When income per head is $63,543 in the USA, around $40,000 in the richer European countries and under $6,000 a head in poorer countries it is no wonder that many people want to be economic migrants. The USA is the most popular destination for migrants, followed by Germany, Saudi Arabia and the UK. Millions of Indians, Mexicans, Syrians, Bangladeshis and others have made the often arduous journeys to new lands in search of a better life.
These strong patterns of economic migration have been reinforced by waves of migration as people flee authoritarian regimes, civil wars and individual threats to their lives. The West struggles to distinguish between economic migrants and refugees fleeing genuine threats of persecution and violence. The difference is fundamental to policy, as the need of the refugee is greater than that of the economic migrant, and the numbers should be much smaller and more manageable .
There are three broad views over how we should react and respond to these impulses. One group including Labour and the Lib Dems thinks the west should be even more welcoming of any kind of migrant. It is to them our duty to be generous and kind. One group thinks it best to concentrate our policy efforts on aid and trade to try to create better circumstances in the poorer countries so people there can seize more opportunities and enjoy some hope of a better future. Our generosity should be limited to defined groups and individuals who face persecution, with the west sharing the responsibility by taking manageable numbers of people from crisis areas. Some targeted economic migration should be allowed where we need the people and skills concerned. A third group thinks we take too many migrants with stresses on our housing and public service provision and wishes to see numbers reduced in the best way possible.
The UK debate has not been helped by poor and misleading official statistics. The argument was intensified by the arrival of a large number of people under EU freedom of movement rules. The official figures told us EU migration was lower than non EU migration, and the Blair government gave a very low figure for eastern European migration which was soon proved to be massively wrong. More recently the ONS has apologised for the large errors and produced new figures showing EU migration did run consistently at higher levels than non EU migration over the last decade, that EU migration was under recorded and non EU migration was overstated. The revised figures are still problematic as they do not include children and have to be adjusted for students that do not also get some part time work. The dodgy numbers have led opponents of the current pace of migration to think this was more than an embarrassing error.
Many countries in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas have put up border walls and fences to try to stem the flows of economic migrants. Some counties like Turkey and Pakistan shelter large number of migrants from broken states near their borders. International aid is often directed to camps established near to a country people have left in the hope that some order can be restored and they can in due course make their way back to their homeland.
The UK according to the latest revised figures was welcoming at least 300,000 additional people every year up to 2018. In 2015 and 2016 EU net migration hit 282,000 a year with another around 100,000 from non EU. These numbers of non EU migrants are a small proportion of those who would like to come, but they are large numbers when it comes to finding new homes, school places, doctors surgeries and transport capacity so they can enjoy a decent lifestyle. Given the magnitude of the problem and the persistence of low incomes in too many populous countries in the world, more of the answer must lie with helping those countries to succeed rather than with helping drain them of talent by fostering more migration.
The UK now has more control over how many people to welcome. With a new borders Bill going through the Commons the government should be able to be more precise over how many each year it wishes to help and accommodate. What would you like to see them do? I think the totals of economic migrants in recent years have been too high.
August 28, 2021
The UK now has more control…….
So they exercise it by assisting all and sundry across the channel, giving 3 million Honf Kong residents permission and now 20,000 Afghans.
That doesn’t include the students who never leave.
It’s a disgrace and big businesses are complaining of staff shortages.
We were told these people were the brightest and best so we should have a surplus of trained people.
No doubt more lies.
August 28, 2021
Certainly the UK has more control over our fellow Europeans coming here, but commenters here seem more worried about those from non-European cultures.
Furthermore, brexit has made not one iota of difference as far as people from the rest of the world are concerned. The UK has always had complete sovereign control over that. The number of people who entered the European Union, and then who came to the UK having gained citizenship of another member country was very small, but Farage’s “breaking point” poster campaign exploited with shameful effect the widespread misconception that the number was large.
I think that John’s piece tends to make the same implication, but it falls flat, given that brexit has happened and the boat people keep coming anyway – exactly as explained that they would.
August 28, 2021
Notice how carefully MiC uses phrases like “keep coming anyway” but gives no numbers. In fact, according to gov.uk new arrivals are down sharply in the year ending March 2021. Work related visas are down by 37% compared to last year.
Interestingly, seasonal worker visas are *up*, from 2,861 to 10,659, so Remainers are misleading us in both directions. Total arrivals are down, but seasonal workers are up. Just about the reverse of the usual Remainer whining.
August 29, 2021
Er, seasonal workers were mainly from the European Union, so previously needed NO visas.
It’s hardly surprising that the visa numbers are up then, is it?
You’re rather “special”, aren’t you?
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Your party and govt are totally dishonest about its mass immigration policy. Your govt. chose to remain in the ECHR as part of the Capitulation on Brexit, it chose to be in the UN migration pact. The real question is this bill,like others before it, is to deceive the public no more.
WE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU, YOUR PARTY or GOVT. Your party and govt. record of 11 years proves it is not worthy of election. Osborne made it clear no one was serious in private. What did you do to challenge that claim or unofficial policy of your party?
Your govt.’s urban ghettos also built on lies: where local people are ousted or dropped to the end of queue on housing, health, schools and public services. I think those on this site who voted for your party lost leave of their senses way before May!
August 28, 2021
There is a big mismatch between the political and chattering classes, and the ordinary decent voters when speaking freely.
I know a lot of fairly recent migrants, the thing that surprises me about them is that they think we are crazy to allow in the volumes we do, and they are even more anti immigration than the general population.
Some parts of the country are not integrated into society, and this bubble will cause problems. Insular bubbles that live under different rules to the rest of us is not good.
I don’t think the political class really get to see the problems as closely as some ordinary people, and the takeover of the mainstream media by the liberal left don’t help.
Me I think net zero immigration is a perfectly reasonable and achievable policy, and if in power I would happily implement it.
Don’t know why you bother with this blog, you know your parties policy was down to the tens of thousands and they did nothing of the sort in power, so the political class are accustomed to lying on this and getting away with it. And at the moment Carrie is making policy not MP’s.
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Agree totally and with fed up southerner. We are being lied to and totally ignored. Whenever voter push back gets too loud, we get some weasel words and then nothing happens just like post Brexit. A weak libertine prime minister and supine MPs in thrall to the metropolitan elite as far away from its electorate that I can ever recall.
August 28, 2021
Nig1,
Agreed. Politicians also know that many in the electorate are aware of all this, but they believe voters are powerless. So the pantomime continues with a change of characters from time to time.
August 28, 2021
+1 migrants opinion of the open border policy.
My sister-in-laws family came over here from Mauritius nearly 60 years ago. All of them integrated and worked. She went into nursing, trained and stayed working her way up to position of sister and then into the specialist field of cancer. From first impression, at 4’10” she may have seemed like a soft target for bag snatchers. Wrong! and is most vehement about the numbers and quality of migrants arriving here. She and my brother moved out of London 5 years ago.
The family of a work colleague and good friend for many years came here around the same time from India. His family did the same and he went on to become a engineer specializing in obsolescence.
It is no longer the country they came to and despair what has been allowed to happen. Despite what politicians in their ivory towers claim.
August 28, 2021
This GREAT country needs to return to its traditional moral Judaeo / Christian values and vision that gave us our Monarchy, Parliament, Oxford, Salisbury Cathedral, Shakespeare, and so on, as well as Family Values, Patriotism and Work Ethic, and to the best of its Greco-Roman heritage (that overlaps with traditional Christianity) – the world that gave us the Greek Hero, Homer, the military and admin discipline of the Romans and so on. Without this, politicians don’t have anything of substance to work with – instead just a world of continuous, chaotic shifting sands.
August 28, 2021
‘that overlaps with traditional Christianity’ – not completely but in an important way
August 28, 2021
You make a fair point, but omit that what has given us most of all is The Enlightenment.
All of that is threatened by obscurantism – of which I’d say that Postmodernism is a variety – which takes root wherever too many people drop their guard against those who would befuddle them.
It has given us brexit, and in the US Trump’s maladministration, and is not letting up.
August 28, 2021
+1
August 29, 2021
I agree
August 28, 2021
Not knowing who many are is a big problem. Our NHS is under a great strain now without a large influx of people who probably have health problems themselves coming from poorer areas. This is not helping anyone. Homes are a problem for so many with rented properties being scarse in many areas and new homes being built on every bit of green space available. I would like to know where these economic migrants are being housed and how much it’s all costing and when politicians think this little island will be full? Many are coming from Morocco into Spain. As far as I am aware there is no war there . I wonder how many will try and make it to the UK? We found that much of the crime in Spain was committed by these people. They live by different rules to us. Too much immigration is a problem for many now John. We have to start controlling the numbers and finding a way of returning those that are entering illegally and those who are not GENUINE refugees.
August 28, 2021
Exactly. It will be a very long time before most of these new migrants pay any net tax into the system if ever. Plus they will need housing, policing, education, social services, legal aid, translators, road space, energy, health care, public transport, long term care and all the rest. The UK already has taxes at the highest for 70 years and these are being increases hugely by Sunak plus he is borrowing hugely on top of this.
August 28, 2021
So John is the government really going to push/coerce the vaccines into children. Dr Mike Yeadon puts the chance of death from the vaccine for children (though clearly slim) at about 50 times that of death from Covid itself. This is insane and totally immoral plus we do not even know the potential long term risks? Can this government not do statistics, logic and numbers?
I also see that the excellent Prof. Michael Levitt has done some figure on Australia – All-cause death there is 6% below expected (delaying ~ 11,000 deaths). The estimated cost of this so far $1,000,000 per extra life-year. Total insanity, and they have still got the problem of when to open up! The UK (normally) are reluctant to spend more than 1/40th of this per Quality-adjusted life year (QALY).
August 28, 2021
Very dangerous politically for the Government to coerce children into vaccinations too. So why on earth do it. Rather like Net Zero CO2 a large cost, seriously negative net “benefits” and hugely negative political benefits as well.
August 29, 2021
Lifelogic
Kids get the triple jab pre school when very young
I can also remember queuing up at School get my TB jab and Polio vaccine, its not a new policy.
August 29, 2021
@Alan all well and good but we got a form requesting consent for those vaccinations to be administered to our children
August 28, 2021
While Morroco isn’t actually at war today rising tensions can only mean more migrants into Spain and possibly the UK. I dread to think of the outcome if immigration continues at the current pace.
August 28, 2021
I will continue and accelerate until the government take serious actions to deter it. They so far clearly lack the political will it seems.
August 28, 2021
Good post, but returning illegal immigrants is not difficult. The government just needs to do two things:
(i) Change the law (which, with a majority of 80, is easy to do) stipulating that those who come here via a safe country are not elligible for either asylum or Exceptional Leave to Remain, do not qualify under ‘Human Rights’ legislation, and will always be deported, without exception. A clause should be inserted making it clear that there is NO right of appeal or judicial review;
(ii) Put the illegals on planes and fly them back to their home countries.
The fact is that the mere passing of such legislation would stop 90% of the chancers coming here, and after we have deported the first couple of planeloads, and they see that we are serious, the number arriving would fall to zero. Problem solved!
August 28, 2021
Indeed but zero political will it seems.
August 28, 2021
Well said.
August 28, 2021
I agree to the overall thrust of your article.
15 years ago supermarkets and water companies were saying the population was nearer 80 million, whilst the government of the time were claiming it was less than 61 million. Even now they are claiming it is only 67 million. The immigration figures you provide are still a vast under estimation. This is not a criticism of you, but of the continued deceit of each consecutive government. Who collates these dodgy figures and why exclude children from the total? Do they not need somewhere to live, eat, need clothing, be educated, do they never get sick? Of course they should be added. The native population have a right to know, given they are the ones who are forced to pay for all this.
Also a substantial problem is the fact they do not know how illegals are here and when they put an estimate figure, this is vastly underestimated. All due to the failures of not managing our borders. We are the only country in the World you can just ‘walk’ into, or claim ‘asylum’ with no official papers after arriving from another safe country! I am remain of the opinion until accurate population numbers are collated and publicised, those that want them here, can pay for their board and keep, their education and health needs and take full responsibility should the migrant break the law. We can start with the mouthy hand wringing politicians.
And this before the fact that too many of these migrants do not come here to integrate into British society, but want (and get) the same laws and way of life as the s******e they left! Parliaments first duty is Defence of the Realm and it dismally fails to even manage the borders of an island!
August 28, 2021
edit: should read
do not how many illegals are here
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
The one thing missing most in this debate is honesty. There is a staggering lack of honesty – particularly by politicians on the right who, frankly, play for the crowd.
Our borders have never been open. You have to show your passport here for a reason. We have never been in Schengen. We have always been able to control who lives here. We have NEVER had to allow serious criminals from the EU in.
There has been a staggering lack of honesty about how freedom of movement worked. It was never a right for refugees or migrants. Claims millions of Syrians would end up here via Germany were always untrue. It was always a reciprocal right – enjoyed by people like Lord Lawson, Peter Lilley, Andrew Neil, even our own Agricola – which they have all voted for remove from everybody else.
But I guess lies is all the Brexitists have ever had.
August 28, 2021
I suggest you try to get into the country without a passport to prove your theory that we are a country you can just walk into.
Good luck. Let us know what your cell was like.
August 28, 2021
Andy. If those coming across the channel had passports why don’t they fly in or come openly on a ferry? Why are they smuggled in with no papers? As usual Andy your post is nonsensical. In fact your posts get more ridiculous by the day but as I’ve said before, the replies are entertaining.
August 28, 2021
I don’t know how often you have travelled, but I used to be a frequent traveller. It was quite common when coming through the channel for EU citizens at Heathrow for passengers simply to be waved through without even breaking stride so long as they were clutching something that looked vaguely like an EU passport. I doubt if 1 in 100 was actually examined to check that it was valid and belonged to the bearer. There would be a couple of officials perched on stools either side of a passage about 10ft wide so as not to slow the flow to baggage reclaim and the exit.
August 28, 2021
Andy,so there aren’t any immigrants crossing the channel every day then!! Must be a figment of my imagination??
August 28, 2021
Indeed. Here are a few other lies and dishonest distortions which should be highlighted so they and the people who make them can be ignored:-
– Brexit would cause most of the 3m EU citizens thought to be living in the U.K. in 2016 to leave. In fact it turns out there are now about 6m here, meaning most have not left and many more have come since the referendum
– there is a shortage of HGV drivers due to Brexit. In fact there was a supposed shortage of 60k HGV drivers in 2018 at which point the EU were laughing at mrs may and her hapless ‘negotiator’ as they prepared to surrender on every point of substance. There are shortages of HGV drivers everywhere and supply chain issues all over the world, mainly due to foolish covid policies such as the U.K. pingdemic.
– anyone who thinks the same immigration rules should be applied to people wherever in the world they come from, as opposed to believing in unrestricted immigration from whichever countries happen at a particular time to be in the EU, is ‘racist’ or a ‘bigot’
August 28, 2021
I do voluntary work alongside a retired HGV driver, and he says the shortage is due to the nature of the job, which precludes a family life. Apparently you never know when you will be called upon to start a trip or how long the trip will last. Despite being retired he is regularly offered trips.
August 28, 2021
Long distance may be increasingly be replaced by rail freight-there is a lot of work going on in Germany,Russia and China,in particular, to expand and harmonize and digitize the rail network on a transEurasia scale,ultimately connecting with the Middle East and N Africa too.High speed rail,AI and softbots are being introduced to optimize load planning across borders(Siemens have a JV in Russia -through which East-West traffic will increasingly pass-which is very busy at the moment).Last week saw the official opening of the new Amur rail bridge connecting Russia and China (a road bridge was also opened there last year) that can handle both Chinese and Russian gauge traffic.Likewise,the forthcoming east-west terminal in Hungary will accomodate both standard European and Russian gauges.The Russian rolling stock giant,Transmashholding, bought Hungary’s leading rolling stock maker last year and together they have won the contract to renew Egypt’s rolling stock-the largest ever awarded by Egyptian Railways.
Both East and West are encouraging rail at the expense of air and sea where it is a viable alternative-and the Suez canal debacle this year will have given additional momentum I’m sure!
August 28, 2021
Also die to the fact it’s been v difficult to qualify and get a license during the covid panic
August 28, 2021
due? Richard
August 28, 2021
It’s ironic that you talk of others’ dishonesty, and then give such a partial view of immigration.
Unlike most countries, inhabitants of the UK do not register with the authorities, providing we pay our bills no-one is interested in us. There is in the UK, as in many island nations, an assumption that everyone who is here is entitled to be here. We do not permit citizens to be judged on the colour of their skin, their race or their command of English.
It appears that half-truths are all that Remaniacs have to peddle.
Whilst you are technically correct to say that we were not obliged to allow EU migrants to come here without health insurance and the means to support theselves, actually implementing these controls would have meant re-engineering our entire society, checking whether every patient is entitled to free treatment or should pay, checking immigration status at every interface with the state.
This would have represented a mammoth task, which If Tony Blair had been correct about the level of immigration would have been excessive, but which could no longer be achieved when the true levels of immigration became apparent.
August 28, 2021
The majority of illegal immigrants did not come to the UK illegally, but simply overstayed their visas or permitted visa free length and purpose of stay. This has been visible in the statistics for a long time, particularly for students, where the number of emigrants after completing courses has been substantially below the numbers admitted previously to start them, without being granted leave to remain.
August 28, 2021
Andy
One truth we can all agree on.
Unlike the ANZAC nations there is no minimum educational or wealth requirements for migrants into the UK. With gross immigration running at circa 700k pa we can guess that most of those leaving will be choosing advanced nations with entry requirements, ergo we are losing brains and money in replacement for what ? We don’t know.
As Big Neil says. It’s a pity that all those landing on Broadstairs beach were doctors and architects and not lorry drivers (and who says that importing lorry drivers wasn’t depressing wages ? That’s not what we’re seeing now !)
August 28, 2021
No-one has said we have open borders. But we have government that allows the population to increase by 300,000 a year. Complete and utter insanity. On the one hand we have a housing crisis – on the other a huge increase in population. You have to wonder about the intelligence of those in government.
August 28, 2021
This is crazy “reasoning”. Saying “You have to show your passport here for a reason.” means nothing when the UK had to accept arrivals from the EU under free movement. Having to show your passport means nothing under free movement, and everything when the UK controls its own borders.
I keep waiting for a post from Andy that make any logical sense, but no luck so far.
August 28, 2021
I dont think it matters, what ‘we would like to see them do’. The British public are never asked. We are just expected to allow in an unlimited number, and lectured on our ‘moral duty’ if we protest. We are taxed accordingly, to pay for all this.
I feel sorry for the council house applicants, who are consistently moved down the list, to facilitate this.They must be in despair.
I am not in this position, but I am feeling that I would vote for any Party that would put a stop to this – but there is none in sight.
I feel, we are losing our culture and our heritage, for which I, and many others, have been so proud.
August 28, 2021
+1
No there aren’t any in sight because successive traitorous governments have made people feel that the very worst thing to be called is a waaaycist! ( Nudge Unit ).
Thus people became terrified of supporting any party whose platform was to reduce immigration.
And now it is too late.
And this was what it was all about.
August 28, 2021
An accurate picture Cheshire Girl
August 28, 2021
Due to changed circumstances I applied to be put on the housing waiting list, my children were five and six at the time, one is registered disabled. Over 12 years later the housing department asked me if I wanted to remain on the list!
August 28, 2021
Indeed Cheshire Girl; our country is being trashed by “our own” government.
August 28, 2021
Cheshire – – would vote for any Party that would put a stop to this – but there is none in sight. – – of course there is – the Consevative party have promised it for YEARS – – and lied every time. NO intention of stopping it EVER.
August 28, 2021
What hope of reducing immigration, when liars (I know I have a beard but I’m only 16!!), illegals, criminals and murderers are being welcomed to our shores without check, and then once here are extremely difficult to remove, if not impossible. When will politicians give law abiding residents priority over criminals? I am so angry at our so called ‘politicians’ who always seem to give the noisy minorities precedence over the silent majority.
August 28, 2021
It is about time that the majority ceased to be silent.
I wonder if this comment will escape the censor, but not holding my breath !!
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Spot On
August 28, 2021
You say – “The UK now has more control over how many people to welcome.”
Unless that is they actually arrive in the UK by dingy, smuggled in trucks or other methods – in which case they are almost never returned. We thus augment the problem and it increases exponentially as people quickly learn how pathetically weak the system and arrivals all phone their mates & relatives to explain how and why to do it. A lot of UK lawyers, charities, hotels and similar in this large expanding parasitic industry benefit hugely at taxpayers expense. Over 800 a day by dingy to Kent on some days now.
So how high does it have to get before Patel and this government take any real action 5,ooo a day, 10,000 a day 50,000?
Clearly there is no political will to even attempt deter them currently, beyond the worthless hot air that is. Boris (and Carrie) clearly prefer tackling non problems like the non existent “Climate Emergency” with non solutions like net zero CO2 (in the UK only) vastly increasing taxes and over regulation even further or stopping people boiling Lobsters. Rather odd priorities Boris has it seems. Election in May 2024 I guess?
August 28, 2021
It seems the priority now is to ban plastic plates.
August 28, 2021
Any distraction they can find from real serious issues it seems. Yet billions of plastic water in bottles can still be sold when UK tap water is perfectly fine.
August 28, 2021
Late last night it was reported that the estimable Pen Farthing and his animals have made it through Kabul airport security, assisted by men from 2 Para. His chartered cargo aircraft was teported as being on the way.
Rock on Carrie 🙂
August 28, 2021
And how many endangered humans have been denied evacuation to make space in the proceedings for this, do you think?
August 28, 2021
+100,000.
Unfortunately many have never lived abroad outside of the western World. Their views on animal welfare are totally at odds with ours but life continues.
There are more donations to the RSPCA than the RSPCC.
August 28, 2021
Will the dogs and cats mix with British dogs and cats? Will the rescued animals forbid their offspring from mating with a British animal?
Amongst those rescued, will there be any that mean us harm? Just asking.
August 29, 2021
Mike
They should all be held in quarantine first surely given where they have come from, would be interesting to find out if this is the case as domestic pets have to go through that system if they have no passport to prove vaccinations I believe.
August 28, 2021
Are you contributing to the costs of quarantine? 14 days for him. Six months for the animals.
August 28, 2021
But his Afgan staff (apart from his Norwegian wife and American Practice Manager) are still in Kabul if the papers are right.
So instead of focusing early on getting his people out, he’s got his 200 animals out. I don’t see anything worthy of praise here – just badly misplaced priorities.
August 29, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Given recent events – COVID – it seems insane to be in a situation, as a country, where we import half our food.
In an ideal world, we – for the sake of ongoing security – should be self sufficient. Not just for food, but for energy and the production of manufactured goods. The obsession with globalisation and also ‘EUisation’ – leaves us vulnerable to all sorts of things. A virus, a ship stuck in the Suez Canal, wars and natural disasters elsewhere.
Since the introduction of the birth pill, population numbers in many Western countries began to fall as lifespan carried on increasing. Politicians, congenitally incapable of managing a drinks party in a brewery, reacted by allowing and encouraging mass immigration. What should have happened was that increasing automation should have released enough people from jobs in manufacturing into jobs in health and social care (of the elderly, in particular).
Mr. Redwood’s article today makes not one mention of cultural issues. Personally I have no issues with anyone’s culture, religion etc. But I think it is simplistic to think everyone feels that way although, in my experience, most people do. However, I always think it is a mistake if people move to another country and refuse to integrate – and, indeed, as their numbers grow, expect to impose their culture on the indigenous population.
In a world with far too many people in it, each country should aim to live sustainably. Just having an ever increasing global population and packing more and more people into small countries that live on ever increasing debt seems to me to be nuts.
For those with their hearts on their sleeves, always virtue signalling to show how wonderful they are, I have one simple question. Given the cost and lack of housing- and the lack of infrastructure such as school places etc. – and the fact we are vulnerable because we import half our food (at beige environmental cost) – what is the maximum number of people that should live here? There has to be a maximum, yes?
If there is, or has to be, mass global movements of people, countries like the USA, Russia, Australia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway (and a load of others) have MUCH lower population densities than us and, therefore, more room.
August 28, 2021
Mike. That is exactly what I want to know. How many is too many (I feel we have too many now) and how much is this costing?
August 28, 2021
@FedUpSoutherner
The virtue signallers, the Andy and MiCs of this world will never address the question- when will our population reach a limit?
It was said, when I was a lad, that you could fit the population of the world, shoulder you shoulder, on the Isle of Wight. I did a rough calculation once and it was true – at least when the global population was 5 or 6 billion.
So, I say – let them all in – as long as they live on the Isle of Wight.
August 28, 2021
Good reply Mike.
August 28, 2021
+1
And if the number of people here was anywhere close to realistic, I suspect the real population density is nearer to 375+ per Km2, putting it around 35th, not the current 51st in World population density by Nation.
August 28, 2021
+1
We allowed our own manufacturing industries to be destroyed. We raped poor countries, by demanding cheaper and cheaper products from their sweatshops, for example, resulting in their workers struggling to live well, as we became the disposable society. Is it any wonder economic migrants exist? We have ourselves to blame for the uncomfortable way that we turned a blind eye to what we were enabling. Well done to us. It’s payback time.
August 28, 2021
Sadly, I agree. And China owes us nothing for the virus, they’ve paid already.
August 28, 2021
@Mike Wilson. Crikey, I struggled to get through your verbose and waffling piece today. What is the point you are trying to make? That women should be banned from taking the pill, stay at home and have more children?
August 28, 2021
I can’t help it if you are unable to comprehend plain English. Others have not struggled. Can you provide an example of verbosity?
August 28, 2021
Further, re the pill. My point was that given a falling birth rate, an ageing population and increasing automation – we should have been happy with a falling population and that people losing their jobs in manufacturing could do the additional jobs caused by the ageing population.
How you got from that to women stopping taking the pill and having loads of kids I have no idea. How did you manage it?
August 28, 2021
It was buried subliminaly in amongst the rest of the verbal diarrhea
August 28, 2021
To inform this debate it would be helpful to have reliable credible data, not only on economic vs political refugees, but also those who arrive as students and tourists and then disappear. What are the actual, total numbers? In addition an agreed noncontentious mechanism is needed to routinely deport those without settlement rights. Naturalisation, employment and progression to UK citizenship data would also be of interest. Difficult to arrive at reasonable immigration levels when the current numbers are unclear, except to state the obvious that it amounts to a significant-looking total given the size and population of these islands. Given the heat generated by this issue, would it be sensible to have an immigration policy debated in Parliament ideally with all-party support?
August 28, 2021
I’ve been reading the latest ONS apologia on migration statistics. They haven’t published anything beyond estimates to March 2020. Some new numbers are promised for Autumn, with no firm release date. They are aiming to recalibrate next year when the census data become available. Perhaps by 2023 they may have a new system in place. Of course travel in the coronavirus era has been much more restricted and monitored (huge queues at immigration despite limited passenger numbers). We know that many EU workers chose to return home because of the pandemic and perceptions of life after Brexit. But how many (and therefore how many were here beforehand) seems likely to remain unknown.
August 30, 2021
“We know that many EU workers chose to return home because of the pandemic and perceptions of life after Brexit. ”
I’m not sure that’s correct. The figures published by the UK government say 6 million EU citizens (excluding RoI citizens who didn’t need to) have applied for settle status in the UK with some 5.1m having been granted settled or pre settled status so far.
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/eu-settlement-scheme-statistics
If as you say ‘many EU workers chose to return home’ it does beg the question just how many was there ?
Conversely, according to the EU own report only about 400,000 Brits have applied for settle status in EU member states with some 317,000 being granted sofar. The reported numbers are tucked away (its last pages) in both Annex A and Annex B of the report.
https://ec.europa.eu/info/publications/fourth-joint-report-implementation-residence-rights-under-part-two-withdrawal-agreement_en
August 28, 2021
You would have thought it would be a simple matter to require ferry companies and airlines to provide PNR based statistics that did the Brian Hanrahan thing – counting them all out, and counting them all in – by route and nationality.
August 28, 2021
There has been no element of control over immigration for over thirty years. Your Gov. has been as unwilling and impotent as those preceding them over this time.
Unless a strong Gov. emerges, a Gov. that refuses to listen to the wailing of the far-left, the pinkos, the snowflakes, the woke, nothing will change.
Meanwhile my country continues to be buried under concrete, roads and houses and my culture marginalised, my identity sacrificed on the alter of welcoming diversity into the imposed multicultural new England. It will eventually destroy us.
August 28, 2021
+ EXACTLY!
August 28, 2021
Too right Old Albion.
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Albion – Your final sentence.
All part of the plan.
August 28, 2021
@Old Albion
The government is not unwilling! On the contrary. They are very willing. They INSIST on high levels of immigration to get GDP up – in the forlorn hope the economy will grow enough so they can keep borrowing. They cannot run the economy so up, up, up the population must go.
Who cares about our young people and the cost of housing? Not the government.
August 28, 2021
Throughout history migrants have arrived on our shores, either as invaders or in more recent history, as people choosing to live here. Those have brought in good things… choices of other foods etc.
In the last 40 or 50 years or so, what was a constant trickle has become a flood of people. This flood is causing change, but not good change – bombers, child exploitation on a grand scale, people trafficking, black on black stabbings and so on.
Anyone arriving illegally should not even be assessed, cup of tea and on their way.
We need to rescind our signing up to all migrant pacts, ECHR etc and have realistic numbers allowed. Migrant Watch say as they are, the numbers will continue on as at present.
When I was a child (born 1958) the population was about 54-57 million, now it’s upward of 70+ million, and the difference is really noticeable. Even migrants of 30+ years are in agreement.
My point is that someone who knows what they’re doing should be in charge of immigration, (Alp Mehmet to advise) and not some idealistic civil servant badly informing the Home Office. And most of all, some honesty from government would be appreciated!!!! Honesty about the numbers and what’s being done!
August 28, 2021
I think it is extremely racist of this vile government to bring new people into a plague ridden country and to dilute the life chances of those they have already unilaterally invited/tempted in promising a better existence.
If there are six buns on a plate only six people can have a whole bun. When more and more are invited to share it becomes a case of “crumbs from the table”.
Not a nice situation to wilfully create!
August 28, 2021
A good analogy for immigration is rainfall.
You need sufficient rain to keep things green and pleasant but not so much that you get floods and unpleasant things – like landslides – so it’s about the lands ability to safely absorb the rainfall.
Migration is pretty much the same – it’s about our countries ability to absorb new comers. People who preach ‘no borders’ are never willing to discuss real numbers, because it immediately raises so many questions about the practical issues involved.
Whilst I have much sympathy for those who live in other parts of the world much less fortunate than we are – I do question whether most folk here would be willing to reduce their standards of living to accommodate them. Unless those coming here are above our average “quality” of people (you can define that in terms of skills, education, culture/work ethic, productivity etc) – then we must (by definition) be reducing our overall national average quality – and therefore our ability to compete/survive.
One can have all sorts of views of the poor souls who risk life by crossing the Channel – but every boatload will be competing for housing, healthcare and education with native Brits already here – simply because the ‘bucket’ is not infinitely large. Most ordinary folk understand this simple fact but it seems many of our political ‘leadership’ do not – but then maybe they don’t have a friend ‘camping’ in their front room (as one of my sons has) because they cannot afford to rent locally.
August 28, 2021
Sharon – What did May sign up to before she left office, the globalist UN migration pact.
A deliberate Globalist act.
August 28, 2021
The mass immigration imposed on us by the Establishment Parties over the past 25 years has done serious damage to this country. We no longer have a cohesive society and I doubt if we ever will again; we now have various “tribes” living apart together – many of whom have bought their historic grievances with them to play out on the streets of the UK. Our country has not been strengthened by these people and multi-culturalism has been a disaster.
We can’t keep accepting large numbers of immigrants. We don’t have the housing, infrastructure, public services or the money. And I see no reason why we should build over what is left of our green and pleasant land to accommodate foreigners.
I would like to see annual immigration (ie permanent settlement) massively reduced, to a maximum of 20,000. And in addition to the employment/financial qualifications required I would like “a suitability” criteria ie the likelihood of the immigrant accepting British societal norms. And yes that’s discriminatory, but I fail to see why we should be required to accept people who have no intention of “living by our rules.”
As for the Border Farce’s Free Ferry Service over the channel, if Patel and Johnson don’t get a grip and STOP IT they are likely to get a very nasty shock at the next election. It is blindingly obvious to everyone (except the BBC) that these are economic migrants chancing their luck and I have no sympathy for them whatsoever. It’s about time their luck ran out.
August 28, 2021
@ Donna – agreed we should not want to “…build over what is left of our green and pleasant land…” although even immigration amounting “… to a maximum of 20,000” annually would need the equivalent of a new small town, another Faversham or Devizes for examples.
August 28, 2021
Fantastic post Donna. You speak for the majority reading John’s diary.
August 28, 2021
+10
August 28, 2021
Indeed and sensible integration is not at all helped by religiously segregated schooling and heavy religious instruction of young children. This often amounts to child abuse in my view and this damaging activity often funded and even promoted by the state (or rather by tax payers).
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Donna – do not worry about the word “discriminatory”, you are playing into the hands of the “luvvies”. What is required is a TOTAL ban on immigration for a minimum of five years and the purge and eviction of ALL illegals from this country.
August 28, 2021
@Donna
Come down to West Dorset and stand as our MP.
August 28, 2021
Indeed. We had to spend billions on wars in the ME and lost hundreds of personnel to “keep terrorism off our streets.”
Yet dare say immigration was anything other than an unalloyed success…
Would I vote for a party that turned it all back ? No. But the indigenes have been blamed, maligned and excluded latterly.
August 28, 2021
If the criterion is that anyone able to better their life through migrating to the U.K. may do so, then we should plan on most of the seven billion on the planet arriving here.
August 28, 2021
There is zero evidence for your claim. Indeed, the evidence is that the vast majority – well in excess of 99% – don’t want to come here.
August 28, 2021
@ Andy – there is ample evidence both that most people in the world enjoy a living less good than we do in the U.K. and that for a number of those who opine on immigration bestowing a better standard of living is a sufficient criterion to justify admitting all comers.
As for your view that c. 1 per cent. of the world’s population do wish to come to the U.K., that would number some 79 million people, would it not, thereby more than doubling our population?
August 28, 2021
Even one percent is nearly 80 million!
August 28, 2021
1% is 70 million people. We could fit them in no trouble. How many will you put up in your house? I’m full up here, although someone with the right qualifications could use the other half of my 6’ wide bed.
August 28, 2021
We need to dispel some myths.
People don’t risk their lives in dinghies to come here for benefits. Asylum seekers do not get benefits. They get £5 a day for food. £5 a day is not even enough to eat. The rest mostly comes from charity. Asylum seekers are banned from working. They actually have a pretty miserable life. If they are accommodated – which many aren’t – they are put in absolutely the worst conditions. This government housed some in illegal conditions. Appalling.
The asylum seekers have not broken any law. It is not illegal to come here by dinghy to claim asylum. They do not have to claim asylum in the first safe country. They can claim asylum where they like. It is not their fault that it takes the Home Office so long to process their application. Like all legal processes it is absolutely right there should be opportunities to appeal.
They do not ‘all’ come here. We actually take very few asylum seekers compared with many countries – including France.
Why do those who come here choose the U.K.? Maybe they know people here. Maybe they speak some English. Maybe they come from a country which was a British colony. Who knows.
But what is certain is that the absolute hate and bile spewed by many Britons – and some politicians – is absolutely shameful. The only difference between any of us and any of them is luck. And the thing about luck is that one day ours could run out too.
August 28, 2021
Yes, it would only take a meltdown of a nuclear facility in this populous country to find millions seeking safety elsewhere.
I wonder what kind of a reception we’d get now?
August 28, 2021
“People don’t risk their lives in dinghies to come here for benefits.”
Depends on what you mean by “benefits”. As Lifelogi has pointed out: “It will be a very long time before most of these new migrants pay any net tax into the system if ever.” The essential word is “net”. If you arrive with nothing, and having contributed nothing previously, you will be a net recipient of benefits for a very long time.
August 28, 2021
A quick look on .gov (asylum support) shows you are wrong again andy.
You keep repeating this nonsense about no benefits for new arrivals.
I am happy for them to get a roof over their heads, free health treatment and free education for their children and other benefits but stop claiming they don’t.
August 28, 2021
Go on then. Give us a complete list of the actual mainstream benefits asylum seekers can claim.
Let me help. THERE ARE NONE.
reply They are rescued from dangerous small boats and the people traffickers and put up in a hotel with free board, lodging and public services, preparatory to finding a more permanent home paid for by the state.
August 28, 2021
You are wrong andy.
I have given you a link to the .gov site where it proves you are wrong.
Get off your high horse, go away and read it.
August 28, 2021
I read it. It confirms asylum seekers do not get any benefits.
You appear to be confused by the difference between benefits and services.
reply Getting housing and board is a benefit
August 28, 2021
Wrong again!
First you said they got £5
Then you said they got nothing.
The .gov site asylum support says:-
“you will get cash support of £39.63 for each member of your household, somewhere to live, extra money for mothers and young children, a maternity payment, free healthcare and free education.
August 28, 2021
Peter 2 – I am not hapy for them to get a roof over their heads, free health treatment and free education for their children and other benefits.
August 28, 2021
+1 they could’ve applied for asylum in France…..but no – lets get more benefits in the UK
August 28, 2021
Perhaps Andy, with all your undoubted expertise, you could tell us how colluding with people-traffickers, either by entering an obviously dangerous mode of watercraft unsuitable for one of the busiest sea-lanes in the world, or by hiding in a refrigerated food truck, after having paid them to transport you, is not illegal?
August 28, 2021
You appear to be the expert. So perhaps you can tell us which U.K. law you believe asylum seekers arriving by dinghy have broken?
Good luck.
PS: if you find one let Priti Patel know.
It’s why she’s struggling.
August 28, 2021
Andy – we take relatively few ??? – how about putting it into populaion per area – – and are you accommodating any of those you want to be able to walk into here and ignore our laws and culture? while forcing the very dangerous one they claim they HAD to leave – on us. – Do you actually know what an invasion is? – even if it is being done over years and not weeks? Look around Britain – happening everywhere.
August 28, 2021
I don’t like the word ‘claim’. It suggests people have the right to claim asylum.
For those risking their lives in dinghies crossing the busiest shipping lane in the world, I think it is reasonably to ask ‘why didn’t you CLAIM asylum in France? Or any of the other countries you have travelled through? France is half empty and full of cheap property. Who in their right mind would ‘claim’ asylum here rather than there?
I’d like the word ‘claim’ replaced by ‘ask’. Surely it is not unreasonable to ask ‘Who are you? Where are you from? What are you running from?’
August 28, 2021
“People don’t risk their lives in dinghies to come here for benefits”
That’s not dispelling a myth, but creating one. People do not come to the UK “for the benefits”, but for the enormous benefit of being in the UK rather than, say, Sudan.
This is just more of Andy’s crazy logic, to deny the people come to collect “£5 a day”. Of course they don’t. They come here for what they will get for the rest of their lives.
August 28, 2021
+1
August 28, 2021
Are our political masters so far removed from the realities of everyday life that they cannot see the impact that the importation of high numbers of migrants, many of whom do not share our cultural values, are having on this country ?
They need to get out more to the high immigrant areas and talk to the people whose towns and lives have been
transformed. But, unfortunately they will only hear and see what fits their narrative and anyone daring to question it, is branded a racist.
August 28, 2021
I would hope to see net migration of approximately 25,000 annually at most. I’d like to see both entry and exit checks of visa documentation to prevent over-staying. I’d like to see strict limits on public sector recruitment of skilled immigrants to prevent this government contributing to “brain-drain” effects among doctors, entrepreneurs and engineers in the origin countries who should be the ones that are firing-up their own economies. I’d like to see more automation of manual tasks in this country.
August 28, 2021
If my grandfather had deserted his warring country and fled the trenches he would have been shot.
If I broke into someone’s house and ran amok I would be arrested and prosecuted.
If I forcibly extorted someone else’s money and spent it to clothe myself in virtue signalling glory I would be banged up for a long time.
And let us be forensic ….you know…like the state is with “historic crime” (FGS) and bring the TRUE war criminals who caused all this upheaval, to justice.
FAT CHANCE!
August 28, 2021
As for what should happen, policy in future should be driven by the U.K.’s capacity to comfortably absorb new arrivals however categorized. I accept that if that were done, the numbers would fall very substantially and some years could even approach nil.
Government must recognize that the world and behaviours have changed materially since the days when international conventions were drawn-up and the obligations these impose are often enough inappropriate for our times. The U.K. can take the lead in changing international law through devising and implementing approaches to all forms of immigration that properly take account of the effects on the host country.
August 28, 2021
English culture is not worth preserving. It is to be despised, ignored and submerged by multiculturalism.
On the other hand, the culture of any tribe living in the Amazon basin is to be revered and must not be touched by ‘Western culture’. The many virtue signalling, ‘celebrity’ half-wits are happy for a big ‘Keep Out’ sign outside the Amazon while erecting a huge ‘Welcome to the sweat box, move along, plenty of standing room’ sign outside the UK. They, of course, live in a mansion in LA.
August 28, 2021
Or on an island that allows no migrants
August 28, 2021
It is what the British establishment have done around the world. Fiji they imported a workforce for the plantations, with the result the country is now ethnically split . They did the same in Malaya, Ceylon and East Africa, in each case claiming they couldn’t get the locals to do the work and needed some cheap labour (ring a bell?) this all resulted in coups, race riots, civil wars, and population expulsions. They have now brought this policy, with bells on, to England, and we too are ending up as a very unhappy place.
August 28, 2021
And it’s what other nations did too, not just Britain – for instance Portugal continued to import slave labour to its large dominions in East Africa long after slavery was forbidden by Britain.
August 28, 2021
This might have been true in previous decades but it’s not clear precisely what roles the recent arrivals from, say, Sub-Saharan Africa, are going to fill. It is not part of a plan or “policy” with some benefit in mind, the government is simply a passive observer and is not motivated to do anything about it.
Lastly, your comparisons are rather simplistic. In Sri Lanka, for instance, a major contribution to the civil war was the disenfranchisement of Tamil plantation workers by the Sinhalese majority after British rule had ended. Much earlier, before British rule, significant divisions existed during the Portuguese period.
August 28, 2021
Throughout human history, the arrival on their territory of migratory tribes with different customs and beliefs has rarely worked out well for the host. Four hundred years ago the Native Americans started to ‘welcome’ economic migrants (and some refugees) arriving on their shores by boat. Rather than integrate, the newcomers formed enclaves and retained their customs and laws. The enclaves expanded and eventually the natives found themselves in reservations with their culture denigrated and their history rewritten. But it could never happen here…..
August 28, 2021
France gets a lot of bad press for allowing migrants to leave their shores for the UK, and they don’t deserve it. They are making all kinds of human rights violations at their eastern border to keep the migrants out, which if we did it would be blasted all over the media.
As to illegal migrants into this country, these are the better off migrants not the really oppressed and vulnerable who have no means to leave their dysfunctional countries.
Put the illegal migrants onto a prison ship, and when full, take it on a world tour to return its occupants back to their home countries, or the neighbouring migration camp. Make it a condition of diplomatic relations that countries accept their citizens back and give financial aid to the migration camps.
The business model of the people-traffickers needs to be broken, otherwise numbers will increase and drastic action will be taken anyway.
August 28, 2021
Whilst I agree with many of the posts written so far about too much uncontrolled immigration, and please do not tell me we have control JR, because that simply is not the case, otherwise you would not need to write todays post.
For the life of me I cannot understand why we have not in the past, and still at present, do not accurately record the number of people who arrive and leave on a daily basis.
Clearly you can only count the caught illegals, but everyone else is surely recorded at our points of entry are they not, and if not, why not.
Once again we have too many (so called educated) people overthinking matters, but losing sight of the absolute basics.
The multi question ten year census is an absolute farce, as it is voluntary, it can be filled in by the head of the household, and if your are here illegally you would not get one in the first place, let alone fill it in.
When guests are invited into my house I welcome them at the door, when they leave I bid them safe journey home, so I know who comes and who leaves and I can plan to cater for the numbers I have invited, I do not allow people walking past my house to simply walk in and treat it as their own at my expense.
If we are not counting people in and out with all of the so called electronic systems we have, what is the point of our border force.
Reply The authorities do know who comes in and who leaves. The thing they find difficult is to distinguish between a tourist/short term visitor and a person planning to stay . the official definition of a migrant is someone who comes to live for at least a year. There are millions coming and going who we welcome as visitors and business people trading.
August 28, 2021
Reply – reply
Thank you for the explanation, so if we record and know who comes and goes, how come these people are allowed to overstay with abandon, and nothing much is done to find and eject them.
Do any of these records link with the records used for employment, Insurance number distribution, NHS treatment, Benefit claimants, police records, etc etc.
Electronic systems are supposed to make information more readily and more easily available to oversee if used properly, but it would seem if they are not linked, they can actually hide information.
Why was it we lost count of 2 million EU workers in the UK, why is it that thousands of students overstay, why have we distributed hundreds of thousands of new National Insurance numbers to people anyone who seemingly asks for one, when Births and immigration numbers suggest there is lesser demand than distributed.
Why do the NHS want to treat everyone who enters our Country for free, yes I know it is possible to charge some, but few ever seem to get a bill, and even fewer pay it !!
Your reply unfortunately asks more questions than it gives answers John.
August 28, 2021
Reply to Sir John: The difference between short-term tourists and long-term migrants is easy to determine: tourists don’t work, or use public services.
The solution to the problem of illegals living in the UK clandestinely is to make this impossible.
Make it a serious criminal offence to give work to someone here illegally, or give them medical treatment, or give their children a school place, or rent them housing. And enforce this forcefully. The illegals themselves can be hard to find, so target the support network. If people cannot work, or find housing, or be treated when they are ill, or send their children to school, they will soon decide that they are better off somewhere else!
August 28, 2021
Xtory – – serious criminal offence to give work to someone here illegally, – – the foreign restaurants who employ illegally here anyone CAN be fined for doing so – – THEY should be SHUT . They are fined less than they save by paying the illegals virtually nothing. “nd offence – deport the owners. They are criminals.
August 28, 2021
In these days of computers and “AI” – is it really beyond the bounds of possibility that we know who has come here on a time limited basis and whether they have left within those limits (or not)? Would it not be possible to have some kind of bond system from those sponsoring these short term visits – such that there were penalties if the conditions of entry were abused? It might make some of our Universities (and the ‘pseudo’ ones) think very carefully before offering places to all and sundry.
Oh? Our Universities depend on foreign students? Then perhaps we have too many Universities and should go back to the original focus on quality and not quantity.
August 28, 2021
Reply to reply – -The authorities do know who comes in and who leaves. – ?????- is that why on one police program the person they stopped ( driving on a motorway ) had been deported THREE times previously ??? and knew he’d be back within weeks ???
August 28, 2021
reply to reply – government narrative.
August 28, 2021
I feel personally divided on the issue, and I imagine many others feel the same: I was born in London to a Jewish father who was a refugee from Hitler and a Jewish mother whose parents were refugees from Czarist pogroms. My family and the Central European community of refugees that I grew up in were extremely grateful to Britain for the haven it provided, and most of that community felt it to be their duty to show their respect by working hard and behaving lawfully.
Now, living in S Africa, which is flooded by illegal immigrants fleeing poverty and criminally corrupt governments elsewhere in the Continent, I see that they are simply making the situation worse both for themselves and the citizens of a nation already in difficulties itself for the same reasons: intensely corrupt government causing further poverty and extreme unrest.
It is completely understandable that an individual should flee the threat of extreme poverty, violence/persecution and death; it is also completely obvious that attempting by military force to compel nations to behave according to Western Liberal views doesn’t work.
I suggest that First World politicians, philanthropists, AGW and LBQT activists, media celebrities et al start putting their heads together to come up with some solutions that might actually work (and that does NOT include setting up another charity or think-tank) in the real world to reduce the impact of power-crazed dictators and lunatic religious fanatics upon ordinary folk.
Arguing about heat pumps, gender assignment or vaccinations doesn’t put food on tables.
August 28, 2021
One has to be conscious of the tendency to become more resistant to change as one gets older. Nonetheless, I think the scale of illegal immigration is now deeply worrying with at least a football stadium’s capacity of people we know nothing about being allowed to enter our country every year. The new borders bill will do nothing to deter actual illegals from coming in the absence of enforced immediate offshore asylum processing for all who arrive here illegally – which would gain the approval of the silent majority of voters. But there is only vague provision for offshoring in the new Bill so that won’t deter anyone, especially as the leader of the main opposition party advocates an amnesty approach. Mass immigration is set to continue. All that may change is that a substantial number of disillusioned voters, especially those who have hitherto voted Conservative, will stop voting in general elections but lower overall voter turnout in future elections will change nothing.
August 28, 2021
MPC – How about stop and search and forget all the PC BS.
August 28, 2021
Good morning.
The odd one out from that list is, Saudi. There, no matter what, you cannot claim benefits. Even if you were to have a child born there, they could not claim citizenship. So you can only go there to work and play – NOT STAY !!
The political class has turned a Nelsonian ‘blind eye’ to the problem. Back in 2012 on another blog, I identified from the pictures being posted there that the boat people crossing the Med’ where ALL young males ! No children, no women, no old or infirm. Now, if you look at pictures of people in Europe fleeing the German Army back in 1939 you will see mostly the opposite. They have bagged what positions they could carry, put grandma and pa on the waggon and have sought the safety of the nearest country. Those traveling across peaceful European lands to arrive at a French port without seeking asylum are Economic Migrants. They have no family and no possessions, other than a mobile phone. THERE IS NOTHING THAT I CAN FIND THAT CAUSES ME TO ‘STRUGGLE’ BETWEEN THE TWO AND MAKE AN ‘INFORMED OPINION’ ON THE STATUS AND MOTIVES OF THOSE WHO WISH TO ‘ILLEGALLY’ ENTER MY COUNTY. End of !
Your party created this failure so it falls to your party to correct it. And by that I mean – SHUT IT DOWN !!!
The UK has always had control over non-EU immigration and it is a falsehood to suggest that we did not. Past governments of all hues have used the excuse that they cannot control ‘immigration’ due to EU rules as a means of masking either their failure or their complicity in this matter. We are more informed than ever before – so don’t try it on !
Our whole economic model is based on what I described here on this site a long time ago as a, Human Ponzi Scheme. I have not changed my view. We need MASS UNCONTROLLED IMMIGRATION to keep inflation low.
August 28, 2021
An ever increasing quantity and array of cheap Chinese manufactures have kept inflation low in recent decades.That has come to an end,the Chinese are now prioritizing their domestic economy.Also we may be at the start of a supercycle in commodity prices due to massive fiat debasement.
We are going to get a lot poorer as a country.
August 28, 2021
It was the Blair government that did most to unwind immigration control and monitoring. They were the ones who allowed bogus colleges to print student visas, and who granted freedom of movement to A8 and A2 countries ahead of the rest of the EU. They dismantled the system of visa applications via in country consulates.
August 28, 2021
And the Tories have been in office for getting on 12 years and have what to reverse all that New Labour have done ?
All we have had from these people, from CMD to Pretty Useless are words. And it isn’t as if they have a narrow majority or the EU Commission to deal with.
August 29, 2021
They did stamp down on bogus colleges. Too late of course for A8 and A2 migration, as freedom of movement was more or less general by then, and the anchor communities had already been established here. Some modest tightening of the visa system. But in general a pro immigration stance based on the assumption we need more younger people to avoid too high an old age dependency ratio. An assumption that is probably no longer valid, at least as far as my analysis goes.
August 28, 2021
Mark B – – They have no family – – not here they don’t -yet – – they are back home waiting for the call to come and get housed, fed, cash, NHS, translators, education fresh water from taps, sewage system etc – – for NO contribution whatsoever,
Get here – ensure you stay – sit and laugh – watch us work to put a roof over our own heads – and anyone else who turns up here with lies and hands outstretched.
August 28, 2021
+1
I know. And who was it that signed us up to the UN Migration Pact which makes it easier for them to come here and harder for us to get rid of them ?
August 28, 2021
I read an interesting comment from a usually well informed correspondent saying that Boris deliberately chose a weak cabinet. Looking at most of them it is hard to disagree.
That would inform the narrative that no one pushes back against his wife who no doubt would have had a word in his ear and continues to do so, nor against Boris himself.
August 28, 2021
I see our good host has raised questions to do with the impact of migration more than once in the House of Commons. In February 2020 he asked what the impact of migration was on new house building. The answer, from the Minister of State (Housing, Communities and Local Government) Christopher Pincher MP, was:-
‘There is a consensus that housing supply needs to be significantly higher than its historical average, which is why it is this Government’s ambition to deliver 300,000 homes a year by the mid-2020s.’
The answer carefully avoided referring to migration, as we can see.
Sir John had another question this June, asking what budget is used to house migrants claiming asylum, and was told by an Under-Secretary at the Home Office:
‘The costs of additional housing used to provide shelter to accommodate recently arrived migrants who claim asylum can be treated as Official Development Assistance for the first 12 months from arrival and where that migrant is shown to be from an eligible country.’
I think this means the Overseas Development fund can (not ‘must’) be used to house migrants for 12 months – as long as they haven’t thrown away their passport, of course. Then which government department pays, I wonder?
August 28, 2021
Phil.P – – NO govt department pays – the taxpayer does.
August 28, 2021
Sir John has heard and knows what we want, we’ve been expressing our views on this subject for months, years even, so presumably he has taken no notice of what we have been saying so far or didn’t wish to believe it and change. That would be typical of his Tory party and government.
What they do is try with the help of the BBC in particular to find ways of frustrating and deceiving us and continue with the implementation of the policy of inviting invaders. We have been lied to in the past and we are routinely lied to. Sir John will never use such a word so helps the deceit by not opposing it clearly.
Those who invade across the Channel are welcomed of course in their claims. The claim they are impoverished and in permanent fear is believed and promoted as it helps the dangerous policy. Most of us are not naive to believe such criminality and deceit. Notice how they only blame invisible ‘traffickers’. Everyone on the boats is considered innocent. None are taken back and government even keeps the boats in storage for fear of infringing on claims of ownership. They also pay millions to the threatening French of whom they afraid but numbers increase when they should fall. These are indications of the hopeless and weak mind-set of those who impoverishes the legitimate people of England. It is blindingly obvious that they have no will to protect our country and our indigenous cultural behaviours – if they continue much longer there won’t be any to protect because they will have been replaced. That is moving now at speed, but that will of course hardly affect their superior isolated and defended position.
August 28, 2021
PW – – None are taken back – exactly – they know that – they also know that their whole family will be welcomed to taxpayer funded everything lives, contributing nothing positivem while thanking our govt – and both of the two groups laughing at us. – wait until we start getting evicted, so immigrants can move in. Germany has done it
August 28, 2021
“Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan
between the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban and the United States of America”.
Dated 29th February 2020.
All prisoners to be released by March 10th.
Planes and boats.
All hospitals and hotels emptied.
“Ping” us out of the way.
Preparation?
Reply Only if Taliban renounced violence and negotiated peace with legal Afghangovernment
August 28, 2021
Reply to reply Only if Taliban renounced violence??- and that was believed?- they have already started killing people – – if they are breathing, they are telling lies.
August 28, 2021
The Pakistani FM was in the Turkmen capital,Ashgabat,yesterday trying to revive interest in the long proposed,much stalled TAPI(Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline project which if successfully revived would bring significant,much needed transit income to Afghanistan.Perhaps a big “if” though!
August 28, 2021
It was only first tranche of prisoners to be realised 10th March 2020, all others by June. All prisoners on both sides had apparently been released by September 2020, but the Taliban continued their war against the Kabul government forces. In fact, the US-Taliban deal in February 2020 did not require the Taliban to ‘renounce violence’, only to avoid using Afghanistan as a base for terrorism against the US and its allies. Whether the Afghan government was to be counted as an ally wasn’t clarified. The US decided for it on the question of prisoner release – if that’s the way to treat an ‘ally’, perhaps other US allies should take note.
August 28, 2021
Reply to reply.
Yes I saw that in the document.
I wonder if they complied? ( they didn’t?).
Just was surprised since the whole thing has been presented by media as a huge, unexpected event.
August 28, 2021
My recollection is that the Blair government misinformed us about the expected level of immigration from Eastern Europe (it was going to be in the tens of thousands or thereabouts). Like other pronouncements from him and his government, (think Saddam`s WMD to justify the Iraq invasion and CAGW to justify the Climate Change Act) it was wildly inaccurate. It has caused me, and I suspect many others, to have zero confidence in official data that is released to justify any measure proposed by UK governments of whatever political persuasion. They are all liars. The consequences have been, are and will continue to be disastrous for this country and its citizens. On immigration the objective should be clear and simple to understand. It should be zero. The political class should be judged against how well they have done against that objective.
August 28, 2021
Sir John – Do you revisit the place of your birth, Dover or any of the lovely seaside resorts along the Kent
coast ?
This will illustrate what most of the comments here are saying. I was recently in Broadstairs, a lovely old traditional seaside town, now filled with illegal migrants, etc ed
It really is heart breaking. How can your government do this to our country ?
August 28, 2021
A good post, Sir John. You are right to make the crucial distinction between genuine refugees and economic migrants. Genuine refugees exist in large numbers in the camps you describe. I believe that this is one of the very few areas which deserves foreign aid and we should give some funding to help maintain those camps.
Those migrants however who travel across Europe to come to the UK are NOT genuine refugees, as, if they were, they would have applied for asylum in the first safe country they had entered. So ALL the so-called refugees that come here are BOGUS. They are all fraudulent and every single one should be refused, without even wasting time and money considering their applications.
The UK is grossly overcrowded (we have around 15 million people too many for a country this size) and our services are overstretched. Even today, in the papers, we hear that councils which would be willing to take Afghan refugees say that they simply do not have the accommodation for them. So we need to reject ALL asylum applications and return the applicants whence they came. It really is as simple as that.
Unfortunately this is not what the government intends to do. And so, unfortunately, I cannot support them. That too is as simple as that!
August 28, 2021
Migration open floodgates was New Labour’s client voters to replace traditional voters, copying the Dutch model of welcoming Surinam and other former colonies. Remember Holland is full?
Peter Mandelson stated “Rub their noses in it” to objectors 20 years ago.
Since then everyone has been accused of racism before any sensible debate. It time to be grown up and realise it is unfair to both immigrants and native folks to expect we will live in tents and use food banks an masse to deal with this flood of humanity.
August 28, 2021
Sir John the one inescapable fact is that for decades this country has been totally devoid of any real recognised leadership. We now are paying the price bigtime.
It as a bit much when French politicians accuse us of having a too attractive and lucrative benefits system and they should be allowed to send theirs all over here. You can spin the big issues as much as you like but the we neither have the will or belief or state of mind to address all that is wrong with the country coming out of our leadership and his cabinet. Throw out all this party political dogma and let’s get a real leader and a team to stop the rapid descent to complete obscurity.
Trust, truth and respect need to be reinstated into the the way the whole parliament operates. Every party is the same not a fag paper difference between them.
August 28, 2021
Too busy chillaxing….because they’re worth it!
August 28, 2021
Tory MPs by assenting to left wing ideological politics and by silencing legitimate concerns using Hate Crime laws, speech laws and encouraging a culture of offence taking when none exists are inadvertently signing their own electoral demise.
Each migrant represents a new Labour voter and by extension their families invited and their children. Religious and cultural identities are exploited by racist Labour for max social, political and electoral benefit
Why the Tories could not simply explain what Labour’s agenda was ie political and electoral rather than any expression of humanity or human concern for those who need help defies belief. This appalling stupidity is directly to blame for all that we see today.
I despise Labour for what they have done to this nation. They are a brutal, hate filled and evil party. I know there are moral and decent people in the Tory party and they have been badly let down by those in Parliament who have opted to remain silent and in many cases sided with Labour to as a form of protection to prevent denunciation by left wing pressure groups and Labour MPs
The left are more powerful than they have ever been. They can play the Tories like the puppets they have become
I’d like to see a party that destroys the entire politics that seeks to exploit the differences in human beings for political advantage and which has now infected education, sport, advertising and many State bodies. This politics has roots dating back to 1929 and 1917. It is unacceptable that the Tory party have allowed it to get this far
This politics is not Tory party politics, fact. So please, confront and legislate against it before it splinters the nation irrespective of what the US freak political class do
August 28, 2021
+1
August 29, 2021
The fact which silences 99% of the speech that you apparently want to hear is nothing to do with any law relating to hate.
It is simply the power of private employers to sack people who publicly make any statement – in or out of work – which would cause any of their customers or users to question their choice of employee.
Isn’t it?
(The public sector cannot do this because HRA protects people from such actions by an organ of the State.)
So why don’t you campaign for better worker protection from these arbitrary employer powers instead of barking endlessly up the wrong tree?
August 29, 2021
You present it as a major problem MiC
Can you tell us roughly how many people or what percentage of the UK workforce are sacked from their jobs for the reasons you state.
August 28, 2021
I am always surprised so many of the commenters on here are obviously socialists or EU enthusiasts.
Whilst I enjoy political debate and want the government to suffer a strong opposition to ensure they are made to keep on the right track, I think many of the left should look at the USA to see the results of unfettered socialism and open borders.
The USA have elected an unfortunate man who clearly should be in a nursing home, but it his whole administration that terrifies me. They have said how cruel it was of Trump to try to keep out those from Mexico who wanted to enter the USA illegally. I’m sure I would have heartily disliked Trump had I met him, but he was an infinitely better President than Biden.
The USA now has a big problem with Mexicans and their children, no longer held in what the Democrats used to deride as “concentration camps” but safe and secure in prisons. Neither Biden nor his vice-president are to be seen and just walk away from questions they don’t like. Kamala Harris has a particularly infuriating habit of chuckling at awkward questions as though she finds them amusing. Can we imagine Michael Gove grinning after the Manchester bombing when asked about how the bomber was able to enter the arena?
August 28, 2021
Sir John
It seems that the majority of your contributors recognise the problems that now beset our once great country, why do none of the current crop of politicians have the will to act in the interests of the indigenous people?
I had an email from Amanda Milling a couple of days ago using images of Margaret Thatcher, are they suggesting that she would have approved of the current government, also images of Winston Churchill being harnessed in an attempt to suggest that he would welcome the direction of travel Johnson is pursuing, pure fantasy!
When will true Conservatives stand up and launch the True Conservative Party because the chickens are
coming home to roost?
If we had a leader with a spine the problems could be sorted out in 7 days
August 28, 2021
+22
August 28, 2021
These are a few policies I would implement:
1) No foreign aid to any country refusing to accept the return of its nationals.
2) No asylum granted to any illegal immigrant.
3) None of this nonsense about being unable to return people because they have destroyed their paperwork. I can pick out where most people originate from in this country purely by their accent.
4) Raise the ridiculously low-income levels that you were forced to implement in your immigration bill.
5) Identify skills gaps and train British people to fill these jobs rather than enticing people from countries that need them.
6) Turn the dinghies back to France. The problem would soon be solved if you remove the incentives.
7) Put a cap on asylum appeals. We see too many lawyers and claimants abusing the system.
August 28, 2021
Agree to all your points
August 28, 2021
I don’t believe the pace of migration has changed a great deal
What has changed over the decades is our governments approach to limiting & controlling the entrance visas, stopping illegal migration, removing over-stayers, removing criminals under visa, restricting the abuse of refugee and asylum applications and keeping accurate migration figures
August 28, 2021
Sir John,
“The official figures told us EU migration was lower than non EU migration,”
“the ONS has apologised for the large errors”
“EU migration was under recorded and non EU migration was overstated.”
I remember remain campaigners gleefully leaping on the official figures to refute and denigrate what leave campaigners had been saying for years. Now more than five years after the referendum the ONS finally admits the figures were wrong. Either this was a deliberate policy, or the ONS is not fit for purpose.
August 28, 2021
Time and time again Government seemingly commits to on message ‘virtue signaling’ almost inferring it is they, those in Government that will pay for everything in isolation to the people of the UK. Government has become remote from the people and reality. The UK infrastructure is crumbling, the UK Health system has passed it sell by date, the UK education system is a notional affair – the problem, we (as in the UK taxpayer and people of the UK) do not have the money to fund all the Governments ego trips let alone the basics we should expect for ourselves to be in place. Government keeps piling stress on stress to the diminishing position of the people wealth.
We need a flourishing economy, we need a resilient economy nowadays not to just grow but to mark time. But, the Government keeps trashing it, keeps stopping it passing go. This particular Government instead of signing up to match the ambitions of the Climate Alarmists, keep pace with them, play a part, decides all on its own accord to out-bid them, beats its chest, do it sooner, create a greater cost, punish the people and the economy further than ALL the UK’s competitive Nations are planning or would accept – there is no plan other than punishment of those they serve.
Its for all the above that people don’t respond to illegal immigration to well. They, the people the taxpayers, the real Bank of Government are paying to support Government dreams, its asperations the doting of illegal’s. Not the dreams of the People of the UK, but just the dreams of Government. With handout money, housing schooling, health, jobs and so going to what are basically criminals, then not affording similar to the indigenous population, the taxpayer an equal opportunity.
August 28, 2021
So, how many houses will be required to house these Afghan refugees – the ‘terps, the bottle-washers, the gardeners? Three thousand or so? And what is the cost of that? Until sanity has been imposed on our Immigration system, I will not be voting Conservative.
I want to see the responsible minister commit to making a six-monthly statement, on the floor of the Commons, reporting on the integration of these refugees into our society. I want to know how much taxes they are paying, how much benefits they are drawing, how many of them have jobs, and how many of them have moved from state-provided housing to homes they either own or rent privately. But my guess is that we will be denied such information and that we’ll be viewed as disgusting racists if we even ask.
I’m seeing my MP in a few weeks’ time; she can expect a one-way transmission.
August 28, 2021
You have to do something about the 800+ migrants arriving in Dover every day, and that is just the ones we intercept. There is nowhere left to put them, the judges won’t let us put them in barracks, they insist they are housed in 4* hotels. We have to collect them and return them to France the same day, and we have to stop the sale of dinghies to all and sundry. This is just untenable.
August 28, 2021
The only thing that will stop this business (because that is what it is) – is when the customers of the people trafficers no longer believe there is any reason to pay good money for the crossing.
That will only happen when they are immediately returned to France the same day – or if that is not possible (and why would the French want them back?) – to somewhere else we fund – such as Morocco. This would clearly not be very kind to those sent there but it would have the almost immediate effect of making the crossing completely pointless.
August 28, 2021
With the sole exception of the Afghans who have worked for and assisted our military, and their families, I would operate a zero net immigration policy, particularly for economic migrants.
There will always be some exceptions but nobody other than the families of Afghan interpreters should be allowed in unless they already speak good English.
I have said here before, we are doing the third world immense harm by allowing in their fittest and brightest as economic migrants. They are badly needed in their own countries. Even worse, the NHS actively recruits qualified doctors and nurses in the third world, a practice which is completely immoral and should be stopped immediately in favour of a strict programme of three year visas to allow them to come to the UK for advanced training, after which they would be required to return to their home country.
August 28, 2021
No issue should be discussed without reference to mass immigration, yet they nearly all are.
Be it crime, resources, jobs, pay and greenism.
Mass immigration is taboo and those wishing to discuss it are slandered. This abuse of the British voter (and not migrants themselves) is what caused Brexit. I’ll be on a beach somewhere tomorrow showing off my well defined abs and will come back to see that Andy has wasted yet another Sunday ranting in his underpants – that will bring me great joy.
All migrants are coming here for the laudable aim of increasing their share of the global carbon footprint. Perhaps Andy can explain how we reconcile that with the UK’s carbon emissions reduction targets.
August 28, 2021
With a majority of 80 all they have to do is pass a bill that makes it illegal to employ illegal immigrants. Anybody or company irrespective of size has all its assets removed and the money raised return to the exchequer.
It’s hard totally un pc and not British but if there are no prospects of lump labour working or employment without all the necessary legal paperwork what is the point of coming? To beg on the streets? While they are at it repeal all the laws that are used by the legal profession to stop removal from the country. If that upsets the ECHR tough bring it on, slay the beast before it destroys us. Action this day!!
August 28, 2021
How about a referendum on how many we want each year? I appreciate there are proper economic needs, but numbers are still numbers, and Parliament has not been honest about numbers and cannot be relied upon in this matter.
The referendum should make clear how the arrivals, whether economic migrants, refugees, whatever, are to be housed and where, and who pays for it. It should also make clear what health services and other support they are entitled to, and so on, and again, how much of this they are supposed to pay for themselves.
I think we also ought to clarify our policy on what we do with migrants who break our laws or work to disrupt the society that has tried to make them safe and welcome. I suspect there are many millions of voters who are more than just a little fed up with the present situation and want lot more of the miscreants and criminals sent back whence they came.
Worst of all, Parliament is losing the consent of the wider public in this matter. This is a potentially dangerous situation, and will not be helped at all by the high numbers (that word again – numbers) we should expect to arrive, coming across the Channel in boats or hidden in lorries, during the next month or so. If we have a fine, settled period during September – not unusual -with sunny days and calm seas, we could easily expect 1,000 or more *a day*. Even with interruptions for bad weather, we could still end up averaging 500 a day, or roughly 16,000 between now and the end of September.
Where are they going to sleep? Who pays for it? Time for honesty, in facts, thoughts and speech.
August 28, 2021
I believe that we should use the International Aid budget – whatever that might be in any given year – more effectively and with greater oversight. Just handing it off to a bunch of unaccountable NGOs ensures that much of it disappears and only a fraction reaches the people to whom it is directed and for the purpose for which it was intended.
In that way we should be able to help to improve infrastructure and put in effective programs that allow the people to build a sustainable way of earning a living and not therefore feel the need to make the arduous journey to our shores.
Naturally, this will take time, but it seems to me that that is the only real long term solution.
August 28, 2021
I would like to see an opinion piece which addresses the following questions:
1. Why are we signatories to the UN Global Compact on Migration when wiser Western nations have declined and the majority of British people are opposed to it?
2. Why is the UN promoting migration from the Third World to white-majority countries?
You know what we think, JR, but what do YOU think?
August 28, 2021
It would be good to have an “Australia-style points system” for immigration. However, what makes the Oz system work is how the points are allocated (how easy they are to get).
At present the proposal is for a salary of £23k to earn enough points for someone to get in and that is far too low. It’s a case of business lobbying and getting what it wants (cheap labour) while the Conservative Party get a cheap headline “Oh look, an Oz-style points sytem so everything’s fine”.
Also, the right to work here must not result in right to remain – followed by the right for lots of family members to come here too. There is no reason that people can’t be given work visas with the clear understanding that they return home when the work ends.
August 29, 2021
The UK always has had such a system, the only exception being the previous free movement for our fellow Europeans, and that has now ended anyway.
August 28, 2021
You do not do more than relate what the immigration situation has been. There is no indication as to how we should handle the more blatant assaults on our hospitality. The most obvious is the rubber boat route across the Channel. Why are they not returned to France. Second are the undesirables residing in our jails who should be removed from our shores on release. The problem would seem to be human rights legislation. Why has this not been replaced with something more suited to the current situation.
We are short of workers in many areas. Training of our own combined with short term visas for overseas workers is the answer. Why are we talking about it and doing little.
Just as the covid vaccination programme was sorted by private enterprise, so should the labour shortage be.
August 28, 2021
I belong decidedly to the “third group”. Control of immigration seems to have been lost, especially the illegal variety. Meanwhile, the consequences these increased demands have for our public services appear not to be properly factored in. Our health service is a matter for concern, being scarcely fit for purpose at present.
August 28, 2021
Theresa May signed the UN Migration Pact, slipping it through without debate or publicity. This commits the UK to assist migration and to accept economic migrants as if they were refugees from dangerous countries. This is why the Border Force picks up migrants escorted by the French and provides s ferry service and accommodation. The Conservative Party has no intention to abrogate this agreement and to suggest that any action will be taken otherwise is a deception. The truth is that the political class just does not care and disapproves of those that wish to stop mass migration. We need a new party.
August 28, 2021
What do I think?
Basically I think U.K. (particularly England) is already OVERCROWDED and our infrastructure cannot withstand the strain.
Also Your government have not ‘Got Brexit Done’ while EU and France in particular, continue to send their overflow to us and laugh at us.
I do not believe we have any moral duty to take people from foreign cultures into our country even if their own country is war torn and they are in danger. Did we cause that? Us, now, this government, these presently alive people? Remember the people are sovereign not parliament and no parliament can usurp the power of future parliaments.
As for economic migrants:- Well those from E.U. who are settled here have a settled status system to apply to. Even there they should be required to shew that they are working and paying tax etc. not a drain on our welfare state.
August 28, 2021
Why do you persist in calling it Migration? It isn’t. It is a deliberately engineered govt approved no-choice for the taxpayer funded population invasion and replacement program.
August 28, 2021
One of the very many malign consequences of uncontrolled mass immigration is that the labour market does not work and has not worked for some time. Employers who themselves push for ever more immigration can get away with underpaying staff thereby transferring wealth from taxpayers to shareholders through in-work benefits.
Many of those who arrive here from the third world have none of the skills which are in short supply but nevertheless put further pressure on the supply shortage by their presence. None of the skills which are imported could not be supplied by a functioning educational system and labour market.
Many English people want to become doctors and progress further in the medical profession; however, the government was not only restricting those who could enter medical school but putting restrictions on hospital training places for them whilst importing third world doctors with basic qualifications and putting them instead in those positions. From an Englishman’s point of view, it is hard not to see such behaviour as treason.
It is hard not to believe that the Tory claim that they would wish to improve the GDP per capita of this country is either yet another Tory lie or indicative of the very low intellectual capacity of those in government or the treasonous advice and behaviour of an infiltrated civil service.
There are many jobs which need to be done but will only be done if the rewards are sufficient to attract the qualified staff or those that can be easily trained.
August 28, 2021
“One group thinks it best to concentrate our policy efforts on aid and trade to try to create better circumstances in the poorer countries.”
Yet none promote the obvious solution, that is lowering their birth rates.
August 28, 2021
Sounds so simple, but you are talking about countries where the culture is that men prove how virile they are by making many women and young girls pregnant, and the consequences be damned. And when I talk about ‘making’ women pregnant, I mean it is often done by violence. Polygamy is also still the culture in many of the poorer countries, and is recognised in law.
August 28, 2021
Ban immigration for a minimum of five years and purge and evict ALL who are here illegally. No ifs, no buts, No do-gooder lefty libtard bleeding heart lawyers.
No benefits for any immigrant for a minimum of five years.
This country is VASTLY overpopulated.
August 29, 2021
+1.
August 28, 2021
I think this is one to watch for the near future. According to the Independent, there is now an open war going on between Starmer and lord Adonis.
Starmer is writing things like “Instead of talking about the things that most people care about, we talked about what we cared about most. While parents worried about childcare, getting the kids to school, balancing work and family life, we were banging on about Brexit.”
Meanwhile Adonis is talking about the “National calamity”, and is long on rhetoric and very short on numbers.
In my opinion, this is a serious issue, because Starmer can’t win the next election by continuing to go on bout Brexit, so he has to silence Adonis to keep control of the party.
Should be fun to watch.
August 28, 2021
Here we are again whinging about too many foreigners coming here when the opposite is the case. Since Brexit and the Pandemic hundreds of thousands of EU nationals have decamped and gone back to their home countries – they will not be back – and now we cannot get our own young British people to go out into the fields in sufficient numbers or to train as lorry drivers or to get out of Bed to work in the fishing boats – the situation is so bad now that it is seriously affecting our economy in major sectors – but no need for me to spell it out .
August 29, 2021
I tried using ONS data on population by age, the history of births (spilt between births to foreign born mothers and births to mothers born in the UK, and deaths by age over the past 50 years to try to look at the effects of migration on the population structure. It is notable that the youngest ages apparently include few migrants, while as you move up from age 25 to 40+ they dominate the population of those not born here. There is a notch of smaller cohorts covering late teens and early twenties, with apparently few migrants included. This seems unlikely since there are supposed to be over a million foreign born students who should swell the numbers for this age group. I wonder if the ONS is excluding them from its population count.
Overall, from birth to mid thirties about 70% of the population was born to mothers born in the UK. Of course, that now includes rising numbers of second generation migrants in the younger age groups. To some extent, migration has simply replaced the births we did not have as parents have fewer children, and population would clearly have fallen had migration not occurred. But now births to migrants are filling the gap (aside from the student age notch).
The excuse that we need more migrants to avoid large increases in dependency ratios is now fast wearing out.
August 29, 2021
I have produced a chart showing the data described above that can be found here:
https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/jYwKA/1/
August 29, 2021
There are many factors to take into account in framing an immigration policy (which we do actually need). One is the relative degree of urbanisation and education of the applicants, and their willingness to integrate in the indigenous society of a new country. On this score, we have to book an almost complete failure between 1880 and 1910, and even more so since WW2. Arguably, our social cohesion among the urban working classes has been totally destroyed, and not replaced with any workable alternative. Successive governments and industrialists seem to have sought the lowest denominator, confident in the assumption that they themselves will be untouched by the deleterious effects of their policy.
The second most important factor after social adaptability is surely intelligence. While it is not a perfect measurement, IQ is a guide. If you look at any world population IQ factors, the main sources of our immigration are notably low in average IQ – with only Hong Kong (whose average national IQ is higher than ours) forming a welcome exception.
September 3, 2021
Sir John, as you pointed out, the figures are not helpful. 300,000 a year is a “net” migration figure. If 400,000 come to our shores a year and 100,000 British people depart to other countries, this is reported as a 300,000 net migration flow, but is actually a 500,000 change in our population, taking the large reduction in British people and and the large influx together. The main problem is the Conservatives’ pretence that this is all covered by an Australian-style points system. On further research, the “family reunification” stream is the largest stream and is not covered by the points system and not limited in a way. We are constantly told that some migrants (emphasis on the word “some”) are useful to the economy, but the family reunification stream is almost entirely people coming to sit on welfare and dwarfs any alleged benefit from some types of work-related migration. This is why Migration Watch shows that immigration from all streams taken together is a huge net drain on the Exchequer. The stream of migration that more or less paid for itself was of Poles coming here to work. The stream of family members (from other places Ed)is entirely a negative for the Exchequer and for our society. Priti Patel is pretending to oppose the illegal migration across the Channel (but not doing anything about it), and that amounts to 3000 in most years (but may exceed 20,000 this year due to her inaction). But the this is only a small part of the up to 400,000 immigrants we receive a year – and the larger streams are never discussed. What can you do as an MP to raise public awareness of the fact that English people are scheduled to become a minority in England by 2066? Boris Johnson’s policies may even advance that schedule considerably.