Leaving the EU: The Sovereignty Delusion

If any of that were true there would be no immigration. The last paragraph is a lie, the Brexit campaign wanted immigration in a measured way, not the "let them all in" policy that had been the norm.

Quite right.

It doesn't matter what the UK meant.
What matters is how immigrants heard it.
How they saw posters, headlines, heard discussions on line, the jokes against immigrants, the talk that the UK doesn't need them.
So like anyone else they went where they could find work without going through all the time and paperwork they now had to, and where they were appreciated.
The results are clear. Those who migrated to the UK to work had no ill intentions. They were a benefit. Now the sovereignty the UK wanted has shown that its processes can't cope. The idea that the Home Office, so long a failing department, could replace thousands of honest workers who had the freedom to keep the NHS afloat, by imposing extra paperwork, waits, beaurocracy and other barriers , was another dream. Meanwhile the sovereignty Brexit promised is being made to look silly by Albanians , some of the poorest least well educated people, because to them the pound is still worth something at home.

Legal or illegal immigration?

This thread is about EU migration and the effect the idea of sovereignty has had, and right now in the conversation, in immigration.
Not from the whole world although immigration from the ROW has not quite gone back to pré covid levels.


"One thing that emerges consistently across data sources is that EU citizens made up a declining share of immigration and net migration after the referendum (Figure 3, Measure: Percentages). Although policy towards EU citizens did not change until January 2021, EU net migration began to fall substantially immediately after the referendum. Possible explanations for this decline include the economic recovery in southern European countries following the Eurozone crisis; the decline in the value of the pound after the referendum, which made work in the UK less attractive; and uncertainty about the political climate. The decline in the EU share also resulted from rising non-EU migration during the same period (discussed in the next section)."

The Migration observatory July 2022.

The nursing profession itself has made it clear that the loss of EU staff from the NHS has been critical. It is what has fuelled the first threat of a strike in many years.

I dont think discussing immigration from elsewhere belongs in a thread about leaving the EU with sovereignty as the specific issue.
If the UK really had more migrants where they were needed via the points system, the NHS wouldn't be in such a state.

EU migrants were given a chance to make a case to remain, thousands did so and thousands still work in Britain and there are plenty running businesses. In the hospital I recently attended it was like walking around the UN parliament building, my surgeon was Hungarian as were as was my physio and out of nearly 40 consultants only eight have English names........at the risk of going off your topic, there were a number of consultants and other staff from across the world.

So the NHS is telling tales and pay, which was going to go up because of shortage of staff post Brexit, isn't really an issue.
That the NHS has manufactured the long waiting lists and cancellations of non emergency operations.
Who would have thought that instead of 350,000 pounds per, was it a month, is now the first NHS strike in many years.
What has Brexit done to help the NHS?