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It isn't an economic issue. It is the UK no longer being British. It is the loss of a people, an identity, a culture och sovereignty. The UK belongs to the people who built it for the past thousand years and those who will inherit it for the next thousand. It isn't up to the current people to give it away to strangers.
It actually is. For better or for worse, having a democratic society means that the people get to make such decisions.
In any society, democratic or not, it is only the current people, by definition, who get to make such decisions. Not the dead or the unborn (whether the right sort of unborn or not).
The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must.
If the English lower classes don't want mass immigration, they have to find a way to stop it. Voting for people who pretend to care about it clearly doesn't work. Protesting in the streets about it or on twitter clearly doesn't work. The judiciary is firmly against them so that won't work either. And they are all disarmed so terrorism is not a realistic proposition.
I don't really see any recourse there. Looks to me like these people are fucked.
Because they also want and vote for economic growth. And both parties internal projections show limiting immigration prevents economic growth and also that the economy is most people's driving issue.
It's a simple straight forward calculus. When we did (when I worked for the Tories) internal polls and asked people would they accept an overall lower standard of living in exchange for reduced immigration they said no. Overwhelmingly. Over and over and over again. Everywhere.
So the recourse is to start actually valuing lowering immigration over other factors. Just like the Tories flipped on lockdowns in record time they will do the same on immigration. They aren't attached to it for principled reasons. Simply practical.
I don't buy it.
Immigration is something the blue tribe just wants.
The blue tribe didn't start from the position of, how do we improve the economy, and then searched around and found immigration as a good policy for promoting economic growth. The blue wanted immigration and looked around for ways to justify it. Sure, they also believe the justification(trust the science), but the justifications are not to convince themselves, they are to convince those damn red-tribers.
They really want to live in a 'diverse' world, with ethnic restaurants, and friends who speak English with an accent, who have weird fun customs, different clothing, and different skin tones.
They are absolutely attached to it.
We are talking about the UK here, while there is an urban/rural divide it isn't as significant politically. London/Home Counties vs North/Midlands is probably more salient, although that is also complicated by coastal malaise as well. Alongside Upper/middle/working class divisions of course.
I can assure you the English Tories I worked with 10-25 years ago did not fit the blue tribe stereotypes you are mentioning here.
This should not be surprising, since the Blue/Red tribe paradigm is attempting to explain subcultural divisions amongst White Americans. Applying it to the British seems wrong-headed.
Yeah that is my point. There is certainly some overlap, in some places, but it is going to confuse you more than it is going to explain if you try and translate it across one to one.
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