Handful of people piping up with "whilst I do not care for the TONE of Starmer's speech I don't think open borders are a good thing methinks" like we've ever had open borders at any point in the past 500 years.
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I think the Beaker People beat them to it by a few millenniums. My tribe seem to have arrived here some 2700 years ago from the Danube area bringing iron working with them.
We're an island full of people with minimal life experience whose brains have been pickled by years of the newspaper telling them a foreigner can rock up in the UK and receive a free house and endless dole money.
While at the same time stealing all the jobs and lying in a hospital bed. Schrodinger's Immigrant.
When you see the lies in the papers it's no wonder the destitute of the world want to come here. They think it's a land flowing with milk and honey, not a dark damp shithole full of racist thickos.
I keep being told by dickheads on twitter that universities are 'visa mills'. Meanwhile I can't admit a stellar prospective PhD student because he doesn't have a language test certificate despite his English being perfect. Anyone who sees it for themselves knows it's bollocks
I've literally just made that point to a guy with a large audience who is *still* arguing with me in this thread that I'm wrong. Pleased to see you also saying this.
Many many years ago while applying for a British passport for my born in London son I was asked my nationality. Because I'm Irish he could get the passport, the same did not apply to many born in GB even when their mother was there legally.
the uk used to remove the subject status of any british woman marrying a non-british man from 1870 to 1933, essentially leaving them stateless until it was retroactively fixed via the hague convention of 1930. even supposedly open periods were effectively not very open at all
Definitely -- thing is, this was enforced by internal courts; there wasn't a branch of the state whose job it was to screen and stop people til the 1905 Act.
(And anyone who uses the term 'open borders' to apply to UK at any point in the C21s is a risible dickhead, obviously)
Could do with a Channel 4 doco called “Coming to Britain” following some folk from around the world as they try to visit the UK. Would obviously need Sooz to do the commentary.
There are parts of England where it was legal to kill a Welshman (gn) on a Sunday for several centuries.
Harlech, which is in north Wales, didn't allow Welsh people to reside there, own a business, or be in the town after sunset. Only English colonisers had those rights.
Never had open borders
I think even more wellmeaning people don't understand how changing the settlement time to 10 years and adding in even more home office discretion will really fuck things up
My assessment is that people are idiots and that they too quickly conflate two related but different ideas.
When we were in the EU, we had free movement, which gave other EU member state citizens the right to live here (and Starmer claims to be big on the idea of earning the right, and their
right was earnt by being a citizen of one of those countries), but, as you say, we haven't, since border checks have existed, had 'open borders', and, not being in Schengen, meant that people even with the right to live here (including us returning home from overseas visits!) still needed to be
an unhelpful one because it invites accusations of ambiguity, and it's also not grounded in reality. You could argue that EU free movement was too generous (I don't but one could), but that's irrelevant now as we're out.
The UK is one of the hardest and most expensive countries to immigrate to. I don’t think most gammons have the slightest clue what’s actually involved.
Open borders seem to be fine when it is Brits living abroad
All about control now, reducing most people’s spare cash by never ending price increases on everything to limit travelling (never mind emigrating)
Getting back to only the rich entitled to travel and live abroad
Money mens dream
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And not that it was stupidly expensive over just processing them as well as being shitty Tory behaviour.
When you see the lies in the papers it's no wonder the destitute of the world want to come here. They think it's a land flowing with milk and honey, not a dark damp shithole full of racist thickos.
lol a lot of people were very much unwelcome here but ok
(And anyone who uses the term 'open borders' to apply to UK at any point in the C21s is a risible dickhead, obviously)
Harlech, which is in north Wales, didn't allow Welsh people to reside there, own a business, or be in the town after sunset. Only English colonisers had those rights.
Never had open borders
Not if he’s put them in the limbo of their stay being tied to an employer for 10 years now instead of 5.
That makes them more vulnerable. More easily abused and coerced.
Starmer et al are absolute bastards. Fuck em
My assessment is that people are idiots and that they too quickly conflate two related but different ideas.
When we were in the EU, we had free movement, which gave other EU member state citizens the right to live here (and Starmer claims to be big on the idea of earning the right, and their
right was earnt by being a citizen of one of those countries), but, as you say, we haven't, since border checks have existed, had 'open borders', and, not being in Schengen, meant that people even with the right to live here (including us returning home from overseas visits!) still needed to be
checked at our borders.
It's all so tedious.
And I hope this doesn't come across as mansplaining as we agree and I'm just expanding on the point for the benefit of observers.
If they mean 'open borders' as short-hand for too generous a regime in allowing people to live here, then it's
an unhelpful one because it invites accusations of ambiguity, and it's also not grounded in reality. You could argue that EU free movement was too generous (I don't but one could), but that's irrelevant now as we're out.
All about control now, reducing most people’s spare cash by never ending price increases on everything to limit travelling (never mind emigrating)
Getting back to only the rich entitled to travel and live abroad
Money mens dream