First off I am aiming for a civil discussion and to gauge opinions on legal immigration (I am not discussing asylum/small boats) without stepping out of Rule 12 of this subreddit. I am writing from a place of respect to all people. In this post I will lay out my position and the policies I stand behind. I would like to hear whether people broadly agree or disagree with the policies and for what reason.

Context:

I believe immigration to the UK has been too high since New Labour. What do I mean by too high? I believe certain cultures (I am not referring to race or ethnicity, I specifically mean people's culture and beliefs) do not gel well with the UK system or traditions. To avoid speculation about my motives, I do include in this (amongst other cultures) many forms of Islam which I personally find to be too socially conservative with respect to gay people and anti the Western liberal notion of women's rights, with a culture of punishment for leaving the religion all of which run contrary to the majority views in this country. I also subscribe to the belief that too much immigration too fast leads to silos of communities not integrating i.e. not learning or caring about the local culture, beliefs and traditions. Lastly I agree with the principle that too much net migration, done too fast, puts pressure on critical infrastructure, schools, hospitals, housing etc. which is typically slower to be updated to the needs of the new arrivals.

I also accept the benefits of immigration, in terms of introducing new ideas, cuisines, talents, music, great people etc.. However I do believe the influx since the late 90's has been too high and is changing the culture and quality of life of the UK for the worse, as we lose our sense of self and history and rapidly become a hodgepodge of cultures from elsewhere with no sense that people will become integrated over time. This will ultimately make us a worse more Balkanised country, as partly it was the incredible culture we had that made us an attractive country to begin with.

I think the mood in the country is moving this way but because the major parties (Labour/Tories) have not ever seriously addressed these concerns (until recently) and have certainly never acted to reduce immigration, they are ceding ground to Reform - a party that has no real plans other than to get in power and would be bad for the UK governance as a whole.

People often point to our low birthrate - I do not accept that this necessitates that immigration has to be the only way to pick up the shortfall. That argument also implies that we will forever have to take on more and more immigration which is unsustainable and exacerbates the other issues I mentioned. Instead other ways of encouraging people to start larger families or simply accept the strain of an older generation may be preferable.

So what are the political solutions to lowering immigration. To be concrete the below are the policies I see no issue with and welcome you to critique, refine or attack. I believe if a party were to suggest some form of these policies they would do very well in an election but am curious what you think.

Policies

•⁠ ⁠Increase years before eligible for citizenship e.g. from the current 5 years to say 10 - 12 years. Exact number can be debated.

•⁠ ⁠⁠Implement quotas on work visas and citizenship track visas based on nation of origin e.g. A maximum of X people from these group of countries that we want fewer people from. A higher maximum from countries we feel broadly match the culture of the UK. I would preference socially liberal democracies and reduce numbers from theocratic illiberal dictatorships. This would be a transparent list of nations and quotas published by the government.

•⁠ ⁠⁠Overall quotas for migration. i.e. in this year we will accept no more than X citizenship track visas.

•⁠ ⁠⁠Increase earnings threshold for work visas

•⁠ ⁠⁠Quotas on work visas by job sector

To be clear, I do not support the following:

•⁠ ⁠⁠Mass stripping of citizenship on the basis of race, religion, country of birth

•⁠ ⁠⁠Deportation of first generation British citizens to their country of origin.

What do you think? Could you get behind the policies in the first list?

Many thanks and look forward to an open and respectful discussion.