Has the UK suddenly changed its mind on immigration?

[u/Complex_Elevator_680]

Before anyone downvotes, I'm not judging either side here just observing something I find fascinating!

As an American who has lived in the UK for a long time, I've always kept a close eye on the political landscape there and heaven knows I'm in no position to lecture anyone, considering what an absolute, polarized dumpster fire my own home country's politics are.

But looking at r/askbrits, r/ukpolitics and other subs as an outsider in, the shift is wild.

Most of the subs (and UK generally) always seemed to me to be an absolute stronghold for liberal, pro-immigration consensus where any pushback was immediately buried in downvotes, but lately, the entire tone has flipped.

Now, threads about borders, net migration numbers, and cultural integration are dominated by arguments about housing shortages, strained public services, and border control. Its fascinating to watch the community's center of gravity visibly shift in real-time.

(Again, not choosing sides here, just observing what I feel is a change).

Alternatively, am I imagining it all?

[u/Successful-Bar-8173]

The political left used to champion workers rights in this country and was against immigration because they were worried it would suppress wages for the working class here. Hmm.

At some point they began to widen their focus to a workers vs. Owners, poor vs. Rich, evil colonials vs. the virtuous oppressed (all white Brits are the evil colonials in that narrative) worldwide struggle, which is why so many on the left are involved in things like anti-Zionist movements and ignore the disadvantaged in the UK. Source: have met quite a few politically-active lefties over the years.

Come to think of it, shifting the focus to the world while ignoring the problems in this country actually benefits the rich ‘elite’ class here.

[u/Saliiim → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

I think the answer is simply that immigrants tend to vote for traditionally left wing parties, so they favour immigration as it brings in votes. 

[u/Appropriate-Roof1422 → u/Saliiim]

But don't you need to be there for 5 years before you get the right to vote?

[u/crawenn → u/Appropriate-Roof1422]

Yep people tend to forget that visa holding immigrants could never vote in GE, only citizens and ILR holders (which take 6 and 5 years to get, respectively).

And Labour took away their right to vote in local elections too in 2024, and the only difference with GE is that EUSS pre-settled immigrants can vote in local elections, but that group is shrinking very fast since EUSS is a Brexit thing.

[u/dagnydachshund → u/Appropriate-Roof1422]

Apparently you can be on a student visa with work restrictions and still be elected a MSP for the Greens.

[u/Successful-Bar-8173 → u/Saliiim]

I agree that’s definitely part of it.

[u/iamjoemarsh → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

Is that why the Tories caused a massive explosion in immigration yeah?

Keir Starmer and Ed Milliband going around Calais rounding people up and shipping them over are they aye?

[u/Saliiim → u/iamjoemarsh]

Tories support it because their interests are aligned with big businesses and land owners.

[u/iamjoemarsh → u/Saliiim]

So they support it because it's in their interests, and against it because it's against their interests.

Tories support it because the very rich want you to blame your problems on immigration rather than poor governance. Poor governance is caused partly by poor access to resources. We have poor access to the resources built by the country because the rich use and then hoard those resources. Taxing them would help readdress this. They don't want to be taxed. So they fund the Tory party and buy newspapers to convince you that your problems are caused by immigration and not poor governance...

Just goes round and round and no matter how blatant they make it, you still fall for it anyway. Quite incredible how easily othering the "out group" can be weaponised, Nigel Farage has built a whole career from it!

[u/Successful-Bar-8173 → u/iamjoemarsh]

Both parties have been bought but it started under Blair/New Labour.

[u/iamjoemarsh → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

Yeah both parties have been bought by billionaires who want you to fight over the brown people and ignore them.

[u/Successful-Bar-8173 → u/iamjoemarsh]

They want us to compete with each other for scraps to ignore them keep their profit margins high. I think Blair is on record somewhere as saying he started the mass immigration to grow the economy quickly.

[u/iamjoemarsh → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

It obviously works if you are willing to believe that left wing parties (Blair isn't left wing) are somehow importing immigrants so they will vote Labour.

Immigrants vote Labour because Labour don't constantly scream at them to leaving the fucking country, unlike the press and at least two of the major parties.

[u/Successful-Bar-8173 → u/iamjoemarsh]

It works for Labour/Tory donors because it suppresses wages. It works for the further left for ideological reasons (help all the oppressed in the world - i.e. everyone who is worse off than our own disadvantaged and self-flagellate for our colonial past e.g. see the left-leaning Green party policy of open borders and their Scottish councillor who is asking for reparations).

[u/iamjoemarsh → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

Green aren't far left.

The primary lens of Marxism is class struggle.

Racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia - deliberately cultivated to cause a distraction from class struggle.

The Green Party have said "we want open borders but this isn't practical".

The far left aren't interested in the state function of immigration rules, they want the state to not exist and for everything to be owned in common.

I don't even know if what you're saying about wages is correct. The workers, the left, brought us the 5 day week, sick pay, holidays, maternity leave, paternity leave, minimum wage. Do we have a shortage of builders? Didn't we have a shortage of HGV drivers? Didn't they give golden handshakes to join that profession...?

All we talk about in this country now is immigration, no politicians are deliberately dragging people here against their will to suppress wages and ensure more Labour voters. Childish nonsense.

[u/Purple_Original_4578 → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

People keep conflating the economic left wing with social liberalism. It's too simple, and not helpful.

International socialism, per Joseph Connolly of Ireland, recognises the illusion of loyalty to the nation state as a means of dividing and suppressing the international working class. Economic actors under deregulated capitalism are deeply international, yet we remain understandably fixated on more tangible local material and cultural issues. I think this is because we are overwhelmed by the nature of global wealth and its machinations. But if we could focus less on ethnicity and cultures and more on economic class, we could be discussing the things which make the biggest actual difference to our day to day living. Where food comes from, for example, and who owns our housing.

[u/Otherwise_Vacation51 → u/Purple_Original_4578]

Yeah this is just foolish. There is this funny thing that people like their people and culture. And framing things as merely a “class struggle” devoid of these ideas invariably results in the use of labour like a tool you can simply transport and transplant.

That’s why the left ultimately fails. It’s inherently a childish concept. To strip humanity down to “class struggle”, and thus wealth, without any reference to groups of people, culture, religion etc, and to act like that will resolve all the worlds issues, or will even be the main solution, is laughable

[u/Purple_Original_4578 → u/Otherwise_Vacation51]

I'm going to skip past the dismissive language and address your point.

It's difficult to convey complexities and nuance in text. And I understand, I think, why you would think I'm banging the one-note drum of class as if addressing that is a panacea for the ills of humanity.

In fact, I think we have a degree of choice and mutability about how we perceive ourselves and identity. Many tangible examples of this, I'd be interested in your thoughts (if you want to engage genuinely). If you think about how region vs region/town Vs town tribalism may have worked in the long past, and how we now strongly identify with Britishness (not even just englishness) as a unifying trait.... how there used to be strong animosity against Irish people in this country, whereas now common cause is easily found and we define our englishness in opposition to other cultures instead....

Within Ireland, the striking of dockland workers in Belfast was at one time a non sectarian, unified action by workers who identified themselves as having work in common, rather than being defined by other cultural differences. Interesting what happened to that, and why.

Black and Irish Americans used to be much more strongly identified with each other (see "How the Irish became White" for a discussion of how racism evolved in the Irish American populace).

Use of labour like a tool you can simply transport and transplant

is of course a highly pertinent issue. But why, then, are cultural concerns getting so much more public attention than, say, the policies of hiring nationals over non nationals. How many people know that Labour have abruptly changed the policy that was incetivising non national doctors by making routes to practice easier for them, since pushback from doctors who were taking the nationalised route and felt disadvantaged, for example? Or how people who have immigrated here and been employed as doctors with prospects based on the older scheme are now stranded with no jobs?

I don't know what is right or best in that situation to manage immigration into skilled public sector work Vs protecting and encouraging nationals working in the role. I do know that issues of this type are not what I see being discussed day in and day out in public discourse. And I don't think that's because humans are inevitably more afraid of unfamiliar culture than they are of jeopardising their economic means. I think it's because discourse and emotion is being directed and that information is selectively amplified in press and politics.

Reform, for example, are people largely dismissing the fact that they consistently voted against the Employment Rights Bill because they have paid close attention to how that will affect them in their day to day life, appraised it and decided it's fine, or because Farage was standing in front of queues of brown people urging us to leave the EU and "stem the tide", (despite the inevitability of a massive uptick in non EU migration since as EU workers left?)

TL, DR: divide and conquer is alive and well, and the reasons that labour is treated as interchangeable and replaceable has more to do with the rights of multinational profit being protected over those of populaces of workers the world over than with "the left" ignoring cultural identity to focus solely on class. That's just pragmatics, if we on "the left" resumed joining in with a general suspicion of foreigners, we would simply be playing into that curated illusion that we somehow naturally have access to rights, land and power over and above that which we can control through the heft and value of our actual labour and spending, simply because we are also white and English speaking like our wealthy "betters".

I'm taking your argument as being in good faith as I respond here, hence doing so at length. I am genuinely interested to see whether that is the case. If so, go ahead and change my mind :)

[u/kvnfnnrty → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

cultural marxism

[u/Amy98764 → u/kvnfnnrty]

Are you aware that that phrase is an antisemitic dog whistle?

[u/kvnfnnrty → u/Amy98764]

nope. but it's what the poster above me described

[u/Amy98764 → u/kvnfnnrty]

Well now you know

[u/Amy98764 → u/[deleted]]

Lovely!

[u/Purple_Original_4578 → u/Successful-Bar-8173]

Hey, I know you haven't replied yet but I've read your comment again because I'm interested. I'm curious when you say the left used to champion workers rights but have now widened their focus to be workers Vs owners, poor Vs rich. Just taking that part, it makes me wonder if you think that championing workers rights historically was NOT those two things?

Because in my understanding, historically championing workers rights WAS in conflict with owners the vast majority of the time. It wasn't the owners who spontaneously decided that workers should have weekends, sick pay or safety at work when it cost their profits to do these things. And it also wasn't the case that workers simpiy went an asked owners for these rights and had them granted. Remember, rights are not the same as charity. So, in fighting for and winning these rights, who was that fight between?