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One of the papers outlined a real world example. A UK PhD student met a partner from Australia. The PhD student's stipend exceeded the £18,600 requirement. Their partner came to the UK on the partner visa and found a job paying £26,000 a year. All fine. However when the renewal comes up in January 2025, they will not be eligable for renwal. The rules disregard university stipends if there is less than 12 months left. So the only income considered will be her Australian partner's income. So her partner will have to return to Auastralia. After a PhD, one embarks on a postdoctoral career. Postdoc positions in the UK won't pay more than £36k for the first 3 years or so. Which is below the threshold for her partner to obtain another visa. With a PhD, the UK person is in high demand around the world, so will likely leave the UK, probably for Australia, where she is probably on a list of occupations in high demand, and will be welcomed. PhDs, unlike undergraduate degrees, are entirely funded by the State, to the tune of £60,000 in stipends t the student, but at least that again in fees to the university. On top of that, many PhDs in the applied subjects, may attract additional UK industry funding. The net result is an enormous financial loss to the UK, in order to rid an economically inactive immigrant.

The wording is "may be exempt". If you have medical qualifications, you will certainly be exempt, because you will likely have a tier 2 visa anyhow. You need to work for or be "engaged by" the following organisations: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigration-health-surcharge-applying-for-a-refund/immigration-health-surcharge-guidance-for-reimbursement-2020#annex Nothing in the private healthcare sector is listed. Notably, you are not eligable if "you will not be eligible if you were unemployed or had unpaid leave for more than 28 days during the last 6 months". Contractors, in general, are entitled to leave, but not paid leave". An agency nurse might not get exemption is they don't have sufficient hours with the NHS, and end up with Spire, Nuffield etc. Which is ironic, because the private health sector in the UK has been effectively nationalised since COVID. The NHS contracts the private sector for beds and operating theatres, and then will do NHS referrals, and are billed at the NHS rate. The surgeons are salaried by both the NHS and private sector. The theatre nurses not.

One would not argue against removal of "illegals". Nothing in the recent policy announcements will significantly address that. The only impact will be the reduction in legal immigration. Illegals, by definition, are not a drag on the state until they become discovered, then their status changes. Illegals get zero state benefits. A refugee might, but some consider that all refugees are illegal. Actually some of the plans suggested might make things worse. It might make things worse if a place where you have your favourite country walk is suddenly a fenced camp with watchtowers (the former Home Secretary is calling for that). Or if parts of the country become new transit centres for the fleets of ex-Thai A380s to load up enroute for Africa. Or, as part of the deal, Britain now starts receiving A380s full of refugees from Rwanda, without a cap. Some suggestions are that each illegal removed will cost the UK taxpayer £1 million. So we are looking at costs of £80bn a year, although, these costs might decline, if, as you suppose, this becomes a deterrance to anyone on the other side of the world who is a regular Telegraph reader (how does someone like that even know of changes in UK policy).

A little remembered fact; passports, in the modern sense, were issued in WW1 to give permission to people to leave the country. Passports weren't given to people who might been considered vital to the war effort, eg scientists, engineers.

Some might be. There is a significant minority of Muslims from the Crimea region. In addition, Hong Kong people aren't all Chinese. There are significant numbers of people who are Indian and Malay diaspore. It was an issue during the handover to China, as many became Stateless, since Chinese citizenship is based on ethnicity. It shouldn't make any difference what one's faith is or is not.

Yes, I qualified in 1995. Yeah, and for a while, during the GWOT, I was working with special forces, and now I work with merchant bankers. I didn't call you a knuckle dragger. At the last GE, my vote went the same way as those Red Wall Knuckle Draggers. So you are not a professional, when you referred to "Lefty Liberal types". The government is falling apart with the latest revelations about the hudden payments for Rwanda. They could have made more targetted efforts to address immigrants, such as putting a cap on student visas (can't do that, as they bring in money, in the form of overseas students fees, which effectively subsidises the UK R&D sector, important, as we now have less access to EU structural funds), or increasing the salary to beyond £40-50k (can't do that as many London-based financial firms are dependant on sponsorship of overseas IT professionals). So they looked at the soft targets, which usefully appeals to an element of their base. The risk is they might alienate their real core, the centre, and find themselves in the same place as the GOP. Everyone wants to stop the boats. The policies announced will not affect that, except through generating more revenue to pay the black shirted border force. The way to do that is not to militarise the British coastline (you can put all the financial penalties, concentration camps etc in place, people will still try), ie close the beaches, traps out at sea. The sensible way, the true conservative way, is to address the source, and possibly practice some old fashioned imperialism. The Pound goes much further outside the UK, than in. Internal security merely increases the number of contractors on £1000 a day. The reasons why refugees are suddenly (figuratively) washing up in the UK s not because suddenly Britain has become a much nicer place to live (its not). But suddenly, there are parts of the world which have become much much worse places to live. Some of that is climate driven; we've been warning the world for the last 40 years that changing climate in subsaharan Africa will drive migration northwards, for the same reason our ancestors left Africa in the first place. We've sent quarter of a billion pounds to Rwanda, with another £50m to come, with nothing to show for it. And the agreement allows Rwanda to send refugees to the UK, with no ceiling. You think those Red Wall voters know about that? On top of that are man-made stresses, though some of those are related to climate change causing societal stress (weak governance etc). History is somewhat of a continuum of inter-related events. Many events now can be traced back to the 2008 crash. The 2008 crash causes can be pointed to events 20-30 years earlier etc.

Thailand is home to 1 million illegal immigrants, mostly Burmese. Or maybe its 500,000 or 5 million. They have no idea.

Actually, under current rule, she will. Its called the NHS surcharge, £1000 a year 53% of the British population take out more from the system that give. Some of those I would charitably call feckless, and mostly not immigrants. Here's another scenario to get your lips around Harry considers himself a Brit, he has the tats to prove, He had his Ancestry.com DNA done, and it tells him he's 10% Gypsy, which makes him part Indian, but he ignores that as it must be a mistake, as he's pure English. He's quite clever. Did 6th Form and all. He then got a job on the rigs, and spends the next 40 years grafting in hell holes like Saudi, Nigeria, Iran, before they went bad. Earnt danger money in Iraq. Spent a bit of time in Thailand and other places, bird in each port. Even gets married to one. He hits 65, has a bit of a cough from smoking all those fags. An Arab doctor tells him he's got lung cancer. Spends a wedge on alternative therapies. Nothing works. So he goes back to Ingerland, and buys a caravan to live in. 2 weeks later he's admitted to the NHS. They will happily treat him as he has a UK address, and he has a fighting chance. How much has he contributed to the NHS? 2 years NI credits from when he was in 6th Form. Some would call him a parasite

So 50 year old Thai ladies are getting pregnant?? No the reason why the law abiding groups are targeted is because they handily self deport, zero cost to the government, targets met for their knuckle dragging red wall voters. Immigration is basically a huge problem for racists. UK birth rates have consistantly declined for 50 years. 2022 saw a 3% decline in live births compared to 2021. We are living longer, but that extended life is more years in poor health. Global rates are tumbling. Its not a huge problem as you surmise, and I have a strong grasp of numbers as a Doctor. On average, a woman gives birth now to 1-2 babies in a lifetime. 30,000 wives, assuming all are of child bearing age, will produce 47000 children, not the 180,000. You might know compound interest, but you are clueless about biology. An extreme consequence of a declined birthrate, which you want, is Communist China. The 1-child policy is expected to result in the Chinese poulation going into permanent decline. That means that GDP will decline, as there are less workers, infrastructure will crumble as there are less workers etc. But that's the future you might want for the UK.

Given your definition differs from the dictionary definition, how was anybody supposed to know that? If colour has nothng to do with your thinking, why did you even use the word? Boris Johnson; not born in the UK, so is he an immigrant? Foreign wives are only coming to the UK because of money? Apparently not, because before they were only coming to face living on 18k a year.

Much cheaper that some other parts of Europe. Anyhow, is it any of your business whether the proverbial Abdul buys Lidl or Heinz baked beans. £25k is more than enough to live in the UK. According to the government's own reasoning, you only need £18,600 as a couple to live. The Home Secretary's reasoning is important, because at some point he and his department will be really scrutinized in some expensive case as to how on earth can they justify their numbers. In reality, he is conflating wives with immigrant workers, and getting mixed up in his own rhetoric, and he's hardly brain of Britain given his distinct lack of legal training while in the job of being in charge of, essentially, the police. I surmise that his department will respond along the lines of he needs a number that will reduce foreign wives by 95%, and we responded to the boss. The department has released their modeling data, and indicates that they expect this to reduce family visas by tens of thousands each year. There are only 30,000 partner visas granted a year.

Indeed. The original principle wasn't about whether a couple could live comfortably on £18,600 but whether they would have any recourse to public funds. The major objection from the anti-immigrant lobby is cost and resources; immigrants cost too much and demand too much. If immigrants are neither, whats the remaining objection? We're circling around an elephant in the room.

Thats not the reasoning given by the Home Secretary.

What's an "indigenous retiree". The dictionary would define indigenous peoples as the earliest known inhabitants of an area and their descendants. Which for the British Isles basically means Celts, because the Anglo-Saxons are basically descendants of invaders (the name is the hint). But maybe you include descendants of Celts, Picts, Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, descendants of Spanish and Portuguese jews who form part of the oldest Jewish community in the UK, perhaps you include the Hugenots (French Protestants), Russian Jews and other people who settled in the UK. Will you include the descendants of the 200,000 Poles who settled in the UK during the 40s and 50s. Are you including Irish people who came to the UK after 1921? The Wind Rush generation. People from India and Pakistan who arrived in the 1950s, 60s, 70s. Does "indigenous" include only those who were British Citizens when born, or are you including those who were considered British Subjects when born? Consider Abdul. He was born in 1947, in Lahore. He joined his father in 1957. His father, Imran, came a few year earlier. and got a job as a bus driver, because Britain was short of drivers post WW2. Abdul was born a British subject, and became a British citizen. He eventually married in the UK, maybe his parents had a hand in deciding who he should marry. They never had children. His wife passed away in 2020, after 50 years of marriage. Abdul pines for her and he doesn't want to die alone. His childhood sweetheart in Lahore is also a widow. They want to marry, and spend their remaining days together. He has a modest pension of £25,000; a combination of a full State Pension, and a small company pension from his days working at the factory. Its enough. He doesn't have many needs. His house is brought and paid for, and he doesn't drive. His wife to be has no assets to speak of. She can't come to the UK, and there is no prospect of her gaining employment here. Is he an "indigenous retiree"? Or should he go back to Lahore?

Maybe not from across the channel https://order-order.com/2023/12/05/sunaks-rwanda-plan-small-print-includes-uk-accepting-rwandan-refugees/

That's not what the decision said. I don't disagree with a requirement for a minimum income. I disagree with your understanding of a Dutch case from 2007, and I disagree with your belief that this is the end of the matter, and I disagree with your attempts to shut down debate through strawman argument. No doubt you have considered in detail the remarks of a British judge, Justice Blake, President of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, on a specific related matter, and understand that there is a range of opinion of judges, and its not cut and dry as you suppose and try to present. Of course, as you are aware, his judgment was struck down by Lord Justice Aikens with the following remarks The Home Secretary's reasoning for the new limit appears irrational (using an income level that is used to protect British jobs, not to provide a certain level of lifestyle), unjust (its not morally right to threaten people legally in the country with deportation because their partner can't get a payrise) and is unfair (unfair to pensioners for a start). The government will claim its about protecting British jobs and British society, but this detail reveals that they also don't want foreigners in the UK (by targeting wives) by imposing punitive income requirements. It doesn't affect me, as I am very financially comfortable, but I see the policy for what it is.

The recommendation for £18,600 was made in 2011 by MAC, based on an analysis of housing benefits and tax credits. It had not been increased, as you iply, from some lower number to £18,600 by 2017. There was in fact some judicial challenges to it. If you believe in principles, then the same principle used in 2012 should be used in 2023; the threshold for access to benefits. The government is not particularly concerned in British man and Thai wife living a nice life in the UK, they are only concerned if they are a burden to the State. If you earn more than £18,600, and are in good health and no children, you are not a burden to the State. The Home Secretary has literally set the new threshold based on the income of certain specific jobs. If your job isn't on this list, its unlikely you can bring a foreign wife home https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations/skilled-worker-visa-eligible-occupations-and-codes Unskilled occupations might include working in a pub, working on an assembly line, sailors, porters, janitors, caretakers, book keepers, taxi drivers, fork lift operators. Basically, the Home Secretary seems to think that if you are in one of these sort of jobs, unless you put your wife on the game, getting married will probably leave you destitute. How can anyone outside of Stockton even exist of £38,600?? His brain probably boggles. No its some fiugure he's asked a SPaD to come up with so he can close the door on those no good foreign wives, who will probably self deport themselves, plus those young postgrads employed by various London City finance firms on £28k a year. Easy wins. The higher the threshold the larger the pool of people who are more likely to be compliant and cheap to deal with.

Home Secretary May accepted the advice of the Migration Advisory Committee in 2012, which set the £18,600 threshold based on benefits limits https://www.gov.uk/government/news/radical-immigration-changes-to-reform-family-visas MAC suggested upto £25,700, to cover all costs of public services such as healthcare. The government went for the lower and the NHS surcharge; https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/reports/the-minimum-income-requirement-for-non-eea-family-members-in-the-uk-2/ In 2023, the threshold for benefits has not increased to £38,700. In fact, its not changed at all. If they used inflation, it would have been about £25,000. https://www.gov.uk/working-tax-credit The government has literally moved the goalposts. The previous principle has been tossed out in favor of an income threshold that is quite a comfortable level. But this is a Home Secretary who doesn't have much concept of what ordinary people earn or live like, given his foul mouthed description of Stockton.

The salary requirements do not bear scrutiny when looking at the logic. The previous £18,600 was based on the threshold that most couples would face if applying for any income-related benefit. Completely logical if the applying couple is told that they must be able to support themselves. The threshold seems to have hardly changed. The Home Secretary (using all the powers of his Hospitality degree he earnt from the local tech college) is now using the median salary of a skilled professional as the threshold for being about to support one self. A lot of skilled professionals earn below this. Some have speculated on the savings threshold, which seems to be generating ludicrous sums. And any spouse on such a visa is already forbidden from accessing any benefits. Home Office modeling apparently indicates this will knock a few tens of thousands of family related visa application. It appears this will all be eliminate spousal visa applications, which would be counted as a success, given currently about 30,000 are awarded each year (90% approval rate). Write to your MP, as I will. Mine will basically do my bidding, as I take a very logical and factual approach with him, which has born fruit, such as getting me in contact with ministers, and actually raising questions on my behalf in the House. I'm lucky as he is one of these very Brexity type MPs, but old school tory, rather than a thug in a suit. He's lost my vote though, but its nothing personal, and he'll be ok as he has the family firm to fall back on. I suspect the HoL will kill this. But the government will invoke the Parliament Act, and manufacture some constitutional crisis, and force a confidence vote or a General Election based around a single issue. Based on his previous role, I don't think Cleverly has the appetite to fight this in the courts. He's more worried about keeping his seat.

If he has a frozen state pension, he has already contributed to British Society through payment of National Insurance.

The Dutch case your refer to concerned a Serbian national within the Roma community. The Judges reference to the Dutch minimum income (which I think was then about 9000 Euros, now it is 21,000 Euros) referred to the quite modest Dutch requirement. https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/4667da4a2.pdf The response might have been different is the Dutch government had much higher income requirements. The Home Secretary said https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2023-12-04/debates/921A08A2-F615-48F2-8C56-423A29556F9F/LegalMigration The £38,700 requirement is based on the median salary for a skilled professional in the UK. ie. An unskilled worker will not be permitted to marry a non-UK citizen outside of the UK. In 2014, there were various court cases disputing the £18,600 threshold. These cases were lost because the government was judged to have acted lawfully. The appellants had argued that the threshold should have been £13,400, the national minimum income. The judges at the time noted " not up to the court to impose its own view on what the minimum income threshold should be, unless it was irrational, unjust or unfair." https://www.theguardian.com/law/2014/jul/11/appeal-court-18600-foreign-spouse-uk Its been noted that the £18,600 hasn't changed for a decade, so it is timely for it to be adjusted. Adjusted for inflation, according to the BoE, it should be £25,560. The original £18,600 came at the suggestion of the Migration Advisory Committee Notably, Theresa May opted for the lower amount, and it was based on a reasonable logic. Looking at benefits thresholds now, this does not appear to have changes; a couple with one working, less than £5000 in savings, own house, no children, are not entitled to benefits if their income is over £19,000. The proposed new threshold appears irrational (they have changed the criteria from being based on access to benefits to something based on qualifications), unjust (the Home Secretary appears to have no idea about inflation given he referenced the lower amount and the year, as if that justified his decision) and unfair (the was the minister who a few weeks ago called Stockton a "sh*t hole", it seems that to him , a salary of £36,800 is unfathomably low, and how can one survive on less than that). Notably, its now emerging that Downing Street had a more moderate package, and its Jenrick and the back benchers (Braverman, Patel) who pushed for this. Home Office models suggest it expects family visa applications to be reduced by "tens of thousands". https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/04/five-point-plan-to-cut-uk-immigration-raises-fears-of-more-nhs-staff-shortages Hom Office data on family visas https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/immigration-statistics-year-ending-september-2022/why-do-people-come-to-the-uk-for-family-reasons So ~38,500 partner/dependant visas. It looks like the Home Office is expecting this result in the virtual elimination of spousal visa applications, if "tens of thousands" are knocked off this. Moreover, the government is unclear if the new threshold will extend to renewals. It will likely lead to deportations of people who cannot meet the combined income threshold, because apparently they knew all along they needed to double their income in 2.5 years https://www.ft.com/content/44667d25-13ab-4d20-bc67-b5ac414c1dc2 Confused response from a department who can't get their story straight. These aren't numbers carefully worked out, and determined to be equitable and fair. But numbers on the back of the proverbial f*g packet by a SpAD to get a model to fit backbencher demands. This might well end up in court and a government told to properly justify their numbers besides "2012 was a while ago, innit". Some sample salaries of common occupations Train Guard; £28k Finance Manager in Harrow; £30k Plumber: £35k Events Coordinator: £30k Water hygiene Tech (Legionella control): £25k Service Manager, Social Care: £30k Marketing Executive £30k HR Manager: £36k School Admissions Officer: £22,000 Production Engineer, electronics upto £32k Land and Highway Drainage Inspector: £29k Project Support Officer, House of Commons: £32k A lot of people in regular jobs might have to pu on hold for a few years any hope of a family in the UK, in case they are deported for choosing to not take a baby to day care. ,

For the moment. Does exemption extend to nursing agencies? ie a lot of people working in hospitals are contractors.

Also around 100,000 jobs are seasonal. Seasonal jobs have always been around and since at least the 1940s, have been mainly by foreigners. Poles weere the biggest group of seasonal workers in the 40s and 50s. They were mainly agricultural students from behind the Iron Curtain, and working on farms was considered valuable experience. Crops need to be picked or they rot. Hence Indonesians are being recruited now to go fruit picking for a few weeks in Scotland. Not many will want 6 weeks of hard hard work living in an old caravan. This is also why Thai people found themselves under attack in Israel; they are employed as seasonal farm workers, because there aren't enough Israelis who can go pick oranges etc for a few weeks. I don't think the politicians proposing the policies actually believe it themselves, given their own backgrounds. Its literally a policy generated to appeal to voters, to create clear water from Labour. A policy can be cruel but effective. But also a policy can be cruel and ineffective.

My wife discovered there is a limit to how many times you can change your name. When she first married a Thai man, he didn't like her first name, and changed it to something he liked. Then they divorced (he; adultery). She went to a monk and picked out a name to change her luck and reverted to this and her maiden name for her ID. She then traveled to Korea on her passport, with her married name, and didn't get far. She went to update her passport (in reality, getting a new passport, you cannot update a biometric passport). Then she had problems. Changing her married first name and surname to the name on her ID card was a name change that wasn't allowed. So she reverted to her previous first married name and maiden name on her ID card. Then we married, and she updated her ID card. Then was able to get a passport that matched. She doesn't have a birth certificate, so I am not sure what will happen if it came to that. I told her not to throw away her old passport. We might need that. I still call her by her Monk's name though.

Some good points. The MIG for over 25s is about £8000. Apparently its judged someone can live on that. So where does the £36k number come from. There is a conflation. Increased salary requirements are used to essentially protect certain job classes; effectively any job requiring a first degree or below is protected. Its nothing to do with trying to protect immigrants from the travails of low paid work. Low paid work will still exist, its just that it won't be done by immigrants. Is that really a vote winner; some getting the chance to clean toilets or empty bins? But the logic is flawed when extending that to the income requirements of sponsors, because thats supposed to be about protecting people from poverty through the hand of the State. Not very conservative really which is about personal responsibility, initiative etc. Which is why its muddled; its appealing to Red Wall voters who are used to the State telling them what to do and how to live.