**Alternate Sources** Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story: * [Family visa rules change to face High Court legal challenge](https://standard.co.uk/news/politics/high-court-government-home-secretary-home-office-b1162665.html), suggested by tyw7 - standard.co.uk

Having an income requirement to ensure that people entering the country are able to fully support themselves is common sense policy. It prevents the exploitation of our overwhelmingly generous state from worsening beyond the point where it already is and is a practise adopted by just about every serious country in the world. Yet, there are endless numbers of these charities whose sole goal seems to be ensuring that immigration remains lower skilled and at completely unsustainable levels. Whether it is blocking the deportation of illegals, bogging down the courts with endless appeals, protesting against the most basic of immigration control... Who the hell is funding these people?

On the one hand, immigration should be in control of the country. Raising the income requirement is an obvious way to reduce it when you want to reduce it, I don't really have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is marriage-related immigration. I think that should always be whatever the full time minimum wage is, which is what it essentially is currently. They wanted to raise it £38,700. Essentially that creates the situation where if you fall in love with and want to marry a non-English person, only people who earn above that amount are allowed to do that, which is completely disgusting to me. Either have a different amount for marriage visas, or raise the minimum wage to £38,700, if they are so convinced that is what you need as a bare minimum to support yourself and your spouse.

It seems to me they want to freeze out poorer people 

They want to keep out lower earning immigrants in general I think, which I think in theory is something a country has the right to do, assuming the people want it. I just think they completely missed the fact that that will also exclude about half the country from being able to marry a non British person if they want to, because they're too poor. Since brexit, that includes Europeans too. It's mad that half the country would not be permitted to marry and live with a French spouse. I honestly think they just didn't think that bit through.

My partner isn't British and we had to get married on super short notice when this new cap got released. Thing is she's a fucking qualified in financial forensics. I earn 33k which isn't awful either but she now out earns me. Because she wasn't already in the UK though, I would have to earn the entire 38k for her to ge eligible to come here We basically had to get married straight away or fave God knows how much longer apart whilst I tried to increase my salary to the new threshold So scummy

Yep. You also both need to remain in employed work for most of the next decade. If one of you wanted to go back to school, or start a business or become self employed, it's very difficult to do so.

I didn't even know that tbh. She got a job pretty much straight away so we should be fine for now. No dreams of being business owners luckily

I have a PhD and my partner has a masters. We'd both be below this requirement because the wages in the UK are incredibly low.

And this is a perfect example of how this policy will lead to a brain drain. Academics and researchers are far more likely to have international relationships, and aren't paid very well.

Looks to me like academics and researchers need to be paid a lot more...

This cap is above the pay of an experienced general nurse and a junior doctor, and all the non-senior specialists.

It is interesting how some people did not think it would apply to them. For example, Brits in Australia who want to come back with their Australian spouse. It’s rarely said but it seems to hit hardest and not uncommonly where both spouses are of white British ancestry. Then it’s a real shock. And it’s particularly hard to manoeuvre round the requirements from the other side of the world.

>They want to keep out lower earning immigrants in general I think, which I think in theory is something a country has the right to do, assuming the people want it. Well, my wife would be a higher income skilled person, but I would earn below the requirement. I'm already leaving in August, life is significantly easier to start with her seemingly anywhere but my own pissing country.

Of course they've thought it through. 'Oh, an easy target. Let's go!'

Like a third to a half of the partner visa applicants are earning less than £20,000 and a lot have only held the job for the required 6 month period. £38,700 is high in the UK, especially if you live outside London. But £18,600 was obviously too low and anyone working full time at minimum wage was smashing that. Yet so many applicants earning just enough then likely quitting the job after they get the visa.

I don't understand why you put a financial limit, instead of simply doing what other countries do and say that you need full-time employment.

Funnily enough I think it was introduced in such a way to be inclusive as there’s lots of way to meet the financial requirement. Employment, self-employment, cash savings, dividends, investments, rental income, pensions, etc. so it’s not only about being in full time employment. If you’re disabled or a carer or something similar you don’t even need to meet the financial requirement you instead need to evidence adequate maintenance, which unless you have loads of kids is pretty easy.

I tend to look towards Denmark - not just because I'm from there, but because it's a good example of making strict immigration laws that aren't just financially based like here. The rules are complex as all fuck, but the short version is that you (as the spouse) need to not currently be on benefits, and the two of you combined need to fulfill at least 3 of 6 different conditions. I don't mind strict immigration rules, even if I'm probably going to have issues with them. I just think it's short-sighted to make it entirely about finances, with no other considerations.

Because the government tops up minimum wage jobs with various benefits and there's an ample tax free allowance. I'm having trouble finding an exact figure but you have to be in the top 40-50% of earners to pay more in than you get out.

That amount was hard to achieve when first introduced. What is the proof that people were quitting those jobs? It's a requirement three different times over five years. I cannot see anyone quitting a job like that unless for something better paid . And if someone did multiple jobs to get that amount I don't find it unreasonable that they found slaving 80 hours a week too much 

Thats not the reason, they did it to stop chain immigration.

It’s a soft target to reduce overall migration. A cheap trick to make the numbers look good rather than manage the type of immigrants coming in. Professionals and people getting married are compliant, follow the system and have all sorts of hurdles and costs thrown already thrown in front of them, it’s quite easy to screw down on them even more to cut numbers. Meanwhile people simply turning up and throwing away their passport are rather more difficult to stop and remove.

Of course they do- higher skilled higher educated people. That was a natural development of Brexit (so I understood). We have millions of people here doing low skilled low paid jobs that don’t contribute Tax to the economy.

I'm literally in this position, life for me and my girlfriend is now not possible in the UK so I have to leave.  I think the obvious solution is that the British person acts as a guarantor and immigrant is barred from claiming benefits until they earn a certain amount (not including healthcare).

Anyone on a spousal visa is already barred from benefits, and they already have to pay an extra fee to the NHS (alongside any NI contributions they make). When we still lived in the UK this was pretty clear on all my wife's documents and it felt fair. I'm not sure what you mean by guarantor but it was my wage that we were assessed on.

Guarantor would mean if they didn't have money you would be expected to support them and they can't rely on the state. I didn't realise that was already the case and now I'm even more confused about how this law is helping with any immigration problems.

The answer is it’s not, they snuck it in with a package of immigration policies aimed at workers and illegal crossings. The total number of partner visas granted per year has never exceeded 100k, it’s usually between 50-80k per year. So if now half of those won’t be able to meet the requirements, they’ve lowered numbers by 40k out of some 1.2 million? Oh and the Tories didn’t consult the MAC or anyone else before they announced it. They also all gave contradicting information on it in the weeks following. Absolutely reprehensible.

The immigrant is already barred from claiming benefits...and you already act as a guarantor usually.

Anyone here on a partner visa is usually barred from benefits. My wife was.

They are already barred of claiming benefits. That's why financial requirements are so dumb. The best solution is to scrap these requirements. UK didn't had these requirements before 2012 and it was completely fine. 

Falling in love is just for the rich. Can't have the poors being happy.

This is exactly the thing that has me and my partner worried. She's Chinese and we've got a pretty great relationship with a lot of emotional support and vulnerability with each other - we both cry sometimes and we both try our best to cheer each other up, we both love being together and despite her really not liking much English food, weather, politics or the state of public services or renting, she loves being with me and wants to do that. If we can only really do that here, then we'll do it here. But if I can't even get my wages to go up thanks to being a technical and scientific worker (which barely puts me above minium wage) and the threat of increasing the earnings barrier meant we were seriously thinking about both having to find a new place and both go through visa hell. We do want to stay here, but this place is getting less and less livable for people who aren't rich.

If you're British, you might consider moving to Ireland, which you have the right to (by the CTA), and the salary threshold for a (married) couple without children is 20k EUR (\~17k GBP) per year: [https://www.irishimmigration.ie/coming-to-join-family-in-ireland/joining-your-uk-national-family-member/](https://www.irishimmigration.ie/coming-to-join-family-in-ireland/joining-your-uk-national-family-member/) Also, after five years you can naturalise as Irish and pick from the 29 other countries with whom Ireland has free movement, and bring your spouse to any of those. IANAL though, just pointing something out to you. I'm British/Irish in science with a Chinese partner, I sympathise a lot lol, and I have thought about this stuff a lot. I grew up in Hong Kong so both I and my partner complain about all of the things you listed 😂

Have you considered looking at immigration to Australia? There's a much bigger Chinese population here (Mandarin lessons in many schools, endless Chinese restaurants and supermarkets, cultural events) and certain technical and scientific skills are hugely in demand. See [here](https://immi.homeaffairs.gov.au/visas/working-in-australia/skill-occupation-list). And obviously the weather is better. It is a massive thing to migrate, but your partner has already done it once.

>despite her really not liking much English food, weather, politics or the state of public services or renting She'll fit right in! If it helps i think there's a decent chance they won't change the threshold, but we'll have to wait and see

Your problem there is foreign nationals are actively married into the country, then their kids actively marry more people in and so on.

You’re right the overwhelming majority are migrants marrying people from their home country. Whether that’s skilled workers who are now settled or refugees who got married after getting refugee status here, or more commonly people of Pakistan heritage having arranged cousin marriages with their family or extended family in Pakistan.

Do you have data for that because it sounds like xenophobic BS being used to justify the government banning the majority of brits from marrying a non-national.

Between 50-60% of pakistani marriages in the uk are between first cousins. They send them back to marry their cousin and bring the bride back here. Maybe you don't like that, but it's well documented and only a single google search away! Thats what the new policy was about, stopping this sort of migration. Instead of doing something to target this type of immigration specifically they just threw out a blanket policy that hit everyone in the country.

Why do you find it to be bullshit that people with strong connections to other countries are more likely to marry people from other countries? It’s not strange for Nigerians to marry Nigerians. Kurdish people to marry Kurdish people. Pakistanis to marry Pakistanis. Polish people to marry polish people. It’s also not xenophobic to acknowledge that we have a large Pakistan heritage population and that it’s culturally normal to have cousin marriages with people from Pakistan. It’s beneficial for their family to do this and everyone for that background will tell you the same, you’re welcome to ask them. I don’t have much problem with people bringing their spouse to the UK wherever they’re from, as long as they’re not abusing the system by having sham marriages and that they meet the requirements (and that includes not being criminals etc) I find £38,700 to be too high for a MIR and £18,600 to be too low. If it was up to me I would think between £26,000 and 29,000 is reasonable.

There are massive issues with consanguinity and cousin marriage in certain ethnic groups. If you're just marrying someone from your country of origin/ancestral origin, no big deal. Marrying a cousin when you're already the product of a cousin marriage yourself? After a few generations you're technically marrying your sibling. I think it would probably be an idea to ban cousin marriage. Quite a few US states ban it. I've always felt it was a bit draconian, since a one-off cousin marriage doesn't raise risk much. But the people practising cousin marriage tend to be those doing it as a multi-generational practice, which is highly risky.

IMO it would be palatable to the electorate to make refugees not eligible for marital and reunification visas, that would quickly cut down on immigration.

Yes - it's also highly problematic because it discriminates against women who are more likely to be the party taking a career break to raise kids, plus women still earn less than men overall. So this makes it harder for a woman to bring a foreign husband over than for a man to bring a foreign wife over. I assume since Brexit the "Surinder Singh" thing is no longer a possible loophole? So long as one party in the relationship earns the minimum amount, that should be sufficient. After all surely it's advantageous economically for the country to bring higher earning spouses in than lower earning ones?

£30K-£38K sounds about right. I believe those are the income levels at which you become a net tax contributor. Allowing uncapped levels of net beneficiary immigrations results in a greater pressure on public services, higher taxes, wage suppression, etc.

Absolutely there should be a minimum requirement but making it higher than 80% of brits make, higher than teachers, nurses etc make and then saying that's what you need to support your spouse is a bit silly no? I'm a teacher, but I can't come back from Canada anymore because id not find a job that pays what they want... I could come back with my toddler without his mother and then rely on the state to help support me as a single father since we're both British but I cant bring my Canadian wife because teachers don't make enough apparently

I'm in a similar boat.

There are plenty of countries with no minimum requirement. I would say most of the western countries do not have a minimum requirement. 

My girlfriend is french, she is intelligent and capable and motivated to work. She has never claimed benefits and would be ashamed to do so. But thanks to Brexit she's not allowed to live here with me now. I work hard to support myself but I don't earn over the threshold.    So my only option is to get an Irish passport (thank Christ I am eligible) and leave the country, probably for good. So that's two perfectly good hardworking people willing to pay taxes saying fuck it, leave the country behind because it doesn't want us.   We would like to build a life together in the UK but unfortunately the Tories decided we shouldn't be allowed to. They also decided to make it harder for me to work in France.    What would you say to me?

Frankly leaving is the best option, I also left and why the hell would I want to pay any tax to such a bunch of antagonistic shitbags who won't even spend it properly? I can't see it getting any better under Starmer either, given his policies are pretty much just "I'll do the same as them but be vaguely nice about it".

This definitely isn’t immigration advice. * get Irish passport * marry girlfriend * live together in Ireland for 3 years * wife gets Irish passport * live in England without any thresholds (assuming that was the desired endgame).

Lol the same thought process hit me when they announced it but neither of us has anything in Ireland nor a desire to spend 3 years of our lives living there. 

You should be able to live and work in Ireland with a UK passport btw unless the rules have changed there recently.

But he can't live in France without the Irish passport.

If that cap was in when I met my wife we wouldn't have been able to stay together and my daughter wouldn't have been born. All its doing is breaking up families. They can't claim any benefits here anyway so if they can't afford to live here once they arrive they're gonna have to go back home anyway 😂

Why? Im just staying in my wife's country... Pretty much every other western country in the world, regardless of what these comments are saying, have lower requirements for bringing a spouse in. The UK seems to be alone in treating your spouse the same as an economic migrant

Some ridiculous war on "migrant numbers". They can't stop the boats so they're just making it harder for everyone else to lower the number in other ways and say "Hey look, less migrants". As you can see in here, people can't tell the fucking difference between which visa is even being discussed and what they're entitled to when they're here. They just think its +1 foriegner here to suck on the states funds.

The ridiculous thing is, those families in 'worse' countries might choose to live apart and the British partner bring the British children over and send money back to the foreign spouse. This would a) take money out of the British economy and b) create more 'state sucks' as a single parent costs the state more. We could do that, but canada isn't THAT bad lol

Exactly. Plenty of western countries do not have financial requirements for spouse visas. And these that they do. They are quite simple to achieve. For example in Spain you can achieve with an employment contract. Just having an employment contract is enough.  Meanwhile UK demands 6 months of payslips with a salary higher £29,000.

You know this is related to people bringing their wives/husbands right?

And that the migrant can’t receive state benefits. It’s hopeless arguing with these people. He even used the term “common sense” for what is a highly controversial policy.

"common sense" for a requirement which doesn't even exist for most western countries in the world.

I just find it funny that the government decided that be 38k when many are on under 25k. Even in London. All it has done is cause mass layoffs as companies saturate the job seeker market with entry level roles and british people, it HAS put a dent in low skilled migrants at least in my anecdotal evidence.

You’re talking out of your arse mate. Don’t blame you. Years and decades of news fear mongering conditioned you to be bias against a subject you probably don’t have any clue on. While distracting you from going after the unjustly rich and companies that’s the real parasite. Immigrant don’t take out of the system more than they put in. Immigrants aren’t entitled to public fund. They don’t get UC. They’re not eligible for government housing. No job seeker allowance No income support No disability allowance. No child tax benefit. While immigrants have to pay immigration health surcharge. Thousands of pounds every few years to renew their visa. Get treated like shit, does the jobs that others don’t want. Tell those people who’s working in the nhs, on social care, picking your food, that it’s ok for them to come over and look after the elderly, the sick that you could do their job. I’m sick of people scapegoating the voiceless

I mean if farming and social care paid better you absolutely would have this. And for nhs part of the problem was cost cutting led to reliance in imported labour that caused us major issues. You should be providing adequate numbers of nursing, medicine and related degree subsidises.

>They’re not eligible for government housing. Then why are the majority of people in social housing in London foreign born?

Because they're the people the Tories have allowed to abuse the system or simply turned up illegally. Illegal immigrants have more rights and access to public funds, and spouses have nothing, and the Brits that married someone non British are the ones being punished here.   They aren't the spouses who are being scapegoated and have none of these rights. That's what everyone in this thread is trying to tell people like yourself who don't understand what they're talking about. 

the salary requirement was considerably above the UK average salary and with no appreciation of the cost of living where the sponsor lives. If that was the amount that was assessed as being necessary to support a spouse or dependents then its a damning indictment of the pathetic wages we are paid in this country.

The level it is set at is so high it precludes most of the professions that the UK needs.

It's going to fuck academia.

Exactly the kind of bollocks that people who obviously know nothing about the process of immigration confidently spout, and it's top comment. You clearly didn't bother to read the article at all either. "Our overwhelmingly generous state" does not allow people on family visas to claim benefits. You have to get indefinite leave to remain to do that, which takes least five years. You also have to pay over £1,000 a year for NHS treatment, and that's on top of national insurance you may be paying. The idea that people on family visas are sponging off the state is a fucking joke. They are also not arguing for the removal of any income requirement, just that setting it at £38,700 is too high high. That's more than 70% of people in the UK earn, and certainly a lot more than "just about every serious country in the world". The requirement in the US, for example, is the equivalent of £17.5k a year. Do you believe that only the wealthy should be allowed to bring their families to the UK?

Most of the countries in the world do not have financial requirements for a spouse visa.

> Having an income requirement to ensure that people entering the country are able to fully support themselves is common sense policy. This income requirement being challenged here doesn't check the income of the overseas partner, what are you referring to here?

That person's post is so misinformed on several points, yet has ended up as the top voted comment. If that isn't an illustration on the state of the country I don't know what is.

Yeah, it's much easier to talk about of vague notion of how you feel the immigration system works rather than talk about actual reality

Dumbing down a policy so that you can pretend it has no downside is either very ignorant or very dishonest.

On r/UK it's typically both

FYI, when you get a working visa, you’re not eligible for any benefits. You also need to pay for your NHS.

> is a practise adopted by just about every serious country in the world Did you read the article? This is not about work visas, or "illegals", it's about British citizens bringing their spouses. There is no other country that has such a high minimum income requirement for spouse visas. By all means name a single one.

Legal aid is funding these people so if you pay tax you pay for these appeals

> Having an income requirement to ensure that people entering the country are able to fully support themselves is common sense policy. It prevents the exploitation of our overwhelmingly generous state from worsening beyond the point where it already is and is a practise adopted by just about every serious country in the world. It's for a UK Citizen to bring their Husband or wife here. It has nothing to do with what you're talking about. Read the article.

Ideally if we start applying the same rule on illegal migrants. Eg we can ask them to leave the country, because being here without money puts their lives at risk.

It seems like you didn't read the article. If you're only going to defend the most defensible part of the policy, you're conceding that the rest is indefensible.

Did you read the article? This isn’t about skilled work Visa’s. The whole reason this is being brought up to court is because the new requirement (£38,700) would be well above the average salary for a UK Citizen (£35,464 btw). This isn’t some loony conspiracy to ship hundreds of thousands of unskilled workers. If even Middle Class citizens are not able to get Visa’s for their spouses to come over then it’s too fuckin high. This is basically making it so unless you’re upper middle class or above then tough shit can’t bring your family here.

There is the issue for some international students who want to stay in the UK that can't because they won't meet the income requirements because no graduate salary pays that well

I think they are being funded by foreign powers in the same way the Soviets funded CND, I mean if we're nuts enough that someone can simply fund us self harming, they would do that. NB I have no evidence of course

Use a bit of common sense now. Before defending such a blanket rule . My wife cane to the UK before the new rules (thankfully). I earn approx 28k a year, have 40k in savings, Live rent free at home with my parents luckily having a house big enough for us My Mrs had 20k in savings, a Uni degree and has worked for large American companies. Under the current immigration rules, she would not have been allowed to cone and marry me. As I ‘don’t meet the requirements”. Despite the fact I and my “migrant wife” are clearly in a more then comfortable position (more so then the majority claiming how migrants are “draining the system” And also - you do know people on spouse visas are not even entitled to benefits? PS I am white British and my parents and grandparents are born here. Yet Under the current rules, I wouldn’t be able to bring my wife here Do I need to go on further as to why this rule change is absolutely ridiculous

It's incredible that people do bold claims like "and is a practise adopted by just about every serious country in the world" without checking up. So I checked it out. I checked like 10 countries. These countries do not have financial requirements for family visas: - France - Germany - Canada - Australia - New Zealand.  Dam, these countries are not serious to you I guess. Obviously the whole list is considerably longer than that. As general rule, most of the countries don't demand financial requirements for family visas  And those countries who do (for example Spain, Japan...). The requirements are considerably simpler. UK demands 6 months of payslips with a salary close to the median wage. Spain demands having a employment contract. Yep, you only need to have employment and that's it. The difference in requirements are abysmal. Generally speaking, financial requirements in these countries are merely simbolic meanwhile in UK is the main reason to refusing a spouse visa.  It's unbelievable how people, who doesn't have any idea how the inmigration system work in the entire world, make these bold claims.  BTW, the people whom are appealing these draconian measures are British Citizens who wants to reunificate their spouses to UK. How dare them to do that! 

I work in the NHS and these types of charities make referrals to us. In meetings they bleat on about how they assist immigrants. They support them to get benefits, houses, health care, get their family members to come over, the ONE thing they don't do is support them in to work so they can pay their own way. I'm all for supporting people in need but this makes me sick to the core.

In terms of funding this particular appeal against the minimum income requirement - the organisation leading the process is “Reunite Families U.K.” These organisation always have a complex web of funding often funding each other. The main funders for RF U.K. and therefore funding this challenge are the Justice Together initiative. This organisation is just another pot of money coming in from various other sources and they include: Comic Relief The Mayor of London Paul Hamlyn foundation - which promotes open borders

If you're a tax payer earning less than £40,000 PAYE you're still a net recipient when it comes to the cost of all the public services you use according to the OBR

Jesus.... Literally everyone I know is a net recipient then. I'm talking aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, everyone from my college, university, my current place of work. Not one of them is above 40k

Yes. This is a huge problem for the UK because due to our highly progressive tax system and low wages, vast numbers of people contribute less than they take out of the system.

It's remarkable that you place the blame on progressive taxation and not on income inequality.

to be fair they did say “and low wages” within the same sentence.

doesn't tax come from businesses though as well?, like what is the split between business and private individuals as total revenue of Tax?

This. The people on low wages here aren't somehow producing vastly less value with their work than European ones are, so the companies and people at the top of the system are reaping higher wages and profits as a result of all that surplus value, which then gets taxed at a higher rate. Basically everyone sub 40k is paying someone else's taxes via all the revenue their labor produces that they don't see a sniff of.

Yes, last time I looked into it, something like 60% of the population are net recipients.

25% of the workforce makes over £40k, but the workforce is only half the total population. So 12.5% of people are carrying all the rest. This is not sustainable. And all the politicians bicker over how to squeeze this group some more to bribe the rest.

There are lots of other taxes we all pay beyond income tax

In the 1970s 60% of all taxes were paid by 40% of all tax payers. Today that figure is just 10%. Britain has become more and more reliant on rich people paying their taxes. These are often people who can choose to park their tax affairs elsewhere. If they leave then the tax burden falls on the next tranche of workers.

Not just the already rich leaving, but the talented and ambitious leaving before they become rich because they can see which way the wind is blowing. This hollows out the economy even more. Truss for all her faults and her inability to execute was right when she said the UK has got to get back to creating wealth, we can't tax our way to prosperity.

I completely agree. Anyone young, talented and ambitious should move to a country like the US. It offer opportunity and rewards it. However the UK does excel in supporting people on low incomes subsidised by higher earners. I don't think this trend is set to reverse anytime soon. If you're good, leave the UK. If you're not, then just stay in the UK. It does mean the UK nation heavily subsidises the vast majority of its population and is beholden to the rich. The tax loopholes are deliberately designed to keep higher earners in the UK because the actual tax system isn't designed around people of their earning power. Hence when the IR35 was clamped down upon and the tax revenue in return actually fell. 18% of women and 10% of men over 50 are now economically inactive - ie they're either very talented but either chose to early retire because their pension pots approach £1m and after COVID they realised life is too short and they have more than enough to live out their days comfortably or needed to quit work to look after dependents. The UK has been heading into an socio-economic abyss for a long time and still hasn't recovered from the 2007 financial crisis. Every day since has just been a managed decline like an economic car-crash that they knew they knew they couldn't avoid so then decided to do everything they could to allow it to unfold in slow motion. Average 34yrs old in 2004 owned their own home and had 2 kids. Today the average persons born after 1982 still lives at home, no kids with massive student debt repayments, entirely reliant on their parents for housing and support. What appeal do the Conservatives have when you have nothing to conserve? You can see why the come hither of the left is so appealing to the young. The markets - who the UK are beholden to, demonstrated clearly to Truss that if you promise all things to all people and are bound by ideology, your premiership will blow up in your face resorting your legacy to pub quiz material and any book deal to a pamphlet. Labour and Conservative are bound to be 99% within the same financial policy constraints. They will tinker around the edges (Labour - free school meals champion, Tories - triple lock plus). On all other financially bound policies they will be identical. Anyone expecting a radical change when Labour come in will be disappointed. My money is on Labour getting into power. Just as quickly Boris turned from a hero to a hate figure, Starmer will face the same outcome. Its not so much bad politicians, I know they all want to win and all truly want the the UK to do better but they've all been dealt with a terrible card and its almost impossible to turn around the super tanker than is the UK in the right direction within a single parliament.

> 18% of women and 10% of men over 50 are now economically inactive - ie they're either very talented but either chose to early retire because their pension pots approach £1m and after COVID they realised life is too short and they have more than enough to live out their days comfortably or needed to quit work to look after dependents. Or get laid off and can't find a job or lost the will (after failing too long) to find a job?

There is a massive UK labour shortage especially after Brexit. There are more job vacancies than candidates, so much so that employers are having to pay a premium to secure good employees. I myself am a contractor so I switch jobs every 6-12 months were needed as I have for the last 20yrs and I am being paid more than even my managers were paid pre-covid.

There is a shortage in *some* areas of employment in *some* areas of the UK. The north and midwest in England are ever declining with even the most bottom of barrel jobs getting shuttered and moved elsewhere since covid. There are so many towns where both the buildings and the people look as if a nuclear fallout took place.

More accurately the UK has become significantly more inequal since the 70s. Middling wages have not kept up

>In the 1970s 60% of all taxes were paid by 40% of all tax payers. Today that figure is just 10%. Do you want to maybe pair that with how the wealth gap has changed?

It's even worse than I thought, then. It's utterly unsustainable, something needs to change.

10% of people pay 60% of all taxes today. In the 1970s it was 40% of people paying 60% of all taxes and we didn't borrow. We almost only spent the tax receipts we raised. No kicking the can. No student loans. Free higher education for the smarty pants and imagine being PAID to go to university!

That was because we had a much smaller population for a start…

I'm not attacking the current situation or defending the last. I'm just presenting the facts.

It's also because it's not true. They've given you the numbers for income tax, not all tax as they claim. Whether that makes a difference to the point they're trying to make is not clear, but they've incorrectly presented their data, so I'd take it with a pinch of salt. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8513/

As a result of this, high PAYE earners get shafted with ridiculous tax levels (over 60% not including student loans on certain incomes), which subsidise the rest of the population. Then you get those same people going part time or shoving 60k a year into a pension as a result. And then the govt cries because we have an unproductive workforce. A lot of the issues would be resolved by removing ridiculous tax cliff edges in our economy.

There's a reason they squeeze the middle/upper middle class so much, ir35 etc.

It’s crazy when you realise all those rich people that people hate so much are pretty much the only thing between us and the country going third world banana republic.

Isn't that deceptive though? Does it take into account the proportion of taxes paid by your employer that were earned by your labour? A lot of tax is paid by companies where most of the employees are making less than £40k even if their work gets more money for the government.

And a lot of them use accounting gimmicks like redistributing their gains from one country to another through intercompany sales so all the profits from the UK branch end up in the Irish branch where taxes are lower.    Done, report all your gains in Ireland while reporting a loss in the UK. Almost all big companies do this, the ones who end up paying their taxes here are small and medium size businesses who barely have any access to visas Just an example, the largest care home operator in the UK: https://www.epsu.org/article/uk-s-largest-care-home-operator-shifts-cash-tax-havens-new-report We give them visas to increase their profits and suppress wages in the sector and then send those profits to tax havens. Insanity

Corporation tax raises \~£100bn. Total UK income tax revenues were £800bn. Corporation tax revenues are surprisingly large after many years in the 2010s of getting eroded. Ok, so you have moved all your losses to another country...then what? If you are a UK company guess where the money ends up? In another UK company where you still pay tax. If you are a UK taxpayer, you will still end up paying income tax on income from the company. What you are describing is not actually how it works because it requires being able to hold the money offshore. The main ingredient in this fraud are third-party governments that are willing to change their rules to help you steal money (Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, all of them in the EU...they have apparently sworn off doing this after getting a hiding from the US and the UK...apparently). This is what happened to US companies that ended up with lots of money offshore that they couldn't access (and, again, the reason why this was possible was some European countries changing their laws to help these countries commit fraud through creating artificial transactions). The example in the article is also different to that: a foreign company that owns care homes using a lot of debt. This is completely legal and not problematic, where do you think the interest payments go? To investors who pay tax on it. The reason companies do this is often because they are owned by international investors (withholding taxes make it impossible to market a fund in a non-tax haven because the UK, as with many countries, seizes tax at source from people who aren't UK-resident payers, they are refunded later but it is very time-consuming...many people have tried to change this so all these taxes are paid in the UK, the usual people screech about tax evasion) and to structure income as capital gains. It is not the same thing as using artificial constructs in order to evade tax with the help of a large government.

That is not the type of tax evasion I am describing but rather through intercompany sales, you can move your profits through different subsidiaries and departments in different countries by charging a large markup on the subsidiary you want to move profits from. This is still happening, the money does not end up in the UK but in another country, you report a loss in the UK and all the profits in the tax haven.   I am not sure if you are reading the article properly but they are very much doing the same thing “charging high interest payments” and “lease payments” to move their profits to offshore tax havens they are charging the interest payments on OTHER subsidiaries not investors but instead of using products they use loans, its exactly the same process, you do not need third party companies since you are very much allowed to have multiple subsidiaries in multiple countries which have to pay taxes in that country regardless of where the parent company is located. And these subsidiaries are not owned by international investors whatever that means its owned by a parent company that has its own shareholders.

Everyone votes for more state when they aren't paying for the state.

Everyone who votes for less state wonders why it's the bit that they wanted to keep that's been cut

Okay, so how do we continue to function as a society if we tell young families to stay in their partners country? We already don't support homegrown families to the point of putting many off having children and now we're telling brits abroad they aren't welcome back unless they earn way above average... Meanwhile, we'll still have foreigners cheating the system and entering illegally so you end up bringing in only the rich and those who don't care about breaking rules 🤷‍♂️

That's exactly it. Currently abroad with my fiance due to this policy. I probably could hit the salary threshold if I changed jobs, but why should I have to? I like my current job, I have a good work life balance, I can travel as its fully remote and I am just generally happy with what I'm working on. The annoying thing is that we would be perfectly fine on this salary in the UK (Northern England). I guess the people in my situation are an easy target as there aren't that many of us. Easier to go after us than the boatloads arriving daily.

Amazing. My girlfriends job is full of experienced and educated staff in the north lower than this cap. They hired someone on a work visa out of uni, they must be paid more than everyone else?

The rules have just come in so I doubt the uni guy is on a lot unless in stem field 

Interesting. So the average person is a net recipient. >Median weekly earnings for full-time employees was £682. Equates to ~£35,404 per year.

The public services on offer these days amount to about £4.50 and I think that's a generous figure!

Sorry, but this seems rather doubtful. You're talking about an average here, which is meaningless. A large number of people earning less than £40k will be retired people, who of course are more likely to be net beneficiaries, having already spent much of their lives as net contributors. People with school age children could be net beneficiaries while their kids are at school, but net contributors both before and after that. So no, if you're a tax payer earning less than £40k you might be a net beneficiary, or you might not. It depends on the stage of life you're at among other things.

This is why people say big companies need to be paying more there paying tax at a lower rate than if the workers would be paid the difference especially foreign owned just slowly bleeding out governemnt funds

Citation needed. You're telling me that two people with a household income of £80,000 are net recipients?

IIRC this figure takes into account things like the cost of state schooling, Child Benefit paid to parents, childhood healthcare, and then similar elements in old age such as the State Pension, old age medical care, etc. Essentially, by the time most people pay off their “debt” racked up in childhood through tax contributions they are just about ready to retire and will dip back into the red. Which ironically is just an argument in support of more immigration. Immigrants start out at zero, having had their childhood care and university educational costs paid for by another country, and then just start paying tax even if not always at stellar rates. The break-even salary threshold for immigrants will be much lower, and even if/when they become lifetime net recipients in retirement they will still be tens of thousands of pounds less in the red than the average Brit. This sort of reasoning is why economists basically unreservedly support immigration.

Ah yes. Someone who was raised in UK. With GP, state funded school for 20 years... It's a net contributor because earns £40,001. Meanwhile a foreigner which just arrived, never used UK schools and start paying taxes from the first day. It's a net recipient because earns £39,000. Makes completely sense. 

That depends on what services you use.

That OBR number is heavily disputed. They took government spend and then divided by population. Lower earners claim more in benefits, social housing and make heavier use of the NHS. If you are earning £40k a year, you are probably relatively healthy, claiming no benefits, paying a mortgage or private rent. The middle class £40k-£100k prop up the whole of the UK - there is very few real high earners and they pay low rates of tax.

Comment section shows that reddit never reads the article. The challenge is against the £38k salary requirement coming in next year for bringing a foreign spouse. It's unrelated to the work visa.

Yikes, these comments.    This isn't quite the 'sticking it to the immigrants' statement that you think it is. This is telling you that as a white working class pleb you are not allowed to marry anyone else but those of your own class and stock.  Most tories have foreign spouses, but you are not allowed.     Yes, migration needs to come down, but these spouse visa laws are nothing but the stripping of British rights for an easy headline because those that this policy would impress aren't bright enough to read the story in the first place.    Some of you really think a British woman that has been living in Italy should be prevented from returning home with her husband until she can secure a job that pays 40k a year first? 

It's a divide and conquer tactic that, unfortunately, always works on the middle class. Even my family were for this change saying there are 'too many immigrants' and seemed shocked when I pointed out that I can't move home anymore because my Canadian wife is, or would be... An immigrant!

Had a similar thing. I was told 'just get married like everyone else does and you can come back.' Which shows how low most people's knowledge is about what any of this actually means. 

They're literally treating peoples spouses as economic migrants... There are ways to stop people abusing a more liberal spousal program. This is just saying rich people can have foreign partners, majority of the rest cant (not even just the poor anymore)

Whenever I've been able to tell anyone how this works and what it means, they're usually rightly appalled and shocked to discover this restriction on their lives  they never knew they had and that it happened recently.   That the Tories snuck this in amongst more reasonable immigration changes is simply unforgivable and would barely even register in reducing immigration in the first place. 

Yup, was talking with my brother in law about this. I’m an American, married to a Brit, on a family visa. He was saying all the stuff about too many immigrants and they all get government money and houses etc. I told him basically I’m an immigrant too and anti immigrant sentiment at the moment is a bit hard to deal with and if the £38.7k was the requirement at the time I applied, I wouldn’t have my visa. His response? “Oh, I don’t consider you an immigrant”.

>His response? “Oh, I don’t consider you an immigrant”. Ah, silly me, to get my wife into the country I just need to tell the government your brother in law doesn't consider her an immigrant!

>“Oh, I don’t consider you an immigrant”. Translation: white

I’m actually not white, I just work a decent job so in his eyes I’m fine

Similar with my wife, she isn't white either, but people are still surprised by the hoops we have to jump through.   I don't think so much of the opposition is due to racism, but more because the Tories have so successfully tied ideas of illegal immigration to immigration in general and it's now a very dirty word. You end up with English people who think they don't know any 'immigrants' when they actually know plenty. 

Recently moved away from the UK and everyone keeps calling me an "ex-pat", nah I'm an immigrant. It's funny the hoops people will jump through to move people they like out of the "immigrant" column.

The amount of idiots in the comments show why our country has been fucked by tory austerity over the last decade.

Really hoping the decision gets reversed. I'm living abroad with my wife, but now there's no way for us to ever move back to the UK because I can't earn 38k a year to sponsor her spouse visa. They practically banned marrying foreigners for people on low salaries

I'm a British native - my family name is in the Domesday book, so I guess we've been around a while. I hold a science degree, but the work I've been able to get was just barely above minimum wage in all the years I've been able to make use of it. I've never cracked £30,000 and frankly it'll be a miracle when/if I finally do. My partner is Chinese and we have decided we want to spend our lives together - but if I can't earn enough money, she can't stay here even if we get married. THAT is what this visa is about. The government raising this limit to an amount a good bit higher than the average wage means an awful lot of people like me, who fell in love with someone not of this land, is just not allowed to live together because I can't find a lab tech role that pays anywhere near enough. Keep this limit at the minimum wage mark, or somewhere above. Don't make it so if you're unlucky enough to be one of the many poorer people here, you're just not allowed to love someone non-native.

It would be an amazing outcome if it becomes illegal for the government to set the country's visa requirements.

This isn’t about all visa’s though. It is specifically about immigrants married to a British citizen (particularly if they have children together, who would also be British citizens). While immigration does need to be addressed, preventing children from having two parents present or forcing British families to leave the country makes things worse overall for both the families and the communities they live in. The only reason this policy exists is to sacrifice those families so the government numbers on immigration look marginally better. I’d rather an intervention from the courts than the government saying the bottom 60% of earners aren’t allowed to live in the country if they want to love and marry anyone who isn’t British. Nigel Farage is allowed to have a German wife but if you don’t earn over £38k the government says you can’t? So it’s freedom only for those who can afford it then - bollocks to that.

Why use farage as an example... Isn't the PM and leader of the government who made this change married to someone not British born? How about all the other tory MPs married to foreign born partners

Fair point. Farage came to mind first but in this case Sunak is a much better example of this “restrictions for the poor, privileges for the rich” attitude.

At that point I feel the government of the day would have every right to tear it all down.

Minimum income requirement has already been found to be legal via the Supreme Court in 2017 and its enshrined in law in section 117 of the NIA act. Though back then the requirement was £18,600 which was much more attainable than £38,700, since you simply had to work full time in basically any job.

It was also found to be legal because the government at the time commissioned the MAC to advise what an appropriate income threshold would be. This time around the Tories just picked this threshold because it was the same number they’re using for work visas, and they didn’t have the energy to ask anyone with any experience in the matter what the right thing to do was.

No it fucking wouldn’t.

I have worked since the age of 17. Never claimed any benefits in my life and been in the workforce 20 years yet to bring my partner to the UK i will likely need £60,000 in savings as theres no way I can increase my income to £38,700 a year threshold in the north of England. My Partner is University educated with a masters degree, speaks fluent English and owns their own place and works yet Her income doesn't count towards the 39k Id need to get her here. She could find a job here in a heartbeat getting our income to that 39k threshold but that doesn't help our situation as its only purely my income that counts towards getting her here. This news is devastating for me and my partner and many other people. Why are we being punished for working all my life and finding love abroad, like so many of my friends have done? --- Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows £38700 yearly income requirement or £120,000 in savings to just bring your wife or husband to the UK is absurdly high. Especially if you live in the midlands or the north of England or Scotland. --- Thanks to the internet and cheaper travel, about a quarter of my friends met their partners abroad (online or on holiday) and either their partner moved here or they moved themselves. Most of them are professionals without children. Couples on spouse visa can't claim any benefits, so it's not a drain on the system, and most have no interest in having kids and just want to live with the partner they love. The fact is more, and more people meet their partners online and our Draconian spouse visa system is telling people "you better not fall in love with anyone abroad unless you're in the top 20% income Bracket" Who are they to say who we can have a lifelong relationship with? --- 48,107 family-related visas granted. So the hiking of the financial requirements to 39k f isn't going to make a dent in net migration. These spouses will be living with their partner, so NOT taking up any more housing. All this will do is tear apart families. This has personally impacted myself, my partner and some people I know going through the UK's god awful spouse visa process. (One of the WORST in the world, if not the worst, after these changes) ---

The most revolutionary act carried out by New Labour was the constitutional reform and inception of the Supreme Court. The idea that activist pressure groups, represented by no-win-no-fee lawyers, can halt and frustrate the democratically elected Governments ability to enact widely supported policy decisions makes me sick.

I quite like it. It means governments can’t simply trample over my human rights. The foreign spousal income requirement is a cruel policy and would’ve meant I would’ve had to emigrate to live with my wife.

Parliament should always be supreme, not fringe pressure groups or unelected, unaccountable judges. The pendulum is always moving, you might not like it when policies you support are halted by activists that oppose them. It's a question of whether people value democracy or not in my opinion, the Supreme Court has changed the country. It's like a modern version of the House of Lords.

>Parliament should always be supreme That's how you get autocracy.

I suppose it is undemocratic. But there needs to be some group of inalienable rights that no one, even a democratic government, can take away from you. When your or my lot get in power, it’s tempting to try and silence the opposition. It’s important that we can prevent a tyranny of the majority.

The fascists that shout the loudest are only polling around 12%. They like to shout about the majority etc, but they know they are a minority. Talking of undemocratic. I watched Tice a couple of months ago saying that Reform would stand down if the Tories adopted their immigration solution..1 MP and that was from a defection and they are trying to push a government with a large majority into doing what they want. That's undemocratic blackmail in my book

That is politics, Reform will get nowhere in the GE... that is the real checks and balances, not the Supreme Court which has been hijacked time and time again to undermine the peoples elected representitives. I don't have much of a view on the income issue, I have a strong view on who should be making decisions on behalf of the country. It is possible for companies to take the Government to the Supreme Court as legislation affects their bottom line, it is the Americanisation of the UK system, grim.

This is being challenged precisely because Parliament is supreme. The current minimum salary threshold was set by ministers through secondary legislation, i.e. not by Parliament. This litigation is seeking to confirm that the ministers have remained within the bounds of the authority delegated to them by Parliament, and have not through executive fiat violated any Acts of Parliament, namely the Human Rights Act 1998. The will of Parliament cannot be thwarted by judges or fringe pressure groups in our constitutional system. It is important that ministers and Governments are regularly reminded through litigation such as this that they too cannot do so, and that we do not have a presidential regime. If they wish to change the law they must convince Parliament to do so. Simply commanding the confidence of the House does not confer the power to rule by decree.

Ah yes do as you please government (including strip the right to vote us out entirely, bring back hangings, force 18 years olds into modern slavery) and then in 5 years time we’ll ask very nicely for you to leave office.   Or here’s an example which will probably resonate more with you, let’s say the greens get elected under your “supreme authority” world, ULEZ cameras on every corner, 2 vaccines a week, every home has to take in 2 immigrants, 15 recycling bins, NO NO NO THEYRE ELECTED THEY CAN DO WHAT THEY LIKE  A government with supreme authority that can do as they like would do as they like… Do us a favour and read some history mate     https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933  Power requires checks and balances, the mandate to GOVERN rises from the masses, they govern the country, not rule it with an iron fist. This is part of the problem with democracy is the political parties who are supposed to represent us can do as they please in the 5 years between elections. Making stupid decisions completely outside the bounds of what they said they’d do like scrapping hs2

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Yeah, you are just factually incorrect here on a number of levels, and obviously do not know much about either the Supreme Court or the UK's constitution. The Supreme Court was not vested with any powers not previously exercised by the UK judiciary. It simply replaced the legal functions of the House of Lords, i.e. the Law Lords. When the Human Rights Act was passed, the Law Lords (who were certainly not elected) were given the power to issue a judgement that new laws were incompatible with it. The Supreme Court now does that. It's judgements are not binding and its up to parliament/the government to amend the laws it rules on. Parliament can repeal the Human Rights Act at any time. Supreme Court rulings do not impact parliamentary sovereignty.

It's just absolutely baffling the amount of people, reading the headline and then frothinng at the mouth about immigration, when this is specifically about if you want to bring a foreign spouse into the country.

Me and my girlfriend broke up because of this fucking punishment for the poor. Didn't seem fair for us to have a permanent long distance relationship. We didn't want to rush into marriage, we were still figuring each other out, but had I been aware of this shit last year you'd have been damn sure I'd have bought her an engagement ring for Xmas. Cunts push the cost of living up then strip happiness people manage to claim for themselfs yet keep refusing to increase minimum wage by any real degree to match. Now my autistic ass is stuck back at square one, alone, racing towards 40 now trying to figure out what I did to catch her interest and if I can replicate it before I give up and just become what they want, a soulless worker who works works works then dies.

I love how people are saying ‘the minimum income is common sense blah blah’. You do realise that the income requirement is NOTHING to do with the foreign spouse when the initial application is sent in. It’s ALL to do with the British citizen. The foreign spouse has NO recourse to ANY public funds whilst on that visa. They can be unemployed sure but they can’t claim any benefits, unemployment, or have access to social housing. Only subsequent applications can the British citizen AND the foreign spouse combine incomes IF THEY WISH. The income requirement literally ONLY affects the British spouse for the first application. It essentially says ‘if you’re not rich enough you can’t marry who you love and you have to leave the country’ Spouse visas make up less than 1% of all spousal applications per year. Yall are racist fucks and it shows.

I was half expecting this to be something to do with Labour. Then I remembered that had said they were going to increase the MIR https://www.thenational.scot/news/23980252.depressing-labour-agree-hike-overseas-worker-salary-threshold/

More recently (a debate in Parliament at the end of April), the shadow home secretary said they would commission a review of the MIR by the MAC, something the Tories failed to do. Wouldn’t mean they would have to change anything, but the MAC will more than likely say that it should be somewhere in line with minimum wage. As the immigrant spouse of a British citizen, I’m urging everyone to a) make sure Labour are elected and b) put pressure on them to follow through with and heed the advice of the review

Well that's depressing. 

If anything, this is a testimony on the power of media to control the narrative for their paying overlord. Client journalism at their best. Every time there’s economic hardship, when government crash the economy, when cooperations gouge the shit out of people, where mates of cabinet ministers make out like bandits, they put the blame on the immigrants and the poor. It’s lazy, it’s unoriginal and it’s despicable. Text book punching down. Liz truss crashed the economy in 7 days. Businesses are raising prices, record profits for energy companies. Shrinkflation of products and jacking up prices. Matt Hancock rewarding government contract to his neighbours. Ppe contracts to rich couples friends to a cabinet minister. 37 billion wasted on useless track and trace. Eat out to help out scheme that help prolong the pandemic. A decade of self inflicted economic harm in austerity. Rather than putting the blame of shit like this, no. It’s the immigrants’ fault. It’s the poor who’s dragging their feel. It’s the striking doctors who’s fucking up the nhs. It’s the school teachers asking for more money because they can’t cope that’s dragging down our kids. It’s the train drivers asking for a bit of job security that’s the woes of poor public transport policies and underinvestment and execution. It’s bus drivers who’s to blame for the collapse of hs2.

Starmer's ability to "forget"/"pretend" he used to be a human rights lawyer is one of the biggest cons in UK politics history. If I worked at Greggs for a decade, then pretended to not know what a sausage roll was, I'd be the laughing stock of my mates, and the public. Yet he gets a free pass. So f..ing convenient...

Losing time and money, labour said that they would keep this policy and might actually go further

My wife is on a spouse visa, thankfully I earn above this threshold. I do agree that a threshold is needed to act as a 'guarantor' but I believe the threshold should be lower.

Don't let you to convince. There are plenty of western countries without any financial requirement for spouse visas. 

A lot of people think it's a good way to screen out certain ethnic minorities. Never mind that many working English people marry abroad too and often to ethnic minorities. It just goes to show it's a class and economic penalty, not just race. How many MPs are married to foreigners but it's ok for them because they make quadruple most of us 

It's absolutely a class thing. I'm a teacher, married to a canadian. We were planning on moving back to the UK now can't... On paper, I could move back with my 2 year old without her and that'd be a bigger drain on the system 🤷‍♂️

They don't care. The politicians like Braverman, Jenrick, Cleverly , Cameron, May, Sunak all see us as leeches on the system.. The most racist ones don't care one bit about white working Britons never mind the coloured working ones The system exists to serve them with private flights and unreasonable expenses and pr for better paid jobs post politics  It was never about fair either. If it was, any person on nmw doing their 40 hours a week could bring a spouse 

ffs whatever happened to legislation. Blair has a lot to answer for.

This is exactly what it was set up for. To hamstring future governments

Unfortunately Blair was an evil genius.

Regardless of your stance on immigration, designing the entire system around income and fee payments is short-sighted and banal. There are many more indicators as to how well someone will integrate into society.

Imagine increase this to something like £38700 when an average Brit doesn't even make that (e.g., a band 6 nurse with 3 years of experience makes less). Not sure how that is fair but ok. 26-29k should be the perfect spot IMO.

It doesn't surprise me that the top comment here is a bunch of lies and bullshit. People are so easyily misled by the Torys and the right wing rags that they voted for conservatives for 14 years, no wonder they believe any old lie the right wing media sells them. It's beyound fking stupid that anyone believes immigration is the cause for most of the UK's problems, just as it was fking stupid when the torys blamed the EU & immigrants for all our problems before Brexit. Why do people fall for the same idiotic lie every bloody time? The UK's Spouce visa's process is the worst in the world. It's not being abused but the people trying to go through that process are being abused by the system. It's horrible and as a result many British people end up leaving. Immigrants bring billions more money into our ecomony then they take out and without them the NHS, our care system and our Universities would collapse along with our economy.

This is effecting me unfortunately and I have moved overseas to be with my partner. Our only way is the savings route which is set to rise again to 100k next year. Unless you're rich you can't have a foreign spouse (if you want to live in the UK), the visa costs are already 5k fir a 2.5 year visa. Surely 50k is enough in savings to support someone until they find a job. I personally think there should be an Ancestral Spouse Visa where people with historic links to the UK (grandparents being British citizens for example) shouldn't have to follow these rules. There are already other Ancestral visas for the UK. So in our case if the money goes any higher then we will be stuck overseas permanently, that's if I can continue to get a working visa for my current location.

We live in a land where any law over immigration et al. is challenged. Endless gravy train of cash to lawyers. Whjere does the £ come from to pay these people.

It's a shame seeing the Guardian's reporting slide like this, they're just taking what this pressure group says wholesale and not digging into it at all.