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The Office for National Statistics (ONS) has delivered yet another bombshell. Net migration – the number of long-term arrivals minus long-term departures – stood at 728,000 for the year ending June 2024, and who is to say that this figure won’t be revised upwards in due course, as happened with the net migration figure for the year ending June 2023, which we now learn has risen from 740,000 (what we were told in May) to 906,000. While net migration for calendar year 2022 has gone from 764,000 (itself revised upwards) to an unbelievable 872,000. These are the old telephone directory numbers. To put that into context, 906, 000 is three times the pre-Brexit levels and nearly 20 times the net migration of the mid-1990s. Our immigration problem has gone from chronic to catastrophic.
We keep hearing from assorted economists and some think tanks that net migration will come down as fewer Ukrainians and Hong Kongers make their way to the UK. In the case of the former, we don’t see that happening soon, it’s more likely that those here will be joined by those they left behind. Regarding people from Hong Kong, for whom the path to settlement, put in place by the Tories, is open-ended (and available to around three and half million people). Numbers coming here will depend entirely on conditions in Hong Kong and how Beijing is treating the people of the Special Administrative Region.
As for other nationalities, for so long as the law and rules remain as they are and employers and universities have a free hand to bring in as many people as they like, there is little chance of net migration falling below 500-600,000, let alone falling to (still much too high) 315,000 that the OBR is expecting it to be by 2028. Then there are the children to be born to migrants entering the country that must be factored in. Together, it would still lead to a projected population growth of nine million people by the mid-1940s and, as we have often mentioned, annual net migration of 600,000 (plus children born to migrants) means a projected population growth of 20 million people by the mid-2040s. That’s the equivalent of around 18 cities the size of Birmingham. What is it about such colossal levels of migration that the political class don’t get? Close to net two million people in just two years for whom to provide housing, services, doctors, schooling, energy and water.
Of course, the problem is not just about drawing on limited resources to ensure an acceptable standard of living for citizens of the UK and those who legally choose to make their lives here. What don’t politicians understand about the risks born of increasingly rapid demographic change, as millions of people from different cultures and much lower standards of living are added to the population? Consider the millions of people coming from a way of life with fewer made-up roads, cars, streetlights, rudimentary public transport, fewer washing machines, dish washers, TVs, restaurants, supermarkets… etc. How much more energy do they need just to make their way through the day? All this happening as the historic majority moves ever closer to becoming a minority; likely by the time someone born today reaches retirement age. The very nature of the country is changing without the consent of the British people, while the social fabric that has held Britain together for generations comes under ever greater pressure.
The economic argument for mass immigration has always been flimsy, but it’s now collapsing under the weight of reality. We’ve been told for years that immigration boosts growth, yet Britain’s GDP per capita has flatlined and now trails behind countries like Finland and Australia. Instead of driving prosperity, mass immigration has created an economy reliant on cheap foreign labour – an economy plagued by low productivity and stagnant wages.
The fact is this crisis is the product of years of bad policy, weak leadership, and misplaced priorities. And there is no magic solution, but we do need politicians to grasp the nettle and deal with runaway, uncontrolled, immigration. It has of course been underway for years and picked up speed following the introduction of the ridiculously soft points-based system
In recent years, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, and to some extent Liz Truss (who saw the light after her brief period at No 10), must take ownership of the horrendous situation we are now in. But they are history. Their legacy is the Tories having to struggle for some time to regain trust on immigration after 14 years of repeated failure and reneging on promises to reduce it. Having accepted that they screwed up, they will now not only have to come up with policies designed to reduce net migration (we believe, to zero) but also be convincing on how it’s to be done. Kemi Badenoch has recently been making the right noises but she still has a long way to go.
Fact is, Sir Keir Starmer is now at the steering wheel, and he must quickly move beyond blaming the Tories. He can’t just acknowledge that immigration is too high and has to come down. He also has to tell us how it’s to be done. The only way it will happen is by imposing a cap and working hard to reduce net migration to zero. Sir Keir has claimed that a cap didn’t work for the Tories. But this is simply false. The cap (just on high-skill work visas) introduced in 2011 worked very well. A cap, extended to other areas, would work again. Sir Keir Starmer should have the courage to bring it in and stick to it when the flak from vested interests and the NGOs starts flying. Sadly, we very much doubt that Labour will do any such thing.
The reason this imperative is so urgent was underlined by the latest immigration figures, revealing that 1.8m people were added to the population in just two years. Without a cap, there will be no control, no reduction, and disaster waiting to happen.
This is a preview of Migration Watch’s free weekly newsletter. Please consider signing up to the newsletter directly, you can do so here and will receive an email copy of the newsletter every week as soon as it is released.