Get a grip Rishi, Britain is not a hotel for immigrants – it is our home

Fifteen Birminghams. Where would you put 15 Birminghams on this small island of ours? That question should loom large when the latest net immigration figure is published tomorrow, but I can guarantee it won’t.

In 2022, 1.2 million people emigrated to the UK; that vast number was reduced to 606,000 after they’d deducted all the Britons who had emigrated (or “fled” as we must increasingly call it).

Home Office forecasts predict the year-on-year total to June 2023 could rise to a new record of 700,000 although they may well be briefing a higher figure so there’s a sliver of relief when the actual number turns out to be only half a million.

Whatever smoke and mirrors the Government deploys to hide its addiction to mass immigration, there are hard facts that can’t be disappeared.

At least a million people will have been added to the British population in the past two years at a time when our public services are under terrible strain and you have more chance of dating Tom Cruise than of seeing a dentist.

(My, how the heart swells at the news that the UK is now worse than Rwanda for getting to see a GP!)

If immigration were to continue at the current pace, according to Migration Watch UK the population would rise from almost 68 million today to between 83 and 87 million by 2046 – that’s equivalent to 15 new cities the size of Birmingham.

So, let me ask again, Messrs Sunak and Hunt, where are we going to put those 15 Birminghams? I don’t think the Nimbys in the Cotswolds would budge up in their charming honey-coloured villages to make room, do you?

The overcrowded South-East certainly wouldn’t want them. There is some room in Wales, but not enough jobs and the NHS there is already in a state of collapse.

You could always try the North of England, but it doesn’t have enough housing for the existing population, never mind an influx of millions more.

The Midlands is full – of Birmingham, funnily enough. Brum is on course to reach 1,240,000 inhabitants by 2030, creating an urban sprawl of the kind that now disfigures vast tracts of our beautiful land.

Over the past decade, the population of the UK has grown by a staggering 3.7 million (up 8.2 million since the start of the 21st century) and without any matching growth in infrastructure. A so-called Conservative government has defied the wishes of its own voters, delivering a kick in the teeth which is a bit of a problem when you can’t see the aforementioned dentist.   

Again and again, we see how the British people have been lied to. After Brexit, we were promised a reduction in immigration and a tough, Australian-style, points-based system which would allow in the highly skilled workers that we need.

Able people who would be net contributors to our economy, not sponges soaking up benefits and services paid for by the British taxpayer. And what did we get?  A ridiculously weak, watered-down points-based system which effectively let in the world and his wife, her auntie and 13 second-cousins.

Thresholds for earnings and qualifications were slyly lowered as were the earnings required for the sponsors of dependents. We surely reached some kind of nadir when the latest addition to the Shortage Occupation List was floristry.

Now, I like a nice bouquet as much as the next woman, but giving florists the status of essential immigrants was a bad joke from a Home Office which has zero interest in limiting the number of arrivals.  

Meanwhile, universities were given free rein to bring in any foreign students who could pay the initial amount, leading to a disgraceful situation where British youngsters with stellar grades are unable to get a place at one of their own leading unis. On top of that, those who graduated could stay on an extra two years to do any job.

“Absolute lunacy,” says Alp Mehmet, the hugely knowledgeable chairman of Migration Watch UK. “The Government basically handed control of foreign students to the universities and of foreign workers to employers with the message, ‘Fill your boots’.”

Under instruction from their voters to cut immigration, the Tories prioritised stopping illegal migrants instead. A cynic would say the Government has been happy to use the small boats as a decoy to distract from the far greater catastrophe which has been perfectly legal.

It’s not hard to see why politicians love soaring immigration. It boosts GDP and gives the impression of “growth” in the absence of anything more substantial like making and selling stuff.

But, for normal people, mass immigration does worse than nothing. It reduces GDP per capita which is a truer measurement of our personal wealth and wellbeing. We all know in our sinking hearts that quality of life in Britain has deteriorated, don’t we?

I hear that the Prime Minister’s advisers think that the public is really only concerned about illegal migration and now takes a relaxed view of legal immigration. Further proof, if any were needed, of how utterly clueless and removed from reality are the Number 10 team.  

According to research by More in Common, Conservative voters “think the level of immigration is more important than asylum seekers crossing the Channel”. 

The latest polling by Professor Matt Goodwin of Kent University found that, when asked to name the most important issues facing the country ahead of the general election, all voters put immigration third, but the people who voted Conservative in 2019 put immigration first, ahead of both the economy and healthcare. 

Yet, when he gave a speech earlier this week, in advance of the Autumn Statement, Rishi Sunak set out five “long-term” decisions for the future of the country and immigration wasn’t mentioned once.

The PM’s silence on this matter is both shameless and shameful. Scenes on our streets since the Hamas massacres of October 7 have served to show how the era of mass immigration has weakened social cohesion to the point that many of our fellow citizens barely owe any allegiance to this country.

As some of us warned 25 years ago, millions of British Muslims now live in a parallel world with tribal affiliations to foreign powers (and their bloody internecine struggles) that run deeper than any loyalty to Britain.

With a million newcomers arriving every year (and hundreds of thousands of our best people departing), how is any meaningful integration to be achieved?

Don’t ask the Government; they could not care less about the troubles which they are storing up for Britain. What they are bothered about is getting the asylum backlog down so they can boast how much money they’ve saved before next year’s election.

You will not be too shocked, dear reader, to learn that, in the haste to reduce the numbers, applications from young males from the Middle East and North Africa, many of whom have probably destroyed their documents, are being rubber-stamped. 

“There is no way applications are being properly checked,” warns Alp Mehmet, “I suspect that applicants are being given the benefit of the doubt and allowed to remain regardless. It will come back to bite the Government because illegal migrants knowing they can get into the UK and stay, no questions asked, only adds to the strength of the magnet pulling them here.”  

This criminal laxness at our borders would be bad news in normal times. When there is a war with Islamist terrorists in Gaza, and Hamas sympathisers are brazenly staging hate-filled marches on the streets of London, it is nothing less than a threat to national security.

The Sunday Express broke a story about a huge manhunt to catch six terror suspects who crossed the Channel in a small boat. I’m afraid that it’s not a question of if there will be a terror attack in the UK, but when.

In her scorching resignation letter to Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman protested that she had tried to honour the commitment to reduce overall legal migration “as set out in the 2019 manifesto through, inter alia, reforming the international students route and increasing salary thresholds on work visas”.

If the former Home Secretary failed to enact the will of the people it’s because there is no appetite to reduce the flood of incomers.

The bitter truth is the Prime Minister and his government are immigration junkies, hooked on foreign labour. The cultural cohesion of our society, the wellbeing of the British people, housing for our kids, access to healthcare, can all go hang in their pursuit of GDP.   

No wonder the hot topic of the day in a WhatsApp group I belong to is, “What country are we moving to?” More and more Britons will despairingly leave a land they no longer recognise for a place that has not sold its sense of self.

A Conservative government, God help us, has brought about vast demographic change without any democratic mandate. Their Day of Judgement is nigh.

So, tomorrow, when the net immigration figures are published and some minister tries to change the subject to small boats do not be deceived, as we have so often been deceived. Instead, ask this: “Excuse me, where are we going to put 15 Birminghams?”

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is not some immigrants’ hotel: this is our home.