Are you sure your passport wasn’t checked?

What you’re describing sounds like it was the customs check. Pre-brexit, if you were arriving from the EU, then there was no customs check since we were all part of the same customs union.

The usual flow is

immigration check -> baggage collection -> customs check

I don't know about UK, but my experience is the signs for EU and non-EU point different directions, but either way you just go through a door that leads to the exact same place. I've been told that when they are looking for "something" they will put extra checks at the non-EU door, but if you have a US passport (I presume other countries like Canada) in hand they will send you through the EU door.

No, you were good. You were already inside the Schengen Area so you actually took the correct path, though I can see how the sign seems vague now I read it from your perspective.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area

> the electorate really doesn’t want immigration

Is that the case or is there just a significant minority that cares and the rest are happy enough as things are and would get mad if there was change - thus making their approach rational: get the votes of those who care but don't do anything because then you will be voted out next term.

I don't know myself, but this is something that I've wondered about a lot of issues that I care about where nothing happens. (I've long been on the side of more immigration)

Politicians like campaign on reducing immigration because it's an easy thing to campaign on. They don't like to actually do anything about it because (1) it's hard, especially when you want to comply with laws and treaties and (2) effectively reducing immigration could hamper the ability to campaign on reducing immigration.

He's done plenty (https://ukandeu.ac.uk/the-coming-collapse-in-immigration/), following on from the changes Sunak made, which are already showing up in the early numbers this year.

But of course it's never going to be enough for the noisily anti-immigration lot.

> It seems to be a bipartisan thing in the UK to recognize that the electorate really doesn’t want immigration

Usually, it's not an "inner wish" of the electorate, but the electorate gets manipulated to feel that way by mass media, especially tabloids. Outrage sells, after all, especially when it can be laced to make it more effective.

The problem at the core is that immigration is vital for societies, especially the low-pay-hard-labor segment. Has the UK found a replacement for Ukrainian and Polish farm workers yet [1]?

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/15/pounds-6...

Well, that's what you get for not running a totalitarian country.

By and large, it's a feature, not a bug, that the government isn't sharing all the information it has between its various parts.

Eg GCHQ has lots of information it has (ostensibly) for keeping the country safe, but that doesn't mean that the prosecution in a criminal case should get access to all the same information.

Of course, that's a bit inefficient and duplicates efforts. But such is a price for restrained government.

The Tudor conquest of Ireland involved the English and Scottish. It was before the UK existed, but was perpetrated by the constituents of the UK. At least, the ancestors of the contemporary constituents. Maybe not of Wales though, I don't know.