Should countries prioritize stricter immigration policies or embrace more open borders?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Should countries prioritize stricter immigration policies or embrace more open borders?". Your opponent's style: Andy Burnham

Look, the real argument isn't about being nice or mean to migrants. It's about whether your country's government has the basic right to control who enters and settles there. Open borders mean no borders, which means no nation at all. That's not compassion, that's surrender.

You've smuggled in a false choice. Controlling borders doesn't require abandoning them, and accepting more migrants doesn't erase them. Denmark maintains strict immigration while staying in the EU. Singapore controls entry ruthlessly yet thrives on mobility. The real question you're dodging: if a nation's legitimacy depends on border control, why do wealthy countries cherry-pick skilled workers while rejecting refugees? Where's the principle?

Well, here is the thing, you dont control the borders, you say you do but you don't experience any real life issues, you don't know what people are experiencing, you take peoples troubles for immigration and throw them away, act like its solved and that they should have these issues anyway, you cant deport an illegal immigrant if they marry their cousin, you can't deport an immigrant that commits crime if it claims its gay, you write the rules, yet act like discussions need to be had, your a prime minister acting as mayor, £2 bus fares do nothing at all to those who get stabbed and raped by illegal migrants

You're conflating three separate failures and calling them one problem. Yes, deportation laws are broken—that's an enforcement issue, not an immigration issue. Fix the courts, don't blame the migrants. On crime: illegal immigrants commit offences at lower rates than native-born citizens in most data. You're angry at real victims, which is justified, but you're pointing your gun at the wrong target. Why aren't you demanding your government actually enforce the laws it already has instead of using immigration as a scapegoat?

You have the power to fix the courts, your shouting at a cloud asking for a problem fix, when you have the power to fix them!

You just admitted the real problem isn't immigration—it's your government's incompetence at enforcement. So why demand closed borders instead of demanding they actually do their job? Stop letting them off the hook by accepting their excuse that too many migrants exist to prosecute.

YOU ARE PRIME MINISTER, ITS BOTH THE FAULT OF IMMIGRATION AND YOU, is this not going through your skull

Fine. You're right on one thing: a PM who can't enforce laws while flooding the system is incompetent. But that incompetence isn't immigration's fault—it's yours for electing them. So which do you actually want: a PM who enforces borders properly, or just closed ones?