Our central concern is the current massive level of immigration which, if allowed to continue, would mean that the population of the UK would increase by 10 million in 25 years, 82% of it due to future migrants and their children. Migration is, of course, a natural part of an open economy and society but it must be sustainable and must have the assent of the British public - yet many in the media and political class have long dismissed widespread public concern and the strong view of a clear majority that the current level of net migration of around a quarter of a million a year must be significantly reduced.
As an independent and non-political research organisation, we are a leading voice in making the facts known as widely as possible and in making suggestions as to how immigration might be reduced.
Yesterday Migration Watch issued the following statement in response to the Migration Advisory Council EEA Migration report :-
This is a very technical report which seems blind to the impact of high levels of EU immigration on many communities in this country as a result of rapid population growth. With immigration adding one million to our population every three years this simply cannot go on. These proposals would permit continued high levels of immigration, including those with medium skills from all over the world. The overall outcome would be to weaken immigration control rather than strengthen it.
Here are a few points I would like to make about the Migrant Advisory Committee Report.
The MAC committee is made up almost entirely of economists. The chair of MAC is a professor from London School of Economics. They are academics. They have been used by the Bank of England, the IMF, the EU and World Bank to do analysis and write reports.
- Therefore the MAC report about recommendations for future migration levels is written entirely from an economic perspective - what they judge will be best for our economy - for business - for employment - for tax raising.
- Yesterday Nigel Farage said this "The referendum wasn't about whether GDP goes up by 1% or down by 1%, the referendum was about leaving political union and becoming an independent country! That is the issue that neither the Conservatives nor the Labour party wishes to address."
- So if Brexit vote was not primarily about GDP and was about leaving a dubious political union and reestablishing ourselves as a democratic independent country again - what did the electorate expect to follow?
- All research and anecdotal feedback from canvassing revealed the vast majority of the public wanted and end to free movement of people as a primary motivator for the leave vote - and this analysis is widely accepted.
- Does this imply 17.4 million leave voters are in effect closet racists? (what many remoaners choose to infer.) Of course it doesn't.
- What does it imply then?
- It implies the 17.4 million people believe free movement of people and the uncontrolled inward migration that results is at a minimum a significant negative for our society and put more strongly irresponsible, sheer madness and totally unsustainable.
- Why do they feel that? Because they are grounded and have commonsense unlike the vast majority of academics, liberal elite politicians, swathes of the media and the London centric bubble. (as characterised by the make up of the Migration Advisory Committee).They see beyond the short term interest of many UK businesses (happy to be able to achieve cheap labour rates - regardless of the wider consequences.)
- So what is the issue with free movement of people. Simple. Population growth and its effect on our quality of life.
- The majority of people in the UK want strict controls on inward migration and a massive reduction of numbers coming in overall.
- Scandalously this was not taken into account by MAC in its recommendations. MAC only focused on what might be best for our economy - GDP - as if that is all that counts.
Reasons why the majority of people in the UK want inward migration massively reduced. Amongst others -:
- Money (GDP) is not everything. Quality of life is more important. Uncontrolled and continuing inward migration in vast numbers has negatively impacted on quality of life.
- If money is the most important the majority dispute inward migration has made the average person richer - in fact they believe it has made them poorer.
How to justify - substantiate these feelings :-
1) Quality of life - how has it been undermined by inward migration? Put simply - we are overpopulated. (please note statistic gathering can only be historical and some of the statistics I have obtained are from differing years. However they only evidence increases ands upward trends)
- The UK population now stands at 65.6 million and has increased by 2.4 million in the five years since Census day in 2011.
- The population is growing at the fastest rate for almost a century and is projected to increase by 400,000 a year. Bristol currently has a population of 450,000.
- 82% of UK population growth between 2001 and 2016 was due to the arrival of migrants, their children and their subsequent children born in the UK. So immigration has added roughly one million to our population every three years and of course it is showing no sign of slowing - in fact the reverse.
- Now as a result of this mass immigration our population is projected to rise by half a million every year – the equivalent of a city the size of Liverpool – for as long as immigration is permitted on the present scale.
- England is already twice as crowded as Germany and 3.5 times as crowded as France.
- If net migration were to continue to run at current levels the UK population would rise by just under 10 million in the 25 years to 2041, of which 82% is directly or indirectly due to immigration.
- England, where 90% of migrants settle, is currently the second most densely populated country in the EU, after the Netherlands and excluding island states such as Malta.
- England is also more densely populated than India, the second most populous country in the world.
- Only by sharply reducing net migration can we slow population growth and ease pressure on housing and public services.
What is the impact of all these extra people on our quality of life? :
- The additional population growth makes congestion worse and adds to the pressures on public services. This comes at a time when public spending is being reduced.
- One in four children born in England and Wales is to a foreign born mother. The rise in the number of births has put pressure on NHS maternity services.
- While many migrants work in the NHS - it is well established they and their families are motivated by free health care. They are entitled to register with a GP and take full advantage of the free health services available. Consequently services are even more overstretched and underfunded. (the solution - bring in even more foreign workers!) Waiting times for treatment definitely diminishes quality of life.
- It has also led to a shortage of school places. 60% of local authorities will have a shortage of primary school places by 2018.
- The UK has a serious housing crisis. Mass immigration is the main reason for the additional demand. If it continues at current levels, we will need to build 135,000 new homes a year just to house new migrants and their families. This is 370 per day or one home every four minutes. (our laws require social housing is allocated by need and there is NO priority given to our own population who might have been on the housing list for years.) Greenbelt under pressure - the south of England gradually being concreted and tarmacked over.
- Population growth on this scale renders integration of newcomers virtually impossible. Segregated areas of similar ethnic groups are created, and some schools are dominated by migrant children
- The dominance of males is often reinforced, especially from countries where the status of women is low.
- Aspects of our cultural identity are under pressure or have been lost. This creates resentment.
- In 2015 The Guardian reported Surge in Migrant Voters : Almost 4 million voters – about one in 10 of the entire electorate in England and Wales - are predicted to have been born overseas come May and, for the first time, it is predicted that more than 50% of voters of the eligible electorate will have been born abroad in two seats. A record number of people who were born outside the UK will be able to vote in this year’s general election and are likely to hold the balance of power in several key constituencies, according to the first comprehensive analysis of the migrant vote. Two seats – East Ham and Brent North – are predicted to be the first constituencies with a majority of the eligible electorate born abroad. In a further 25 seats they will constitute more than a third of the electorate and at least a quarter in another 50 seats.
- again The Guardian (2014) - Startling rise in the birthrate of British Muslims ? Almost a tenth of babies and toddlers in England and Wales are Muslim, declared the Times on its front page on Friday, indicating what it describes as a "startling shift" in the demographic trend in England and Wales. So where did the figures come from and are they as revealing as claimed? The numbers originate from a 2011 census release first published by the Office for National Statistics in May 2013 and in more detail in November as a specially commissioned ad hoc table. The figures do not calculate birthrate as such, but show that almost a tenth of babies and toddlers (under-fives) in England and Wales are Muslim. Of 3.5 million children up to the age of four in England and Wales recorded in the 2011 census, 317,952 (or 9.1%) were Muslim. The Times report also states "the percentage of Muslims among the under-fives is almost twice as high as in the general population". That is correct. According to the census figures, 4.8% of the 56.1 million resident population of England and Wales in 2011 were Muslim, and as stated above 9.1% of all under-fives in the population were Muslim. In addition, the story points out that fewer than one in 200 over-85s are Muslim – an indication they claim of the "extent to which birthrate is changing the UK's religious demographic". The census figures show that of a population of 1.3 million over-85s in 2011, only 5,513 were Muslim.
Of course there is a great deal of perversity from those who wilfully see no issue with the levels of inward migration (they have their own agenda) we have experienced in the last ten years. They argue none of the congestion, housing shortages, pressure on the NHS or schools is to do with inward migration but reflects poor Government planning and under investment by one of the richest countries in the world! These same people usually argue the failure to integrate and ghettoization of migrants is to do with white right wing racism. All this impacts on quality of life and many feel our culture is being diminished by overt political correctness emanating from the liberal elite and the BBC.
2) Money. Large scale migration makes us poorer not richer!
A majority do not accept the strident assertion that we are all richer because of migrants. However it obvious the following is true :-
- Firstly - large scale inward migration has resulted in a larger UK GDP. There are more people working! However unless you lack fairness and objectivity those using this statistic to justify migration have to concede when you look at wealth per capita that is not the case because GDP has to be shared amongst more people.
- Secondly - some individuals have been winners - often the already well off - those that have been able to take advantage of low wage rates. (cheap to get your car cleaned, your grass cut, your house painted) The most obvious is business whose profits have been enhanced by paying lower wages to migrants and by utilising migrant skills without the cost incurred in offering apprenticeships and training to our own people.
Why does unfettered high level migration make us poorer overall? Some of the reasons in no particular order are :
- A ready supply of cheap migrant labour keeps wages across the piste down. Low wages allows greater state benefits to be claimed (which migrants are just as entitled to claim as \our own people.) It is the case migrants can claim child benefit even if their children are not in the UK!
- There are two assertions regularly made :- Firstly we need migrants we do the jobs we do not want to do ourselves. However to most of us it is obvious we have 4 million people unemployed and claiming benefits! The other point I would make is many migrants are only interested in doing menial work as a stepping stone. They move up the jobs ladder - so the logic is we have to bring in even more at the bottom. The cycle continues - more and more and more people. Secondly - we have an ageing population and need to increase the work force to support them. Immigration is no solution to an ageing population because, of course, immigrants themselves grow older. Any benefit is temporary unless we were to have continuing and ever increasing levels of immigration.
- Those that support high levels of migration argue they contribute - they pay tax - of course they do. But they are entitled to use the NHS, our schools, our housing stock - our public services and so are their families that they invariably bring. The ordinary person with commonsense will not accept and do not believe migrants overall put in more than they take out. The common view is migration is draining the UK. The National Health Service has become The International Health Service!
- Many businesses are claiming they cannot function without a ready and unfettered supply of migrant labour. Of course they want what's best for them and what is best for them is cheap compliant labour especially if it is subsidised by the tax payer in the form of benefits. In France for instance where employing people is not so attractive because of labour laws businesses have invested much more in technology. Production levels are significantly better than ours as a result. Businesses will always take the cheapest easiest most profitable option. If cheap migrant labour is not there they will find another solution.
- Similarly businesses claim they need to bring in more skilled labour. Fair enough. However most of us feel we should do a better job of training our own - from our own pool. Of course that will cost business a bit more in the short term. It is madness for instance that we are not training enough nurses.
Many will see this blog as racist. I am not a racist. I am one of the majority and can see things as they are. As individuals I have no problem whatsoever with people coming here for a better life. However collectively and certainly in the vast numbers that we are being swamped with I have a major problem. The British public want numbers massively curtailed and are dismayed by the Migration Advisory Committee report which badly fails to address the catastrophic problem we are creating. The British public are prepared to take a financial hit if it results from dramatically reducing inward migration - although many like me believe migration costs us financially overall as I have said. In the same way they are not concerned about the siren calls from business for cheap labour or cheap skills as a necessary to secure our future. Business will just have to be more entrepreneurial and they will. The British public is concerned about overpopulation - and see much bad for the future that will flow from it if it continues. Brexit and the ending of free movement of labour they believe gives the Government the opportunity to finally massively reduce numbers coming in. The MAC report is not in step with this view. Quality of life is moving in the wrong direction for the majority and they will not stand for it. Government needs to understand that clear message.
To stop the rapid rise in the UK’s population size, net migration would have to be reduced to well below 100,000 a year. It is currently at over 300,000.
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