What, pray tell, is wrong with them at the moment?

The law is too strict but unenforced. £38k per year for a visa sponsorship is ludicrous outside of London (possibly inside too!). Apparently the government is thinking of reducing graduate visas down from the current 2 years which is an idiotic idea. And worst of all, the fact that a British citizen needs to earn a minimum of £29k per year in order to have a non-citizen spouse enter the country. Technically it's between the two of them, but it apparently has to be within the UK. Your spouse can't work without a visa and cannot get a visa without the work. Regardless, there shouldn't even be a limit. Apparently you can get an exception if it's "unreasonable" for you to move to their country (really messed up for the home office to tell you, "no, don't come back to the UK/leave the UK") but processing that takes a year apparently.

Meanwhile, if you come over in a small boat illegally, you don't get immediately sent back or elsewhere, even though you were just coming out of france- a safe country.

Under the tories it was just a numbers game. They just wanted to reduce "migration" and trying to get rid of the channel crossers was too expensive and inconvenient. So they instead decided to reduce international students- immigrants who are known for being temporary and also subsidizing our own citizen's education