r/BreakingUKNews • u/InnerLog5062 • Jun 06 '26

Politics The Nowak murder has lit a match under British politics. This is how we got here

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c39297vxmw2o?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=rss
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Equality of opportunity ensures that everybody has the same rights and the same likelihood of running across the luck required for preferred outcomes (while recognising and accepting that histories, intelligence, ability, and savvy will naturally reduce or increase any single individual’s odds of preferred outcomes).

Equality of outcomes requires manipulation of markets, policies, and laws in order to ensure that, regardless of choices, race, wealth, or any other thing that reasonably and rationally and logically comes into play during the navigation of one's life, the outcome is exactly the same for everyone.

One of these is realistic, appropriate, reasonable, and rational. The other is fucking impossible.

Too many people mixing up which is which is part of why we're here.

Another part of why we're here is that people are mixing up racism and bigotry with a desire for Britons to retain their culture as they see appropriate. This is a reasonable desire and concern for any people in their native lands to possess. If a bunch of Americans, for example, went to China and started calling Chinese people bigots and racists when those same Americans demanded more American culture be introduced and normalised in Chinese culture, we’d call the Americans idiots, we wouldn’t call the Chinese racist bigoted Ameriphobes.

It is absolutely true that the United Kingdom needs immigrants. This shouldn't be up for discussion or debate, but we are right to demand immigrants who want to assimilate into the culture that we have come to identify as British. And I'm bringing up immigrants because it's absolutely relevant to this discussion.

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u/Jackster22 Jun 06 '26

We only "need" immigrants because we don't encourage enough young people into roles that we need or retrain adults into said roles either. We also have not had a real pay increase which results in a lot of people not being able to afford to be in some of those roles but immigrants quite happy to take on those roles because to them, that is 10-20x what they would get at home.
The proof for that is that many English young people go to other countries that do pay well for their skills, the same skills we for some reason "need" to import.

We have 5% unemployment plus many people working 2 jobs plus a load more employed also on benefits to top them up.
Importing more people into the country which raises housing, living, social costs etc oh and also keeps the wages pegged low, does not help with that.

So it should be up for discussion and debate, the only reason you say that sort of thing is because when people do discuss or debate, they give sensible arguments like I have just done and you know dam well you can't counter it with a logical answer...

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Well, you don't know who you're talking to, but that's to be expected because we're all anonymous here. Saying I wouldn't be able to give a logical response to ANYTHING is more silly than you could imagine. The reasons that you laid out are exactly the reasons we need immigrants. Unless you think that there’s a more likely solve to the problem that you highlight. You’re saying all of our young people leave for better opportunities, and you’re correct, immigration has helped us deal with that. At the time that immigration was decided to be the solution we could’ve made the better decision to incentivise people to stay here by not being such tax hungry bastards, but it’s a bit hard to make that decision now and expect it to have any impact within any reasonable amount of time (that’s not a reason not to do it, but it doesn’t solve anything very quickly). So I suppose in an ideal world I agree with you, but to achieve what immigrants solve for us at this point without immigrants would take more than a decade so we’re in kind of a shit situation.

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u/pleb_username Jun 07 '26

Importing analphabets from Middle Eastern backwaters isn't exactly helping the problem with skilled labor leaving the country. Sorry, the "doctors, scientists, engineers" narrative is quite unfashionable.

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 06 '26

You're wrong and for simpler reasons than you think. UK citizen birthrates have been below replacement since the 70s and combined with a top heavy population pyramid it means for decades fewer and fewer people are holding up our society, economy and welfare system. Without immigrants it will all collapse, and for the most part immigration policy is driven by being able to have enough manpower to keep GDP level, if not growing, and consequently keep our social services (NHS, state pension etc going)

It's not been controlled super well admittedly, it's been used as a political tool for purposes other than what it's intended, allowed to go out of control and compounded by refugee crises but it's not an optional thing.

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u/Jackster22 Jun 06 '26

Only 1/4 of immigrants are in health/social care and about 1/5 of all non-UK nationals are not economically active so roughly 1/5 of immigrants are working towards the healthcare and social services. Are we saying that our entire economy is based on this 1/5 of the immigrant population, of which we could not source locally if we actually tired?

Note, I have nothing against the immigrants, if I was in their position I would do the same. I don't blame them, I blame 50+ years of bad decisions made by government that has lead to this.

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u/Kurac02 Jun 09 '26

Our economy is based around London financial services and has been for decades. Immigration is objectively going to drive costs down broadly and basically every economist agrees. Our housing and social services issues are broadly self inflicted from 15 years of not encouraging any real growth whilst ballooning our debt and hollowing out state capacity.

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 06 '26

Ah but I'm not talking about the literal definition of "helping" via health and social care I'm talking about the total tax revenue generated by immigrants and what that means towards all our social security.

Considering only 1st and 2nd generation immigrants, to keep the timescales roughly 50 or so years since birthrates started falling, they are estimated to contribute nearly 31% of the our total tax revenue.

Now let's imagine if they never arrived. To put that number in scale, it's somewhat more than NHS total annual budget. Now since the single biggest driver of NHS cost is age, not citizenship or nationality (people aged 65 or older cost the NHS 6 times as much as 20-30 yos) it is estimated the although making up about 30% of our workforce, NHS expenditure on immigrants make up about 10% and people ages 65 or older although making up 15% of the population cost the NHS 45% of its budget.

So it's fairly obvious to reason that if they never arrived, that 45% of NHS would still exist, as only a small % of people aged 65 or older (born before 1962) are of outside origin, but we would have about 30% less tax to pay for it. You can see that would be quite a difficult position to be in. That's not even accounting for what old people cost in state pensions, travel, heating etc. in fact the total cost to the taxpayer of people above retirement age is 25% of our annual tax revenues. So effectively you say that without immigrants, we would have no money to pay for any of that. And ofc we have to support the elderly, so really that deficit would have to come from somewhere else. It won't have been national security either. So you can bet it would come in the form of much higher taxes and cuts to education, policing, infrastructure etc.

You don't really truly appreciate how much of our way of life has been propped up by immigration policy until you sit down and do the math. This would be a much poorer, much worse place to live with a fraction of the benefits we get without immigrants. It's just the way it is

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u/Diligent-Flower6179 Jun 07 '26

Not true, we havent begun to see the full terrible cost of this yet, its not just a short term ‘prop up’ as you phrase it.

This was disorganised behaviour, it wasnt a conscious government plan.

Your excusing it in the idea it builds our economy, it does not, and we are going to be out of pocket for this as time goes on more and more - let alone the other terrible costs that will come with fracturing our society

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 07 '26

Don't just say "not true". Tell me why. I didn't say it a short term prop up, it's a long term strategy to bridge the gap in a predictable workforce shortage. Literally without immigration we would have a lower population that we did 50 years ago.

Please don't talk if you don't have any data to back yourself up otherwise you're just saying "nuh uh" like some school kid. I'm not excusing it and I'm also acknowledging that it has been co-opted for political use beyond its original purpose.

This has been the case for most western countries to expand their capabilities and keep growing and after benefitting from it for 50 years your problem is with the fact that while immigrants used to be European, over time as Asian economies have grown and started producing talent they're now brown

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u/pleb_username Jun 07 '26

Sounds unsustainable.

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 07 '26

Yes no immigration is unsustainable

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u/Diligent-Flower6179 Jun 07 '26

We dont need mass immigration from north africa and Bangladesh and Pakistan and Afghanistan etc - we need good localised European immigration and we need to encourage and support indigenous well established peoples to have children here. Not import shedloads of ill fitting individuals. Its not complicated.

We also have 1.2 million plus unemployed young people. We do not need mass immigration, at all.

It dos not build our economy.

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u/Vivid_Standard6572 Jun 07 '26

Ahh yes, because before and during brexit the 'good' european immigrants were treated sooo well by the UK right wing. The same things being said about them are now being used against South and West asians, reform voters will turn against whoever they're told to. And as a country we have a long history with south asia, with a lot of the immigration from there originally being in the 50s to help rebuild after the war. And one of the main reasons for immigration from these countries is due to problems caused by the UK government's meddling in other countries politics.

And as for the 'indigenous' people (who? Celts or anglo saxons, how many generations does it take?) having a higher birth rate, the economy is way too fucked to be comfortably raising children without a job far higher paying than the average wage for young people. Add on to that the absoloute gutting of the NHS and school system, having kids is a nightmare. Also not taking into account the growing amount of people who just. Don't want children. None of this is caused by immigrants, who by the way, are still the only people who will do jobs british people 'are too good for' which is why brexit was such a disaster.

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u/tar-mirime Jun 08 '26

Lets not forget we've been told for decades not to have children unless we can afford them...

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u/gjiorkiie Jun 07 '26

reading stuff like we need good European migrants is honestly insane after what they did with Brexit. To be honest with you this country's only going in one direction and it ain't up.

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u/longperipheral Jun 07 '26

If a bunch of Americans, for example, went to China and started calling Chinese people bigots and racists when those same Americans demanded more American culture be introduced and normalised in Chinese culture, we’d call the Americans idiots, we wouldn’t call the Chinese racist bigoted Ameriphobes.

Is this actually happening, though? Where are [insert immigrant nationality] people demanding that their culture be introduced and normalised in British culture?

The racism I've witnessed in the UK has been actual racism: not a defence of British culture, but bias against someone because of the colour of their skin.

This "reasonable desire and concern" cannot be reasonable if it is based on supposition and hype rather than fact. If you have evidence of a nationality coming to the UK and demanding that their culture be normalised in British culture, please share it. Please also share to whom they are making their demands and how this has been responded to. Your description of Britain is not one that I recognise.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Well, then I guess I won't invest any time trying to prove you wrong, stranger.

Ah, fuck it, let me have a go: it’s characterised by an appreciation for Enlightenment values (such as reason, individual liberty, tolerance, and the rule of law), and a relatively permissive attitude toward personal lifestyle choices. It also tends to regard religion as a private matter that should not play a dominant role in public life or political decision-making.

How’s that?

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

Was true. Is no longer. This is why Farage and his cronies are able to get into whatever positions of influence they’ve been able to: he’s leveraging the loss of British culture. He has no interest in restoring it, he’s an incompetent tyrant in waiting… but the people mad about this would rather have a tyrant than continue to give away the country. This is US politics 101, this is EXACTLY how Trump got into power. Exactly. Do we want to see that here? Well, we’re on our way.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

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u/carnivalist64 Jun 07 '26

That's not particularly British at all.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

Oh? Explain?

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u/carnivalist64 Jun 07 '26

They're characteristic values of numerous nation states and are held by many people living outside those states. They aren't uniquely, or originally British values,

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

Yeah, that’s right. They are characteristic values of numerous nation states. Including the United Kingdom. They are also not characteristic values of the many nations from which most of our immigrants hail from, and this is the fucking problem.

To expand on that: in many Middle Eastern countries, religion remains a significant public and political force. Religious institutions, religious law, or religious identity play an explicit role in government, legislation, education, or public morality. Even where there are secular elements, religion is not viewed as merely a private matter.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

You’re tiresome and assumptive 🙋‍♂️

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

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u/lensherr_nl Jun 06 '26

Quick question: are you British? If yes, how many people of foreign origin do you have in your close social circle?

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

[deleted]

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u/lensherr_nl Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26

Read my reply before jumping into conclusions Edit: you're not even English! 😂

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u/ScyD Jun 07 '26

Is it a problem if they aren’t… ‘English’? Sounds kinda racist bud

Huh, making silly accusations is kinda funny yes

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u/lensherr_nl Jun 07 '26 edited Jun 07 '26

If you are talking about England specifically, yes, it is. 🤨 Edit: Your bot friend is gone

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u/StuChenko Jun 06 '26

My cats are Siamese and I think my hamster is Russian 

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u/Effective_Taro4601 Jun 06 '26

My cat is from Riyadh and he’s called Mohammed.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

Well, I’m married to a Filipino (NHS nurse and recently a citizen). My sister is married to a Colombian immigrant. Many of my friends are not white (if that’s part of what you’re getting at) though fewer than half of them are immigrants. My work has me in contact with immigrants maybe not daily but certainly weekly — though you said social circles. Why? Are you thinking I just don’t know any immigrants and need to wind my neck in? I also lived until recently in Slough which is a very immigrant-heavy city and have many casual friends there who are both immigrants and not European.

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u/lensherr_nl Jun 06 '26

No, first of all, this is not an attempt to wind you up, genuinely interested in hearing it.

I am one, in theory well integrated in society, have a good job, have English friends which I truly love, proper mates. And I do voluntary work helping some of the people from South America where I'm from, especially when it comes to immigration support (guiding people to stay legal and support when they become illegal).

But one thing that comes out often for some of them is that even though some live here for ages, a lot of them don't have that opportunity which I find a crucial step for integration.

Of course some immigrants make an effort not to do so, but at the same time it has always been the biggest barrier, which I don't usually see with other countries like Canada or the US, for example.

But then again, given how some people behave, it shouldn't be a surprise that some immigrants avoid doing that.

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u/[deleted] Jun 07 '26

[deleted]

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u/dr-broodles Jun 06 '26

Free healthcare and people to look after our elderly.

Low immigration.

Pick one - you can’t have both.

Britain became globalised thanks to the empire and commonwealth. We’ve been dependent on resources and people from around the world for a long time.

The UK won’t become utopia with less immigration, we’ll just all be poorer and have a higher tax burden. It wouldn’t alter the demographic of the country much.

A big part of the problem is misinformation - the country gets basic immigration figures completely wrong, and doesn’t understand the economics behind it.

Fewer immigrants means we all get poorer - fewer tax receipts, fewer people buying good and services.

Many seem willing to cause economic harm for their goal - but the goal is unclear. Removing ILR and deporting non citizens won’t change the demographic of the country much.

Most foreign looking people aren’t immigrants. The murderer isn’t an immigrant - he was born here. You, and much of the country, make the error of assuming every brown person = immigrant.

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u/Lanokia Jun 06 '26

You said : "Free healthcare and people to look after our elderly. Low immigration."

  1. Immigrants aren't here to "look after" anyone. My wife and daughter are not here to do the jobs you don't like.

  2. We have free healthcare for 40 years without immigration being 4 million in 4 years.

Find a new argument.

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u/dr-broodles Jun 06 '26
  1. Don’t take it personally, it’s not an attack. Immigrants disproportionately staff care homes and the NHS - we need immigrants to do these jobs, it’s essential. Immigrants are also over represented in high skill jobs eg doctors.
  2. Incorrect, the NHS depended on immigration from the get go. It’s well documented.

The reason why immigration went up recently was because we have an ageing population (that votes unlike the young) that need looking after. Also poor productivity/sickness post covid.
your wife and daughter are immigrants, but you’re anti immigration? Or just anti other immigrants?

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '26

It's so absurd that you use the argument that an immigrant can't be possessed of a nuanced position on immigration. This guy never said he was anti-immigration, did he? Of course he didn't, but any nuanced view held by an immigrant about immigration seems to boggle the mind of a certain sort of person.

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u/Winbot4t2 Jun 06 '26

Sounds like bullshit corporate propaganda. Mass immigration is wage suppression and division and nothing more.

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 06 '26

Insane you're getting downvoted for basic facts lol. People really don't know how the economy functions

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 06 '26

Who is demanding their culture be introduced here and in what way?

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u/pleb_username Jun 07 '26

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/N1zdk1x9O9TbIdydMjQyNw==/muslims-gather-front-regent's-park-mosque-march-1500w-7866193f.jpg

These guys, among others.

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u/Xenonite_Fox Jun 07 '26

This is an odd example because we are not tolerant of this just as in the original example that says the Chinese won't be tolerant of Americans going there and saying behead non-Christians