Six ways they are lying to you about immigration and ‘broken Britain’

Reform, the Conservatives, Keir Starmer and the mainstream media are saying that the recent high levels of net migration are causing major problems in the UK. But why is the UK ‘broken’? Who broke it, and how can it be fixed?

This message on immigration has been well received by some voters, and Reform is now leading in most opinion polls. Brexit was seen by many as a way to cut immigration but in fact after Brexit, immigration rose to record levels this decade.

Why did migration rise? Three big reasons:

• The Ukraine war saw many refugees come to the UK, although these numbers are falling.
• The underfunded privatised care sector hired hundreds of thousands to fill vacancies in low paid zero hour care jobs that UK workers didn’t want; also to fill NHS jobs
• Universities lost their public grants and needed tens of thousands of foreign students to top up their income.

In other words, privatisation and staff shortages caused most of the spike in migration. Now the government has cut this by denying visas to families of migrant workers.

Important point: the low wage Brexit model of capitalism REQUIRES high migration to function. But its political supporters never told people this. They lied and claimed Brexit would radically reduce net migration. (Note: Brexiteers like Richard Tice idolise Dubai, which is totally dependent on cheap migrant labour)

Let’s break down the problems we face as a country, and see where migration fits into the picture

1. HOUSING CRISIS: 360,000 homeless, record street homelessness, inflation busting rent rises year after year. Chronic shortage of affordable and social housing. Is migration causing this? This problem began with Margaret Thatcher’s right to buy scheme, so that millions of council houses were sold to occupiers; now 40% of these are owned by private landlords. She abolished rent controls and secure tenancies. Now landlords have the whip hand, they can raise rents whenever they choose, and tenants have no power. Councils cannot build the new council housing they need under the current rules, instead they are going bankrupt paying for emergency accommodation for homeless people. Meanwhile the UK has far more empty homes than it does people without a home – 700,000. There is no shortage of homes, just bad distribution.
   There are a number of policies that would be much more effective: rent controls, an end to right to buy, compulsory purchase or renting of empty properties to homeless families. Ban on non UK residents buying homes for investment. Cap on Airbnb and short lets in cities and coastal areas. Reform council tax, to tax large properties fairly. All these could help solve the housing crisis. Would lower immigration help? Maybe, but it won’t solve the housing crisis at all without the policies outlined above.
   Verdict: Housing crisis caused by sell off of council homes; lack of rent controls; loss of homes to investor sales, Airbnb.
2. NHS STAFF SHORTAGES AND WAITING LISTS. The UK has privatised large parts of the NHS, and huge amounts of profit are being taken out of the system, paid for by taxpayers. The government is not training or hiring enough doctors, nurses and other specialists, hence we have huge vacancies. This is causing the long waits for operations, A&E delays, ambulance delays etc. The NHS has always relied on migrant staff to make it run. They do an amazing job. We need to end privatisation, and increase the number of staff in NHS hospitals. Cutting migration will not solve this problem, but will make it worse!
   Verdict: NHS crisis caused by privatisation, underfunding of NHS recruitment
3. COST OF LIVING CRISIS – energy and water bills. Since 2020, energy companies have taken £483 billion in profits out of UK economy, that’s £10,000 per adult in the UK! Since oil and gas was privatised by Margaret Thatcher, the UK has lost trillions in revenue to private firms, and now has a national debt of £2.7 trillion. Norway, which has a state-owned energy company, has a £1.7 trillion sovereign wealth fund from oil, making its people the wealthiest in Europe, also paying for public services. Nothing to do with migrants, everything to do with privatisation and greed. Likewise, water privatisation since 1989 has seen water firms take £85 billion in profits while failing to invest and leaving our rivers and seas polluted and unprepared for floods and droughts. Water must be brought back into public hands.
   Verdict: Cost of living crisis caused by energy and water company ripoff and privatisation
4. SOCIAL CARE CRISIS – Low pay, zero hours contracts, privatisation and profiteering in the care
   sector, with massive shortages of care staff, is leading companies to hire staff directly from Asia
   and Africa, rather than from the UK, where the jobs can’t be filled under current terrible
   conditions. Only a National Care Services and better pay and conditions can resolve this issue,
   and reduce reliance on sourcing so many staff from overseas. However care staff from overseas
   do amazing work and we should appreciate them, not abuse them!
   Verdict: Social care crisis caused by privatisation, council cuts and underpaying staff
5. UNIVERSITY FUNDING CRISIS – the Conservatives and Labour ended grants to universities, introduced fees and pushed universities to act like businesses seeking customers. As a result, the higher education sector seeks more and more foreign students to increase income in the face of lack of public funds, and reliance on tuition fees. The only way to change that is to return to a publicly funded university system that focuses on good education in the UK, rather than maximising overseas income.
   Verdict: Higher education crisis caused by cuts to funding and focus on income over education
6. CRIME AND PRISONS CRISIS. Prisons were privatised by the Tories and have become centres of drugs use, violence, and overloaded with many people suffering from mental health problems and illiteracy. The Tories shut hundreds of courts, causing a massive backlog in civil and criminal cases, as part of disastrous neoliberal “reforms”. Mental health services and youth and children’s services have been slashed to the bone and privatised, leading vulnerable kids into crime. This is the source of our law and order crisis.
   Verdict: Crime and prison crisis caused by prison privatisation, court closures, slashing of mental health, youth & children’s services.

Reform is offering easy solutions to these problems – but even if they could cut migration, they will do nothing to resolve the deep causes of our problems because they’re backed by the billionaires and hedge funds who profit from this crisis, as are the Tories, and Keir Starmer.

The UK’s problems can’t be fixed by focusing on migrants as the cause. The offshore tax-dodging billionaires who own our media need this narrative to distract the population from their own role in the UK crisis.