The verdict is in. The Government’s promise to ‘take back control’ and reduce mass immigration has not only failed, it it has been seen for the con it was from the outset. Our new paper on the first year of visa grants after the opening of the post-Brexit visa system shows that non-EU entry grants for foreign nationals to come here on longer-term visas approached 800,000 – the highest level since available records began in 2005, over 100,000 more than before the pandemic. Rising illegal immigration, which saw more than 35,000 people reported coming without permission by air, boat and lorry during 2021, only adds to the total. It also underlines the horrifying reality that there is scant, if any, control over who is coming in – remember that 75,000 who have come in boats and lorries often destroy documentation so it is impossible to verify identities with any certainty. 2021’s unprecedented influx (mass immigration on a whole new scale) makes a mockery of the clear 2016 vote to reclaim our borders. In the midst of all this, study visas shot up to the highest level ever and refugee resettlement has skyrocketed to more than 100,000 in one year. After months of flummery from ministers about getting tough, the numbers show that we haven’t done any such thing.
Blog of the week
London Becomes The Most Congested City On The Planet
The onward march of liberalisation of our borders has consequences. Road congestion in London is worse than in Paris, Rome, Berlin and Madrid, with traffic moving at 3.7mph during evening rush hour. The UK was already a crowded country yet our population is not only growing rapidly (increasing by an average of 430,000 per year) but its make-up is also changing at a more rapid pace than has been generally understood. 90% of population growth since 2017 has been driven by immigration – directly or indirectly. Since 2001, immigration has added roughly one million to our population every three years. Read the full blog here.
Migration Watch in the news
Our Chairman Alp Mehmet was once again in high demand this week. See below:
The Times: Visas for arrivals from outside EU at new high
‘The inflow from overseas is now huge and rising. We are seeing the opposite of what the government promised in 2019. Rules were meant to be tighter with numbers coming down. Immigration is now running out of control as longer-term entries skyrocket. Meanwhile, asylum claims from anyone who can make it to UK shores are exploding. The public were duped.’
You can see our paper quoted in The Telegraph and the Express as well.
Alp was also interviewed on BBC 2’s Newsnight by Victoria Derbyshire on Thursday night about the Rwanda deal, the Linton-on-Ouse camp and what we should expect to happen on the Channel.
‘The vast majority of people in the country are with the Government on this one. Finding loopholes and exploiting gaps is not what people in this country want.’
And see below for another reaction to the week’s news:
‘This is scandalous, and something we have repeatedly pointed out. There are thousands of bright young people in Britain who desperately want to serve in the health sector but who are denied the opportunity even to train. It seems the government and health boards find it impossible to wean themselves off their addiction to cheaper, foreign-trained workers.’
Make your voice heard
The ‘points-based’ system introduced after Brexit has been an unmitigated disaster for immigration control and reduction. The liberal, loose system has led to the increases in long term immigration (how we started this letter) from countries outside the EU that make up 80% of the world’s states. That, combined with crumbling enforcement that is driving the burgeoning number of illegal arrivals, is simply stoking up many future future problems while exacerbating current ones. None of this is lost on the public whose innate common sense will always enable them to see through the specious arguments of the political class. Write to your MP today and remind him/her your vote must not be taken for granted. Our politicians have to get their act together on immigration before it’s too late.