We very much shot ourselves in the foot in that regard.
Sure. And you should probably do that. But then a lot of other people are of the opinion that they can ignore food and weather and come to Britain. Net migration numbers in recent decades have not gone in favour of your line of thinking?
UK high street is being attacked from multiple sides, from apparent lack of labour satisfied/pressured into low wages, to having their access being cut by the latest LTN measures around the country. Rental market is getting squeezed hard by the latest measures that will only make the situation worse, esp for London (I'm lucky I've escaped that place when I could). Current/incoming gov't is drunk on high taxation and more and more regulation of every facet of your life and business. But I'm still unsure my business/work would fare better in any other european country (forget Brexit, it doesn't have much to do with any of this). The malaise is everywhere.
Some of them are pretty surprised at the state of things when they get here. There was a report in the BBC that a lot of Ukrainian refugees find the education system and housing conditions an absolute joke compared to what they had back home.
Housing sucks though.
As a labor camp, Britain is very nice and efficient. Depending on the job, their country of origin, and whether they are able/willing to evade taxes, it may work out that a couple years of suffering in shitty conditions will yield a decent nest egg to enjoy back home. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a nice place to live and build a future in. I wonder if there are stats on the average length of stay of those immigrants?
I have no idea how people on average salaries - even average London salaries - can afford to stay much longer.
For whatever reason, people deem it worth it to pay such high rents to remain living in London. London's population is still growing, albeit slower than before the pandemic.
I very much wonder how they expect "normal" people to survive. It looks like you need to fall quite far into the highest tax brackets just to be able to rent something decent in London, and buying is absolutely out of reach.
Ironically enough, part of what makes those areas desirable is various businesses (such as food service, etc) that rely on low/unskilled labor to function, against which a war of attrition is being waged on. That war is being won and as a result a lot of those businesses have now themselves failed - I've now seen multiple repossession notices on closed restaurants/shopfronts and more and more vacant commercial property, and the high street never really recovered since the pandemic.
As far as I'm concerned I am considering leaving this country once my current lease expires unless business picks up significantly to offset the increased costs (doesn't look likely from what I see). There is no reason to pay the money I am paying here if I can get better food, climate and general quality of life for the same (or even less!) money elsewhere in Europe.