European Affairs
c/o The European Institute
1001 Connecticut Avenue
NW, Suite 220
Washington, DC
20036-5531
Tel: (202) 895-1670
Fax (202) 362-1088
info@europeanaffairs.org
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Immigration is now on an unprecedented
scale. East Asians from Uganda
and elsewhere in East Africa who arrived
in the mid-1970’s amounted to 27,000.
We are now taking 12 times that number
every year. Recently, concern has focused
on immigration from Eastern Europe. In
the first two years since 2004 when eight
new countries joined the European
Union, 447,000 have registered – 62 percent
from Poland. The actual number of
immigrants is estimated by the Home
Office at 600,000. It is not known how
many have since returned home. About
half say that their employment is temporary,
but even if they have all returned,
net immigration from Eastern Europe
would be about 150,000 a year (compared
to the government’s prediction of a
maximum of 13,000). Anecdotal evidence
would suggest that this estimate is
too low. Migration from the new EU
countries is, of course, in addition to immigration
from the rest of the world, now
running at nearly 300,000 a year.
Immigration (immigrants and their
descendants) will now account for 83
percent of future population growth in
the United Kingdom. The population
projections took account of increased
migration resulting from the expansion
of the EU but they assumed that total
migration flows would rapidly decrease
from 255,000 in 2004-5 to just 145,000
in 2007-8.
So far there has been no sign
of a decrease in immigration from the
new EU countries and the accession of
Bulgaria and Romania (and possibly
other East and Southern European
countries) will add to immigration pressures.
The economic benefit
from this inflow is very limited. Government arguments
are fallacious. Immigration is not
essential to our economic growth. It
adds to economic growth but also adds
nearly proportionately to our population
so that the benefit to the host community
is small. (A result found also in the
U.S., Canada and the Netherlands.) In
the UK it amounts to about £25 per head
per year.
Immigrants will have little impact on
our ability to pay pensions in future: immigrants,
too, will age and require pensions.
Their financial input to the Exchequer
is, despite government claims,
approximately neutral.
Immigration is welcome to many
employers because it holds down pay levels,
especially for the unskilled, and contributes
to lower interest rates. It can also
be a source of cheap skilled labor with no
training costs. But it is the taxpayer who
picks up all the costs of the extra infrastructure
required. The extra population
also adds to the pressure on transport
and water supplies, both of which are already
facing serious difficulties.
To the extent that immigration holds
down wages it makes it more difficult for
the government to achieve its stated aim
of moving from welfare to work the 1.5
million unemployed and the 2.7 million
people on Incapacity Benefit. There are
now one million young people in Britain
who are neither in work nor in education.
Are immigrants doing jobs the
British will no longer do? No. In large
parts of Britain where there are few, if
any, immigrants, British people are
doing all these jobs. The fundamental
problem is the benefits trap. Wages are
held down to a level where for some
there is little benefit in working rather
than collecting benefits. Wages should be
allowed to rise to make lower paid jobs
worthwhile and to encourage productivity.
Increasing productivity is the only
way that a nation can become richer.
There is growing resentment among
the native population of whom 70-80
percent wish to see a tougher immigration
policy. Only ten percent feel that
the government is listening to public
opinion on immigration. The ethnic
population is also concerned about the
direction of events: A majority of them
(55 percent) also wish to see tighter immigration
control. A majority of the
population (69 percent) feel that Britain
is losing its own culture. In the last ten
years, 600,000 Londoners have left the
city to be replaced by 700,000 immigrants.
This is changing the whole nature
of the city.
The natural tendency of some immigrants
to join their own communities,
and to choose spouses from their countries
of origin, is leading to the formation
of parallel communities with little contact,
or identification, with mainstream
British culture. Indeed, in some cases the
younger generation is growing up hostile
to British culture. Segregation, not integration,
could loom on the horizon.
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