Lets kick "immigrants" out!!! The economic impact of the far right.

With such a significant rise in far-right extremism in the UK from groups such as the EDL (english defence league) resurfacing and gaining a huge amount of rhetoric, divisive attention, there have been greater calls for "kicking out immigrants", marganilsing against black and brown communities. To raise awareness against such rash views, I shall look beyond the obvious social and moral consequences, rather to the overlooked reality: the economic cost of exclusion.

So, lets get started. Kick us out. Go for it. This took me way too long to write, Ive done alot of research and estimations and calculations and data crunching, so please do have a read!

Our departure.

We start at night. Flights, buses, trains are packed as we all head back. On paper, about 18% of the Uk workforce (ONS) gone. Vanished just like that. The sectors most affected: health, hospitality, transport and agriculture. The cracks show immediately, with one in four doctors and nurses in the NHS being born not in the UK, A&E's, with current waiting times averaging to 4 hours 46 minutes (for admitted patients) sky rocket even further.

Day 1: The initial turmoul.

By lunch, our high streets are quiet. You know, 70% of UK restaurants are run by people of colour (ONS). Let me give the most stereotypical example: Curry houses. The backbone of Britain’s late-night economy, vanish overnight. Your so-called “chicken tikka masala or CTM,” once dubbed a “British" national dish becomes mythical. Supermarkets notice gaps too: without the EU and non-EU migrant farm workforce, fruit and veges rot in the fields.

By dinner, the impact on families is very clear. Although the NHS was initially able to cope, they are unable to keep with the pressure. Almost one in four doctors and nurses were born abroad. At 3am, wards started calling for emergency cover, and by evening A&E waiting times; already averaging 4 hours 46 minutes for admitted patients (NHS), stretch indefinitely. Ambulances are stacked outside hospitals, but there are fewer and fewer staff left inside to help. Routine appointments are cancelled, surgeries delayed, and social care services struggle to cope. It is no longer a matter of inconvenience but a full-blown crisis that ripples through communities and public services alike.

Day 2: Economic plans

After a huge amount of panic and a pause on trading, markets wake finally up. Investors see the labour force shrinkage as a national emergency, a terrible exogenuous factor. Nearly 18% of the UK workforce, around 5.5 million people, have disappeared and with them many billions of pounds in annual tax contributions. The OBR has already shown how lower migration weakens GDP growth and pushes up borrowing. The poundf alls nearly 4% against the dollar in morning trade. We start to notice FTSE 100 droping 7% (estimate- Brexit vote caused about an 8% drop in two days, and the 2008 GFC saw daily swings of 5-7%). This erases over £150 billion in market value. Bond yields spike, with 10-year gilts rising from 3.5% to 4.2% (another estimate based on covid) as confidence crumbles. Newspapers call it the fastest collapse of financial trust since 2008.

Reeves, already currently grappling with weak growth forecasts and soaring inflation and fear about her "Autumn budget" in late November, watches the numbers tumble. Her warnings about the fragility of public finances ring truer than ever as the tax shortfall swells and borrowing spikes even further. Public spending on pensions, already at £110bn per year, now looks unsustainable. Schools, local councils, and health services face immediate shortfalls. Key sectors such as hospitality, transport, construction, and agriculture lose hundreds of thousands of workers overnight, slowing output and triggering layoffs. GDP growth, projected at 1.8% for the year, is now likely to contract by 3-4% within weeks, intensifying the political and economic pressure Reeves has been warning about in parliament

One week:

Rachel's plans to build homes. Stopped Construction sites stand still. One in ten construction workers are foreign born. Housebuilding halts, worsening the housing shortage. Infrastructure projects are frozen. Rents rise, mortgages soar, and local economies dependent on these jobs contract sharply.

We then see Supermarkets impose rationing. Haha, I wont be surprised if Milk, bread, fruit and vegetables are limited. Queues stretch around blocks. The public begins to see that without migrant labour in agriculture, logistics and retail, the shelves stay empty. Tourism figures collapse as headlines abroad call Britain hostile and unstable. Billions of pounds of annual visitor spending vanish in a week.

One month:

The UK enters recession. The OBR has modelled how even modest reductions in net migration cut GDP growth by percentage points. This sudden wipeout is worse. Output falls by 3 to 5 percent in weeks, sharper than the 2008 crash. Unemployment spikes as minority owned businesses disappear. Corner shops, takeaways, tech start ups, hair salons, all gone. Consumer spending collapses. High streets hollow out. Local councils lose business rates. Public finances implode. The treasury borrows heavily, but confidence is gone.

Confidence is gone. Because the golden backbone of the labour force is gone.

The long term impact:

I mean, the consequences are truly irreversible. I would say it is reasonable to hypothesise that with a smaller workforce, productivity drops. With fewer young migrants, the ageing population overwhelms the pension system. The NHS never recovers. Britain loses competitiveness as a place for innovation and business. We see global investors turn elsewhere and no one really wanting to invest in the UK with FDI. Hot money outflows. Current account deficit... Minority-owned businesses that drive local employment and entrepreneurship vanish, leaving high streets and towns hollow.

Conclusion:

IMO, although I have employed casual satire at points, what we can learn from this scenario is that exclusionary policies are not just morally wrong but economically self defeating. The economy, like society, only thrives when everyone is included, contributing, and valued.

And as Priestley put it in our English lessons..., "we are all members of one body." Whether in the aftermath of a world war or during this cultural war, we need something to keep us united, and that something needs to be done now.