I'm an immigrant from the south of europe that lives in the UK - I did not have to cross any shipping lane in the dark. What's reductionist is your definition of immigration (and immigrants) to the uk to be what you described and that of a winner-takes-all society where there's only one way to describe winning, vague economic performance of the unbridled kind that the US lives in, and the uk can't wait to jump into, head first.

There's more to "society" than average wages and startup capital.