees that the relative won’t become a public charge, and becomes legally bound to reimburse the public purse if that happens? I seem to recall the notion that elderly people are normally isolated, atomized wards of the “aged-care industry” as a relatively recent innovation, no? Versus people seeking to bring elderly relatives to reproduce the sort of multigenerational households that more traditionally handled aging care, and that do that today in other parts of the world? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_charge_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_charge_rule
JetSetWilly 1y ago
[flagged]
- ellen364 1y ago
  "Approximately 1 million a year net" is completely true. In 2023 the UK's net migration was 906,000. But for context I'll add that it was a historic high and in 2024 net migration fell to 431,000. The Migration Observatory at Oxford publishes excellent summaries about migration trends, e.g. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...
- seadan83 1y ago
  According to wikipedia for causes of vote in favor of brexit, one third said immigration.
softwaredoug 1y ago
Polling in the US has swung in favor of immigration: > a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country. It’s hard to separate what’s supported by the public and what are random hobby horses of the far right once they get in power. Because the US has historically been relatively more positive to immigration I am skeptical that we would see the same reaction as in the UK or other countries in the long run (in the short term, it’s all a sht show) https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio...
- timr 1y ago
  > Polling in the US has swung in favor of immigration Don't forget to quote the parts that contradict your statement: > After climbing to 55% in 2024, the percentage of Americans who say immigration should be reduced has dropped by nearly half to 30%. Sentiment is thus back to the level measured in 2021, before the desire for less immigration started to mount. Meanwhile, 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased. Overall, this poll paints a picture of moderation from a period of anti-immigrant sentiment, not of a population that has "swung in favor of immigration", as you assert. (It also has nothing to do with H1B visas specifically. As far as I can tell, it's almost entirely about illegal immigration.)
  - YZF 1y ago
    With polls the questions you ask matter a lot. I don't read this poll as being about illegal immigration but someone else might (e.g. you did). That is worth splitting out as a separate question. But asking that risks getting answers you don't like, e.g. my bet would be most Americans would not support the idea that anyone can just come and stay in the US illegally without going through any process, i.e. an open border policy. My bet would also be that most Americans would support immigration of highly skilled labor or certain other professions given the right processes in place and demand for those. There are probably other ways to slice and dice this question to get a deeper understanding of how people think about this. It would also be nice if the poll probed as to the reasons for why people hold certain opinions. My guess would be the numbers are changing partly due to political backlash and not due to some economical or social insight. The good thing about this poll is that the same questions are asked over time. So likely the trends are real. It's just hard to get a more nuanced understanding.
bambax 1y ago
This is probably a good thing for nations providing the bulk of high skilled labor, namely India and China. Their best and brightest will tend to leave less. Much has been said about Trump, but his main quality is this: he's a foot-gun artist.
- jondwillis 1y ago
  And I think it is significant to note that the foot-guns are intentionally foot-guns. Plausible, yet subtly and catastrophically bad solutions to real and imagined problems. Downward spirals for everyone! ...to create favorable conditions for further exploitation.
- Scoundreller 1y ago
  The H1-B country of origin numbers are a bit cooked because they track by country of birth, not country of application or citizenship Could only find 2019 data: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b...
ezst 1y ago
This, so much. Not the UK, but another western-European country that has slowly succumbed to right-wing rhetoric and fear-mongering. There, legal immigration has continuously been a boon to the economy, but each politician having had to "one-up" the previous one in terms of "tightening immigration" and "looking tough" has only made legal immigration increasingly miserable, and put off skilled/high-earning global workers whose presence was desired. Of course, nothing has changed for the illegal ones: they haven't (and won't) see the increased burden of legal migration of which they are oblivious. Overall things are only getting worse, and I hate that there's no attempt to having a honest and transparent debate and discourse on the matter.
llm_nerd 1y ago
> But a lot of skilled labour left anyway The UK has had a "brain drain", but it's as much UK citizens as migrants. Economic migrants migrate. > But also highly paid people have spouses, children, parents and other relatives. Once you are told you barely cleared (very high) criteria, you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you. Skilled immigration is sold in almost all of the West as a necessary demographic cure. The classic "we're getting older and there is a labour shortage of working age people". The retired parents were never a part of the deal, and are of no interest to almost any Western country. Obvious given that it completely annihilates the justification for bringing people in in the first place. So if these skilled workers aren't moving to the UK because they can't bring their retired parents, then presumably they aren't also choosing the US, Canada, Germany, etc., given the same situation. Canada does have a family reunification program but it is not only spectacularly unpopular among the Canadian public and likely to fade away, it allows for a tiny number per year.
- dfadsadsf 1y ago
  US allows unlimited chain migration for parents with short waiting period. Everyone brings their parents/siblings and put them on Medicaid/Obamacare, Section 8, etc right away. Technically sponsor is supposed to cover those benefits (and signs paper about that) but practically gov never tried to recover benefits (literally never).
- tpm 1y ago
  > The retired parents were never a part of the deal, They are, certainly at least in Germany there are special provisions for that.
JuniperMesos 1y ago
> But a lot of skilled labour left anyway. Partly because the general atmosphere got unpleasant. But also highly paid people have spouses, children, parents and other relatives. Once you are told you barely cleared (very high) criteria, you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you. Chain migration is an anti-immigration argument in the US - even if some particular immigrant is highly-skilled and would benefit the US from being a legal resident, that immigrant's family is probably not as impressive. Nonetheless, once the government gives legal residency to the highly-skilled immigrant, they will be highly motivated to try to get the rest of their family to the US as well. So the US should be careful about granting legal residency even to prospective immigrants whose credentials make them individually look good.
arrowsmith 1y ago
There are not "high criteria" to immigrate to the UK post-Brexit. The minimum salary threshold is £26k, barely higher than minimum wage. The list of eligible occupations is a joke and includes such desperately understaffed occupations as "homeopaths" and "reiki healers". The skilled worker visa only requires B1 English, at which level you'll struggle to communicate in many professional settings. Net immigration (legal and illegal) exploded after Brexit and is still higher today than it was in 2016 when we had the vote. You have no idea what you're talking about.
- maest 1y ago
  > The minimum salary threshold is £26k You are wrong. For the Skilled Worker route, the minimum salary threshold is 41k per year, with some special jobs at 33.4k. > "homeopaths" and "reiki healers" You are wrong. There are SOC codes for things like "Therapy professionals". They give examples like acupuncturists, art/drama/music therapists, chiropractors/osteopaths, nutritionists, sports therapists/massage therapists. No "reiki healers", though. > The skilled worker visa only requires B1 English You are technically right, but are ignoring the larger context. Jobs open for Skilled Worker migrants have to be RQF 6+, which usually means the worker has to perform at the level of a university graduate. So, while the language requirement is B1, the skill requirement is non-trivial. > You have no idea what you're talking about. Ironic.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    Reiki healers and homeopaths are listed under code 3214, "Complementary health associate professionals". https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations-and-codes https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi... And I only picked those two because they were particularly egregious. The list is full of jobs for which it's absurd to suggest we need to fill from abroad: are we really suffering for a lack of recruitment consultants? Human resources officers? Can no-one can find a homegrown Brit who's able to work as a restaurant manager? As for the salary threshold, you're right: the basic threshold is £41k, although it can be as low as £25k (not £33.4k) in some circumstances: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupation-codes https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi... I'd argue that £41k is still too low. It's barely above the median UK salary - we can't find anyone in the top ~50% of people who can do these jobs? And it doesn't even make you a net contributor (from what I can tell that threshold is around £50-55k, although for many of these "skilled" workers it's much higher as they bring dependents.) Nevertheless I'll accept a partial L. Regarding English, maybe I'm wrong about the precise requirements, but I've worked with software professionals in London, here on a skilled worker visa, with whom I was barely able to communicate, so clearly we're doing something wrong. In any case, my thesis still stands: there have not been "very high" criteria to migrate to the UK recently, in fact quite the opposite, and if you don't believe this then I suggest you go outside and look around.
TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
Immigration exploded after Brexit. While the official line was "Let's keep the riffraff out". the reality was that the Tories used Brexit to bring in plenty of cheap labour from specific countries, and the income requirements are applied very selectively. Foreign students were also encouraged to study here and remain after studying. Initially even family reunion immigration was encouraged, although that's changed now. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/5579/live/8ea3acd0-df25-11ef-a819-277e390a7a08.png.webp https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/5579/live/8ea3a... The UK has been playing this game for centuries - bringing in cheap foreign labour on the quiet, then using that as political leverage with "We will protect you from the foreign invasion" messaging.
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  And yet, insanely, the Tories still get called "anti-immigration". They were the most pro-immigration government in British history, by far.
  - jl6 1y ago
    Another explanation is that they were 100% anti-immigration but also 200% incompetent at implementing their own goals.
    - hermitcrab 1y ago
      Rather than being honest with people about the pros (of which there are many) and cons (of which there are some) of migration, the conservative government increased migration while telling people they were reducing it. That is malice, rather than incompetence. And now, here we are, facing the very really real possibility of loathsome grifter Farage as Prime Minister.
  - SwamyM 1y ago
    Same with the Republicans in the US and the deficit, "small" government, etc.
  - johnnyanmac 1y ago
saaaaaam 1y ago
It wasn’t that similar though, because there was a long long period of transition, not “we are doing this on two days time and if you’ve not got £100k hard luck!”
mrtksn 1y ago
Yep, skilled people have options. When you are treating them as circus animals that constantly need to prove that they are worth the cage they will be put in and the food they will be fed, they just leave the circus. Smart professional people desire non-hostile space where they can build a life. When a Russian scientist or Iranian doctor left their countries for London or Paris, they were't calculating for a net income increase, they were running away from an environment that didn't show a promise to allow them realize themselves. Lot's of white collar people are paid well below what they will make if they learn a JS library or do construction work because of their desire to fulfill themselves in a peaceful life and be respected. It is kind of similar to game devs being paid very little in respect to the complexity of the programming they do. If you break that magic, they aren't going to stay.

gdulli 1y ago

It should be the most obvious thing in the world that whether you take a fundamentally welcoming and positive mindset towards people vs. a negative and unwelcoming mindset, the effects of either will propagate and magnify themselves over time. But when you're insecure the feelings you get from the latter are more comforting in the short term.

ajross 1y ago
The principle is better stated as "don't be an asshole". HN's insistence on decorum is just really poorly suited to the moment.
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  I can assure you the decorum isn’t exactly being maintained and downvotes don’t exactly do much when there’s a consensus that a certain thing is okay to do.
s5300 1y ago
[dead]

someperson 1y ago

> you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you The immigration system should be designed to block retired parents from moving country to live with their working age adult children who have migrated. One reason to have immigration is to improve a country's dependency ratio: the ratio of working age population to children and retirees. The ideal immigrants are young well-educated parents that can stay in the workforce for 40+ years with healthy children that are just about to enter the school system. That way the receiving country didn't need to invest in educating the parents originally, don't need to pay the healthcare costs of very young infants, and it provides the best possible addition to the the receiving country's demographic structure so the host country benefits from a whole working life of tax payments and all the value created by their work output. The economic case for even skilled immigration is far less compelling for a receiving nation without such restrictions on immigrating retirees.

dotnet00 1y ago
Your ideal immigrants are young parents with healthy children, who are apparently willing to abandon their own parents? And somehow this is a good thing?
- someperson 1y ago
  Abandon is the wrong word. Should the country receiving the immigrants let elderly grandparents be cared for by their own country's pension and aged-care and healthcare industry, instead of burdening the receiving countries? Absolutely unequivocally yes. The grandparents can always come visit on tourist visas and the immigrants can visit their original country too.
  - alwa 1y ago
    What if, as a condition of the visa [0], the sponsoring high-performing immigrant guarantees that the relative won’t become a public charge, and becomes legally bound to reimburse the public purse if that happens? I seem to recall the notion that elderly people are normally isolated, atomized wards of the “aged-care industry” as a relatively recent innovation, no? Versus people seeking to bring elderly relatives to reproduce the sort of multigenerational households that more traditionally handled aging care, and that do that today in other parts of the world? [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_charge_rule https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_charge_rule

JetSetWilly 1y ago

[flagged]

ellen364 1y ago
"Approximately 1 million a year net" is completely true. In 2023 the UK's net migration was 906,000. But for context I'll add that it was a historic high and in 2024 net migration fell to 431,000. The Migration Observatory at Oxford publishes excellent summaries about migration trends, e.g. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-to-and-from-the-uk/ https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/lo...
seadan83 1y ago
According to wikipedia for causes of vote in favor of brexit, one third said immigration.

softwaredoug 1y ago

Polling in the US has swung in favor of immigration: > a record-high 79% of U.S. adults say immigration is a good thing for the country. It’s hard to separate what’s supported by the public and what are random hobby horses of the far right once they get in power. Because the US has historically been relatively more positive to immigration I am skeptical that we would see the same reaction as in the UK or other countries in the long run (in the short term, it’s all a sht show) https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigration-abated.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/692522/surge-concern-immigratio...

timr 1y ago
> Polling in the US has swung in favor of immigration Don't forget to quote the parts that contradict your statement: > After climbing to 55% in 2024, the percentage of Americans who say immigration should be reduced has dropped by nearly half to 30%. Sentiment is thus back to the level measured in 2021, before the desire for less immigration started to mount. Meanwhile, 38% now want immigration kept at its current level, and 26% say it should be increased. Overall, this poll paints a picture of moderation from a period of anti-immigrant sentiment, not of a population that has "swung in favor of immigration", as you assert. (It also has nothing to do with H1B visas specifically. As far as I can tell, it's almost entirely about illegal immigration.)
- YZF 1y ago
  With polls the questions you ask matter a lot. I don't read this poll as being about illegal immigration but someone else might (e.g. you did). That is worth splitting out as a separate question. But asking that risks getting answers you don't like, e.g. my bet would be most Americans would not support the idea that anyone can just come and stay in the US illegally without going through any process, i.e. an open border policy. My bet would also be that most Americans would support immigration of highly skilled labor or certain other professions given the right processes in place and demand for those. There are probably other ways to slice and dice this question to get a deeper understanding of how people think about this. It would also be nice if the poll probed as to the reasons for why people hold certain opinions. My guess would be the numbers are changing partly due to political backlash and not due to some economical or social insight. The good thing about this poll is that the same questions are asked over time. So likely the trends are real. It's just hard to get a more nuanced understanding.

bambax 1y ago

This is probably a good thing for nations providing the bulk of high skilled labor, namely India and China. Their best and brightest will tend to leave less. Much has been said about Trump, but his main quality is this: he's a foot-gun artist.

jondwillis 1y ago
And I think it is significant to note that the foot-guns are intentionally foot-guns. Plausible, yet subtly and catastrophically bad solutions to real and imagined problems. Downward spirals for everyone! ...to create favorable conditions for further exploitation.
Scoundreller 1y ago
The H1-B country of origin numbers are a bit cooked because they track by country of birth, not country of application or citizenship Could only find 2019 data: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b-petitions-by-gender-country-of-birth-fy2019.pdf https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/h-1b...

ezst 1y ago

This, so much. Not the UK, but another western-European country that has slowly succumbed to right-wing rhetoric and fear-mongering. There, legal immigration has continuously been a boon to the economy, but each politician having had to "one-up" the previous one in terms of "tightening immigration" and "looking tough" has only made legal immigration increasingly miserable, and put off skilled/high-earning global workers whose presence was desired. Of course, nothing has changed for the illegal ones: they haven't (and won't) see the increased burden of legal migration of which they are oblivious. Overall things are only getting worse, and I hate that there's no attempt to having a honest and transparent debate and discourse on the matter.

llm_nerd 1y ago

> But a lot of skilled labour left anyway The UK has had a "brain drain", but it's as much UK citizens as migrants. Economic migrants migrate. > But also highly paid people have spouses, children, parents and other relatives. Once you are told you barely cleared (very high) criteria, you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you. Skilled immigration is sold in almost all of the West as a necessary demographic cure. The classic "we're getting older and there is a labour shortage of working age people". The retired parents were never a part of the deal, and are of no interest to almost any Western country. Obvious given that it completely annihilates the justification for bringing people in in the first place. So if these skilled workers aren't moving to the UK because they can't bring their retired parents, then presumably they aren't also choosing the US, Canada, Germany, etc., given the same situation. Canada does have a family reunification program but it is not only spectacularly unpopular among the Canadian public and likely to fade away, it allows for a tiny number per year.

dfadsadsf 1y ago
US allows unlimited chain migration for parents with short waiting period. Everyone brings their parents/siblings and put them on Medicaid/Obamacare, Section 8, etc right away. Technically sponsor is supposed to cover those benefits (and signs paper about that) but practically gov never tried to recover benefits (literally never).
tpm 1y ago
> The retired parents were never a part of the deal, They are, certainly at least in Germany there are special provisions for that.

JuniperMesos 1y ago

> But a lot of skilled labour left anyway. Partly because the general atmosphere got unpleasant. But also highly paid people have spouses, children, parents and other relatives. Once you are told you barely cleared (very high) criteria, you can be pretty sure your retired parents won't, if ever you need them to move in with you. Chain migration is an anti-immigration argument in the US - even if some particular immigrant is highly-skilled and would benefit the US from being a legal resident, that immigrant's family is probably not as impressive. Nonetheless, once the government gives legal residency to the highly-skilled immigrant, they will be highly motivated to try to get the rest of their family to the US as well. So the US should be careful about granting legal residency even to prospective immigrants whose credentials make them individually look good.

arrowsmith 1y ago

There are not "high criteria" to immigrate to the UK post-Brexit. The minimum salary threshold is £26k, barely higher than minimum wage. The list of eligible occupations is a joke and includes such desperately understaffed occupations as "homeopaths" and "reiki healers". The skilled worker visa only requires B1 English, at which level you'll struggle to communicate in many professional settings. Net immigration (legal and illegal) exploded after Brexit and is still higher today than it was in 2016 when we had the vote. You have no idea what you're talking about.

maest 1y ago
> The minimum salary threshold is £26k You are wrong. For the Skilled Worker route, the minimum salary threshold is 41k per year, with some special jobs at 33.4k. > "homeopaths" and "reiki healers" You are wrong. There are SOC codes for things like "Therapy professionals". They give examples like acupuncturists, art/drama/music therapists, chiropractors/osteopaths, nutritionists, sports therapists/massage therapists. No "reiki healers", though. > The skilled worker visa only requires B1 English You are technically right, but are ignoring the larger context. Jobs open for Skilled Worker migrants have to be RQF 6+, which usually means the worker has to perform at the level of a university graduate. So, while the language requirement is B1, the skill requirement is non-trivial. > You have no idea what you're talking about. Ironic.
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  Reiki healers and homeopaths are listed under code 3214, "Complementary health associate professionals". https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations-and-codes https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi... And I only picked those two because they were particularly egregious. The list is full of jobs for which it's absurd to suggest we need to fill from abroad: are we really suffering for a lack of recruitment consultants? Human resources officers? Can no-one can find a homegrown Brit who's able to work as a restaurant manager? As for the salary threshold, you're right: the basic threshold is £41k, although it can be as low as £25k (not £33.4k) in some circumstances: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-going-rates-for-eligible-occupation-codes https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-vi... I'd argue that £41k is still too low. It's barely above the median UK salary - we can't find anyone in the top ~50% of people who can do these jobs? And it doesn't even make you a net contributor (from what I can tell that threshold is around £50-55k, although for many of these "skilled" workers it's much higher as they bring dependents.) Nevertheless I'll accept a partial L. Regarding English, maybe I'm wrong about the precise requirements, but I've worked with software professionals in London, here on a skilled worker visa, with whom I was barely able to communicate, so clearly we're doing something wrong. In any case, my thesis still stands: there have not been "very high" criteria to migrate to the UK recently, in fact quite the opposite, and if you don't believe this then I suggest you go outside and look around.

TheOtherHobbes 1y ago

Immigration exploded after Brexit. While the official line was "Let's keep the riffraff out". the reality was that the Tories used Brexit to bring in plenty of cheap labour from specific countries, and the income requirements are applied very selectively. Foreign students were also encouraged to study here and remain after studying. Initially even family reunion immigration was encouraged, although that's changed now. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/5579/live/8ea3acd0-df25-11ef-a819-277e390a7a08.png.webp https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/5579/live/8ea3a... The UK has been playing this game for centuries - bringing in cheap foreign labour on the quiet, then using that as political leverage with "We will protect you from the foreign invasion" messaging.

arrowsmith 1y ago
And yet, insanely, the Tories still get called "anti-immigration". They were the most pro-immigration government in British history, by far.
- jl6 1y ago
  Another explanation is that they were 100% anti-immigration but also 200% incompetent at implementing their own goals.
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    Rather than being honest with people about the pros (of which there are many) and cons (of which there are some) of migration, the conservative government increased migration while telling people they were reducing it. That is malice, rather than incompetence. And now, here we are, facing the very really real possibility of loathsome grifter Farage as Prime Minister.
- SwamyM 1y ago
  Same with the Republicans in the US and the deficit, "small" government, etc.
- johnnyanmac 1y ago

saaaaaam 1y ago

It wasn’t that similar though, because there was a long long period of transition, not “we are doing this on two days time and if you’ve not got £100k hard luck!”

mrtksn 1y ago

Yep, skilled people have options. When you are treating them as circus animals that constantly need to prove that they are worth the cage they will be put in and the food they will be fed, they just leave the circus. Smart professional people desire non-hostile space where they can build a life. When a Russian scientist or Iranian doctor left their countries for London or Paris, they were't calculating for a net income increase, they were running away from an environment that didn't show a promise to allow them realize themselves. Lot's of white collar people are paid well below what they will make if they learn a JS library or do construction work because of their desire to fulfill themselves in a peaceful life and be respected. It is kind of similar to game devs being paid very little in respect to the complexity of the programming they do. If you break that magic, they aren't going to stay.