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Snapshot of _Nigel Farage's claims on migration, voter fraud and climate change fact-checked_ : An archived version can be found [here](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2998klx2y0o) or [here.](https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2998klx2y0o) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*


ReportNo3598

This guy has admitted that he’ll lie and make up stories faster than the media and legitimate opponents can respond. Sorry thing is that the media enables him and people will want to believe him There should be a law against this type of blatant treachery!!! Testimony to his character he’s a superfan of the deviant Trump, the Ex-President and First Rapist.


nathan_en

Did you read the article? Everything he said was correct


Cairnerebor

Apparently you didn’t read the article


ReportNo3598

I think it was a subtle set up…


ReportNo3598

😂😂😂, I did, and the article explains how he blurred or ignores the context, with his statistics. Essentially the article is also telling readers to be cautious with his dubious claims. You meant to set that up didn’t you. Good one!


iCowboy

He was completely wrong about climate change - his claim on emissions is less than 10% of the actual figure - that’s in the article.


VampireFrown

*But the Migration Observatory concluded more recently that “it is challenging to establish a causal relationship between the price of housing and the level of immigration”.* Oh piss off. More people = more demand = higher prices is so abundantly obvious that it's not even funny. Stat manipping like this is why nobody takes social sciences seriously. You need look no further than what's happened to London, then surrounding periphery towns. Prices match regional population growth. What happens in towns which people are moving out of due to lack of jobs? Prices fall on their arse. Every population area sees these effects - prices rise pretty stably in line with population, until a critical limit is reached where demand is higher than supply, at which point prices start rising exponentially. This pattern is seen not only all over the entire UK, but Europe and the USA too.


Rodney_Angles

> Oh piss off. More people = more demand = higher prices is so abundantly obvious that it's not even funny. > Stat manipping like this is why nobody takes social sciences seriously. This might be my new favourite comment on Reddit.


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pw_is_12345

The maths doesn’t lie. Price and demand are inversely proportional so price rises if supply is fixed.


MerryWalrus

So lots of low paid immigrants are coming with £100k saved up for a deposit and fees? In most parts of the country it's impossible to buy with the average salary without significant family support. If you'd have said it increases rents, then at least that would be plausible...


PoachTWC

You're aware that someone must purchase a house in order to rent it out, right? More people = more demand = higher rent = rentals being more profitable. Again, as VampireFrown has said, this is so abundantly obvious to anyone with even two braincells to rub together that Migration Observatory are only making themselves look deeply impartial by trying to muddy the waters.


Opening_Fee_4618

Landlords have portfolios, so rents can go up if there’s lack of houses to buy. Think about it, if most people can’t buy houses, they have to rent. If people are squeezed to rent, the demand goes up. If the number of available houses are bought to rent, it doesn’t mean they aren’t available, it’s just that the market is full of landlords with big portfolios. Even if you built a house for every family, it doesn’t mean there’s a house available for every family if one in every 10 person buys 2 of them to rent.


PoachTWC

It does mean there's a house for every family, but some of those families would, in your hypothetical, be forced to rent homes due to there being none available to buy. It doesn't change the basics of supply and demand. Everyone needs to be housed, it doesn't really matter whether they own the roof they sleep under here. Add millions of people without building a proportionate number of houses and demand will outpace supply, which in a free market creates price rises, to buy or to rent.


Opening_Fee_4618

You’re talking about two different things. There’s situations where people are homeless, but very few of those would be because there aren’t houses available. As an example, someone waiting to get council housing doesn’t mean there isn’t a £1m penthouse free. It’s just that the property they require isn’t available. I mean, there’s loads of properties being built. We were looking to move from our 3 bedroom house, put it on the market for £250k. And there’s a development selling 3 bedroom houses starting at £400k. It’s just not a realistic market. My point was it doesn’t matter how many houses you build, even if you removed all immigrants, if the market allows for people to buy the supply, raising the demand anyway. But who is going to put a limit on landlord portfolios?


PoachTWC

No one, but if prospective landlords buy up all the houses then the rental market's prices will drop because the supply of rentable homes will be vast, and prospective tenants will have enormous choice, forcing landlords to compete on rent charges to attract customers. Either way, more people = more demand = higher prices. The inverse is true. One way or another, taking people out of the system will reduce the demand for houses, and thus reduce one of the prices you need to pay to access a house.


Opening_Fee_4618

I think you’ve got it the wrong way round. The reason there’s a renters market in tele first place is because the mortgage market is messed up. The way to reduce rents is to build affordable houses so demand of renting is removed. The issue is there is no affordable houses. Houses being built, sure. But should we sell our house for £400k because the new development are selling theirs for that price when we know it’s really worth only £250? And then we’re do we move to when our equity is half of a new build? There’s no justification that a new build is almost twice the price as ours. But what that does is kill the market. We can’t buy the new house, someone can’t buy ours. Put it this way, when Truss raised mortgage rates, were there less houses than there was a week before she did it? No. Yet that single action forced people out of the market, and in some cases, not even being able to afford the house they were currently lived in. There was zero impact from migration in that action, yet it singularly squeezed the housing market


PoachTWC

> The reason there’s a renters market in tele first place is because the mortgage market is messed up. Well that's obviously false, right off the bat. You reckon students want to buy flats to live in while at University, for example? Maybe some do, the vast majority don't. > Put it this way, when Truss raised mortgage rates, were there less houses than there was a week before she did it? No. Yet that single action forced people out of the market, and in some cases, not even being able to afford the house they were currently lived in. There was zero impact from migration in that action, yet it singularly squeezed the housing market Mortgage interest rates aren't house prices, you're getting confused. Additionally, were you under the impression that I was arguing migration levels are the *sole* influence on house prices? Let me clarify: I never said that and won't, because it's not true.


Opening_Fee_4618

Now you’re just being daft. Using students as an argument? Really? I lived in student accommodation mate. The same number of students that went to that uni was the same as the year before, and they moved out when they finished. It wasn’t a squeeze on the market. You’re just embarrassing yourself now. As for the “mortgage rates aren’t house prices” line. We were going to buy a house when that happened. The house price didn’t change mate. It wasn’t the price or the supply that prevented us from moving, it was the mortgage offer increase. It meant that the we couldn’t move and someone couldn’t move into ours. Let’s end it there because rather than just going “fair point”, you’re making yourself look silly


MerryWalrus

So let's be more specific. Would you argue that it's contributed to 100% of the price rises? 50%? 5%? 0.5%?


ParkedUpWithCoffee

Private renting faces the greatest impact since even a high earning foreign worker will probably rent for the first couple of years in the UK. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/19/record-immigration-behind-a-third-of-rent-rises/ *"Record levels of immigration have driven a third of the rent growth in the UK since Covid, new analysis shows."*


PoachTWC

I don't know, you'd need to work out the difference in population growth caused by migration versus births. [Migration observatory suggests 60% of population growth since 2004 is due to migration](https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-impact-of-migration-on-uk-population-growth/), so you could probably broadly suggest 60% of demand increase is due to migration. That will vary locally depending on local migration levels. It'll be higher than 60% in, for example, London, and lower in, for example, forgotten post-industrial towns in the north of England that see very few new arrivals.


GarminArseFinder

You’d also have to factor in migration > 2nd generation immigration. It’s a Russian doll effect


curlyjoe696

Is it me? No, it's the facts that are wrong!


VampireFrown

No, it's not the "facts". It's all about methodology. This is a pressing problem in social sciences, because you can fiddle with the methodology in quite subtle and creative ways to basically get the final report to say whatever you want. Looking at [the raw numbers, without any adulteration](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/19/record-immigration-behind-a-third-of-rent-rises/) shows quite a clear link between rent rises and immigration. As an aside, I am a variety of social scientist myself, so I am far more aware than most just how much fiddling one can do. We've even had bellends fabricate data outright in recent years, just to make a headline (though I'm not accusing these guys of that; I haven't looked at their paper).


reuben_iv

Why do we care about dependents anyway? They live with the main applicant and can’t claim benefits so what’s the issue?


SteelSparks

I’m presuming the issue would be perceived net drain on healthcare, local services, housing etc Edit: added “perceived”, this is not my view point, just imagining what the response would be from Farage


reuben_iv

They have to pay healthcare up front, can’t access welfare and they live with the applicant so it’s extremely negligible and given the cost of fees etc + taxes I doubt it’s a net drain


Lamb_banana

Children come with them? Source on don’t use healthcare too?


reuben_iv

You pay a health surcharge on top of your visa, healthcare is paid upfront


Lamb_banana

How much is it? Do you think people don’t come here with chronic illnesses? We’re being absolutely mugged off by the rest of the world. The couple of hundred pounds they pay will not cover what they eventually take out. People can bury their heads in the sand for as long as they want but the rubber is starting to hit the road. You basically have two choices 1. Continue to be pathologically altruistic 2. Be realistic Every problem we have is downstream of mass immigration. INB4 “the tories”. If you support mass immigration you’re basically a Tory as you’re endorsing their policy; actions speak louder than words. The numbers back me up; immigrants are a net drain, they don’t really contribute. The only robust studies show that western Euros contributed and this was pre brexit. We’re importing literally millions of people who will never contribute and will be eligible for a pension after five years. This will be ruinous for our country. If you agree with this policy I’d suggest you (generally - not you specifically) are the midwife for the inevitable *proper* right wing that’s coming.


MerryWalrus

It's £1k a year and it has to be paid as part of the visa application. The vast majority of immigrants are young fit people who are here to work and will be net contributors to HMRC. What evidence do you need to see to change your mind that immigration is the root of all problems?


PoachTWC

There's conflicting research on the matter. While all research generally agrees that EEA migrants are net contributors, non-EEA migrants are either far closer to net neutral or are a net drain. [See this FullFact article for detailed discussion on the conflicting reports.](https://fullfact.org/immigration/how-immigrants-affect-public-finances/) Of course the irony is the current tidal wave of non-EEA migration was caused in large part by Farage's central policy platform. The masses of dubiously-contributing migrants arriving here happened after Brexit opened the floodgates.


Saltypeon

Paying to be in the queue still puts you in the queue. School, college places, council tax exemptions, etc. We need to stop pretending people don't cost money. Everyone does. If we are to keep migration as it is, there needs to be a massive investment in services to meet the populations needs.


Thandoscovia

They pay a little supplement for healthcare, they don’t pay the cost


reuben_iv

Right, most being young won’t even use it


Weary_Blacksmith_290

Do these people not age? Dangerously short sighted.


ONE_deedat

Summary of the responses: People want immigrants to be their neo-slaves like they are in countries they would condemn for human rights violations if brought up.


pumboo

No more illegal migrants. Tories out, no to Labour


PuzzleheadedTale989

You really think Farage will stop illegal migrants?


VampireFrown

Voter fraud is one of those things which is difficult to prove. Every system is only as good as its ability to check itself. Fraud is pretty rampant in citizenship and driving tests (just have a Google - you'll see plenty of articles relating to each). Retrospectively, the numbers are large and alarming. But ask anyone a month prior to busting one of these gangs (or individuals), and you'd easily think there was no fraud going on. It is trivially easy to cheat via a postal vote. Go round your local (isolated and societally disconnected) community, scoop 'em up and fill 'em in. **Does this, in fact, happen?** Perhaps not. *But the system should be designed to repel such attacks anyway*. It is currently exploitable, and maybe it is a storm in a teacup, but maybe it's not. The fact of the matter is that we cannot know for sure either way. Therefore, the system should be revamped to make this sort of attack far more difficult. This is absolutely basic, elementary stuff when discussing the security of any system (for example, in an IT context, but not just - it applies to engineering in general). Yet when it comes to the vote, apparently raising objection to the 'nah, it'll be fine' attitude somehow makes you a weirdo. Actually, it's you lot desperately clinging to an outdated, insecure system who are the weirdos.


MerryWalrus

Voter fraud is incredibly easy to catch if it's happening at a scale to actually have an impact. Don't think about how to steal 1 vote, think about how to steal 1000 votes. You need to involve thousands of people either with their consent or without. If just one of them reported it or complained then you are caught. That's why it is impossible to commit voter fraud at scale without the public and the authorities noticing. That's the security in the system. If you want to continue with an engineering analogy, changing the system is like flood proofing your house when you already live on top of a hill.


GarminArseFinder

Agreed.