We will continue to discuss the vexed issue of immigration even if the media and those campaigning to be our next Prime Minister refuse to do so.
Philip Johnston’s article in today’s Telegraph may, finally, be the first of many to appear within the pages of our broadsheet newspapers. The fact that it has taken this long is shocking enough.
But the headline numbers should give us all cause for concern and can be ignored no longer:
“Since 2002, the population of the UK has grown by around eight million and 80 per cent can be attributed directly or indirectly to immigration."
Concerns over migration provided the catalyst for many to vote Leave in the Referendum. But this was a proxy for concerns over non-EU immigration too.
Furthermore, no one in charge seems to have done a logistical cost/benefit analysis of so many coming into the country:
“The extra hospitals, schools, GP surgeries, houses, transport links and the like that are required for such a large number of people have not been provided in sufficient quantity, which is why there is so much pressure on those services. Even the water shortages that we are facing today are partly a function of a population explosion in London and the South-east fuelled by immigration.
One point that Migration Watch was making in 2002 was that if no one talks about immigration then no planning can be done for the inevitable pressures that it brings.”
Was there ever a policy so dishonest and ill-thought out ?!
"The current political debate is fixated on around 20,000 would-be asylum seekers crossing the Channel from France, despite the threat of their being removed to Rwanda.
“However, the real story concerns overall levels. When Migration Watch was established, the net increase for the year was 190,000. In the year to June 2021, according to the most recent official figures available, it was 240,000.”
We are not just heading towards a financial cliff-edge but a demographic one too.
The full article can be read below with a link to the original here:
CREDIT: Steve Parsons/PA
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