Britain's Growing Problems of Immigration & Emigration

Until now, the very topic of immigration has been off limits in Britain. Anyone with the termerity to raise the issue was charged by the chattering class with being a racist. Indeed, it was only last week that a Tory MP candidate was forced to withdraw from the political race for remarks on immigration that, while aggressive, were well within the realm of what should be reasoned debate at this point in Britain.

The forced resignation of the Tory MP candidate shows that the Tories and their leader, David Cameron, do not have the stomach to force a much needed debate. Out of control immigration, both from within and without the EU, and rising emigration are drastically changing the face of Britain. Both are a result of the disastorous years of multicultural social experimentation by the left made all the worse by EU law that in effect, mandates open borders as regards immigration by citizens of the EU:

Britain is experiencing unprecedented levels of immigration with more than half a million foreigners arriving to live here in a single year, new figures show.

Last year, 510,000 foreign migrants came to the UK to stay for at least 12 months, according to the Office for National Statistics. At the same time 400,000 people, more than half of whom were British, emigrated.

An exodus on this scale - amounting to one British citizen leaving the country every three minutes - has not been seen in the UK for almost 50 years.

Overall in 2006, there were a record 591,000 new arrivals. Only 14 per cent of these were Britons coming home.

It is the first time the number of foreign migrants has topped half a million and the statistics do not include hundreds of thousands of east Europeans who have arrived to work in Britain in the past two years. This is because most say they are coming for less than 12 months and do not show up as long-term immigrants.

The figures suggest that only one sixth of the immigrants were from the states which joined the EU in 2004.

The biggest influx was from the New Commonwealth - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - with more than 200,000 migrants.

Since Labour came to power in 1997, nearly four million foreign nationals have come to Britain and 1.6 million have left. Over the same period, 1.8 million Britons have left, but only 979,000 have returned.

. . . Yet despite high levels of emigration and a low birth rate, the population is still growing rapidly because of immigration by the equivalent to a city the size of Bristol every year.

This is placing huge pressures on public services, with councils claiming they are not getting enough financial help from the Government.

Sir Simon Milton, the chairman of the Local Government Association, said the Government - which earlier this month had to apologise for publishing incorrect figures on foreign migrants working in Britain - had no clear idea of where all the immigrants were going and their impact on services.

. . . Sir Andrew Green, the chairman of Migrationwatch, said: "Two thirds of yet another record level of arrivals come from outside the EU.

"They could and should be subject to much tighter controls."

Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman, said: "These figures prove that immigration is still running at unsustainably high levels.

"This is the direct result of the Government's 'open door' approach which has totally failed to consider the impact of immigration on public services, housing and community cohesion."

. . . Little research has been done into the reasons for the exodus of Britons, though it appears more are going abroad to retire though many younger people are leaving to work.

A study last year by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggested that one in 12 UK nationals may now be living abroad.

There are 250,000 second homes owned by British nationals in France alone.

Surveys indicate that another one million are set to pack their bags for good over the next five years and a further 500,000 live abroad for part of the year.

. . . The difference of around three million between the emigration of British nationals and immigration of foreigners represents a five per cent turnover of the population in 10 years.

Previous immigrations did not exceed one per cent over 50 years.

This significant turnaround in population has inevitably changed its ethnic composition.

Over the past 20 years, the white British population has decreased slightly while the number of ethnic-minority Britons has doubled.

. . . Little research has been done into the reasons for the current exodus of Britons, although it appears more are going abroad to retire while many younger people are leaving to work.

Read the article here. I love the line in there about no one is sure why there is such an exodus of native Britons. Britain's open borders policy is a product of the "multicultural" mindset - and it is working a tremendous change to the face of Britain. Perhaps this article by Professor Daniel Pipes might provide an explanation for what seems to be a very mysterious situation to the British chattering class. As one of Her Majesty's subjects recently remarked to me, "its the chattering classes who, having bulloxed everything up, are now the ones leading the charge out of Britain while the rest of are left to sort out their mess."