The prospect of war with Russia or China is alarming. If it materialises, let us hope that foolish politicians won’t have so depleted our defences that we are overrun.
There’s another danger. I mean mass, uncontrolled immigration, which is in the process of transforming our country to an extent that would have amazed our grandparents.
This is a subject I have been writing about for 20 years. I can say with complete confidence that over this period the situation has got much worse, as politicians of both major parties have failed to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem.
Successive governments, influenced by the Treasury, have argued that immigration benefits the economy. So claimed Jeremy Hunt in November 2022, shortly after becoming Chancellor. But is it true? It’s highly contentious. Even if it were true, isn’t the well-being of society of paramount importance?
I shan’t waste time by reiterating that my opposition to immigration at such a rate has nothing whatsoever to do with racism. You’ll just have to believe me. I happen to think that no relatively homogeneous culture can survive intact the influx of many millions of foreigners in a short space of time.
Change in life, I realise, is inevitable. And waves of immigrants, from French Huguenots to Jews to West Indians, have enriched our society. I understand the arguments. But what is going on now is on a scale that few countries in history have experienced.
Earlier this week, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) produced some projections that we had better digest. It reckons the overall UK population will rise from 67million at the time of the 2021 census to nearly 74million by 2036.
Of the increase in population of 6.6million, the ONS predicts that net migration (the difference between the numbers arriving in and leaving the UK) will account for some 6.1million. A further 541,000 will be added through natural growth — i.e. more births than deaths.
The population of Scotland is about 5.5million. So if the ONS is right, the number of people living in the UK will, in the 15 years between 2021 and 2036, increase by significantly more than the population of Scotland. Or, to put it differently, by the equivalent of six cities the size of Birmingham.
On the whole, I trust the ONS as I wouldn’t trust the Office for Budget Responsibility, whose forecasts are famously wayward. The ONS has looked at recent population trends — net migration was a record 745,000 in 2022 — and assumed that governments will succeed in reducing numbers.
So it expects the figure will settle down at about 315,000 a year by mid-2028. That’s still very high — much higher than the ‘tens of thousands’ David Cameron promised and failed to deliver when he was prime minister — but far lower than existing levels.
No one can pretend that the ONS forecasts are far-fetched. After all, between 2011 and 2021 the population of England and Wales (now about 60million) was boosted by 4.2million people not born in the UK.
Needless to say, immigration on this scale has enormous repercussions on housing and public services. An analysis of the ONS forecast by the Right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) suggests that 5.7million more homes will have to be built between 2021 and 2036 to accommodate the soaring population.
The CPS calculates that net migration will account for 41 per cent of this extra housing, or about 156,000 new homes a year. The figure of 41 per cent is almost identical to a previous estimate by Migration Watch, a think-tank with an impeccable forecasting record, which is almost entirely ignored by the generally pro-immigration BBC.
At the moment we are building about 240,000 new homes a year, and that number probably won’t increase much whichever party is in power. High immigration is already a major cause of the shortage of affordable homes, and is likely to continue to be.
New arrivals put huge pressure on the NHS, GP surgeries, schools and other public services, since successive governments fail to come up with sufficient extra resources to take account of the quickly rising population.
But it goes even deeper, of course. I’ve already mentioned the difficulty of preserving national culture in the face of uncontrolled immigration. There’s another issue we must talk about. I mean Islam.
There are nearly four million Muslims in the UK, and the vast majority of them live in amity and concord with their fellow Britons. A small minority seem reluctant to integrate, and a handful appear to be antagonistic towards British culture and values.
Of the millions likely to come to this country over the next decades, a sizeable proportion will be Muslim. It is not fanciful to imagine that in the foreseeable future there could be six or eight million people in this country, or even more, with an allegiance to Islam.
Is this what most non-Muslims want? Is it in the best interests of good community relations which, despite levels of high immigration, remain gratifyingly good? The answer to both questions is surely no.
Note two recent examples of community tension. The high-achieving Michaela Community School in London is facing a High Court challenge from a Muslim pupil over a ‘prayer ban’. The student alleges that a policy banning prayer rituals on the premises is discriminatory.
Last December, Barclay Primary School in Leyton, East London, banned pupils from wearing pro-Palestine badges. A couple of weeks ago, it told parents that it may have to revert to online learning following bomb threats.
Here’s a thought: the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Justin Welby, has expressed concerns about illegal immigrants being sent to Rwanda. Does he ever worry about the future of Christians in a society where they may be far outnumbered by observant Muslims?
Meanwhile both main political parties forge blithely on. The chances of Labour putting a brake on mass immigration, which it essentially approves of, and certainly fostered when last in power, are close to zero. I suppose there’s a distant possibility of the Tories realising the error of their ways.
One nightmare is that if the politicians do nothing there’ll finally be a nasty reaction. Last November, some politicians from the far-Right AfD party in Germany met neo-Nazis to discuss a ‘master plan’ for the mass deportation of asylum seekers and German citizens of foreign origin.
Could such an ugly scheme have been hatched in more tolerant Britain? I trust not. The British are a fair-minded people, which is why race relations have generally been good in this country.
But politicians shouldn’t assume it will always be so. This can’t go on. Mass immigration must finally be controlled. The future of Britain is at stake.
