Comment

A conspiracy of silence about the impact of mass migration has cost Britain dear

Failure to plan for the extra millions of people coming to Britain is behind many of our current woes

Heathrow/ UK border
Credit: Steve Parsons/PA

Twenty years ago this week, a new campaign organisation made its presence felt with a prediction that rocked the political establishment. Migration Watch UK said that Britain could expect more than two million immigrants every 10 years for the foreseeable future unless curbs were introduced.

The founder, Sir Andrew (now Lord) Green, a former diplomat who was alarmed by the apparent trends, and David Coleman, the Oxford University demographer, extrapolated on the net migration figures since Labour had taken office in 1997 to make the forecast. The story was sufficiently dramatic to warrant front-page treatment in this newspaper and was instantly denounced, not only by migrant groups but by the Home Office itself.

As it turned out, the prediction was indeed wide of the mark. The increase was far greater. Since 2002, the population of the UK has grown by around eight million and 80 per cent can be attributed directly or indirectly to immigration. Yet, until Migration Watch pushed its way into the public discourse, no one was allowed to talk about this issue. 

A Telegraph front page in 2002, featuring the Migration Watch story
The Migration Watch report featured on the Daily Telegraph front page in August 2002

At the 2001 general election, party leaders were required to sign a pledge promising not to “play the race card” during the campaign, which effectively meant any debate about the impact of large scale immigration was shut down.

Of course, immigration had been a divisive issue in British politics before. In the late 1960s Enoch Powell had warned of “rivers of blood” flowing from a failure to confront it. Various Acts of Parliament were introduced to limit the rights of Commonwealth citizens to enter the UK freely and, from 1971 to 1997, net immigration averaged about 50,000 a year.

This was why Migration Watch’s claim that it would soon be running at four times that figure was so explosive. By the following election, in 2005, the issue could no longer be ignored. The accession of the former Warsaw Pact states to the EU and the UK’s open door to immigration saw a massive increase, even though the Labour government insisted it would have little effect.

The people who ignored this trend and castigated anyone who discussed it are the same people who today demand that more money is spent on the public services to sustain such a large population. This was never primarily a matter of culture, though that did matter to many people. Their concerns were dismissed as bigotry by supercilious middle-class “progressives” who regarded it as a welcome boost to the multicultural nation they were keen to build. But, of course, they weren’t competing with the new arrivals for jobs, schools and services.

The population increase over the past 20 years is the fastest in history. Even the post-war baby boom saw only a five million population rise between 1950 and 1970. There is an argument for high levels of immigration when the population is ageing, in order to sustain the tax base and fill job vacancies. Rising populations boost GDP, though not necessarily on a per capita basis. Overseas nurses, doctors, teachers and other professionals help support the services the growing population needs.

However, the extra hospitals, schools, GP surgeries, houses, transport links and the like that are required for such a large number of people have not been provided in sufficient quantity, which is why there is so much pressure on those services. Even the water shortages that we are facing today are partly a function of a population explosion in London and the South-east fuelled by immigration.

One point that Migration Watch was making in 2002 was that if no one talks about immigration then no planning can be done for the inevitable pressures that it brings.

The fact is that, until the mid-1990s, the actuarial assumptions that underpinned government forecasts of public service requirements were based on an almost steady population. For instance, officials assumed that more homes would be needed because of the break-up of families; but they vastly underestimated the rate of new household formation because the impact of immigration was not taken into account.

Popular concern about immigration was behind the Brexit referendum result in 2016 which was pushed over the line by first-time voters for whom immigration was the big issue, even if it was often non-EU immigration to which they objected most. When the Common Market was established, with free movement as one of its core principles, it was never envisaged that millions of people would move to one European country and settle there.

At the time, when most of eastern Europe was under Communist rule, it was not even possible. In the end, it was not the fact of immigration that led to the Brexit vote but its sheer scale, for which our politicians never prepared.

The progressives, who even now rail against those who supported Leave, should acknowledge their own complicity in pretending that immigration was not an issue.

Arguably, Brexit was less a vote about “taking back control” than reducing numbers and yet immigration is actually higher now that we have left the EU. The current political debate is fixated on around 20,000 would-be asylum seekers crossing the Channel from France, despite the threat of their being removed to Rwanda. However, the real story concerns overall levels. When Migration Watch was established, the net increase for the year was 190,000. In the year to June 2021, according to the most recent official figures available, it was 240,000.

This year, net migration is likely to be higher than ever and yet the issue has dropped down the list of voter concerns. Campaigners say it is no longer a “numbers game” which is why targets, once set by David Cameron and Theresa May, have been dropped.

Perhaps people really do feel the Government is now able to exercise control through a points-based approach to prioritise immigrants likely to aid the British economy. Or maybe they have yet to make the connection between population growth and the lack of affordable housing and a broken NHS.

Twenty years after immigration again became a hotly disputed political issue, silence has descended around the subject once more.

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