Where we differ is I just don’t see any of the problems you list as actual problems. I’m in favour of immigration, it does us a lot of good which is why conservative policies actually encourage it, and illegal immigration is a tiny fraction of it overall. Crime rates are down significantly from the 80s. Even in the EU we had all the sovereignty we could ever need, and negotiated opt outs of huge swathes of regulation we decided wasn’t for us.

A friend of mine tried that line about manufacturing on me a few years ago and I asked him what kind of factory he wanted his so. To work in when he grew up. He looked at me as though I’d just shot his dog. We don’t need factory jobs, we’ve git near full employment anyway. That’s why we need immigration to solve our demographic issues with our ageing population. We’ve got plenty of jobs much higher up the value chain, the main problems are around training and education.

If you can't see that immigration is having a negative impact, which so many voters perceive, then yes you have a minority perspective. Crime in the UK is so bad in some areas that Ukrainian refugees were shocked.

They perceive what the media tell them, not what’s actually happening, because fear and xenophobia sells newspapers. On average immigrants are younger, more law abiding, more likely to be employed, consume fewer benefits and make less use of health care than native born Britons. Also Britons who live in areas with large immigrant populations are the least concerned about immigration.

As for the crime rate the perception is divorced from reality, I’ll quote from Wikipedia: “The United Kingdom's crime rate remains relatively low when compared to the rest of the world, especially among first world countries.” Our crime rate is a fraction of that in Ukraine before the war. Their murder rate is three times ours.

> Also Britons who live in areas with large immigrant populations are the least concerned about immigration.

Maybe if you define immigrants with passports as Britons. There's a reason why the BNP, British National Party, won the two seats they ever won in counties most affected by immigration. This effect would also be exact opposite of that in Sweden, which is intriguing, because here the sub-urb ghettos are split between social democrats, which the immigrants vote for, and the nationalists, which the few non-immigrants left vote for.

The fact that you are trying to argue that areas affected are the least concerned, when the case is exactly the opposite across Europe; says a lot about your "reality". Modern leftists are a scourge.

Modern leftism has certainly lost it's way, and frankly so has a lot of the right. I say that as a life long conservative voter. I'm that odd combination, both an economic and a cultural liberal.