Migration Watch UK: News

Labour Concealed a shift in immigration policy

2009-11-10T16:32:41+00:00

In Parliament yesterday the Immigration Minister denied that there had been any change in immigration policy in 2001 nor, therefore, any political motive. However, there is clear evidence of a Labour shift in immigration policy in 2001-2 which was concealed from the public at the time, according to the Briefing Paper by think tank Migrationwatch.

Commenting, Sir Andrew Green, Chairman, MigrationwatchUK, said "The government went to great lengths to keep secret documents dealing with immigration policy. Now we know why. Looking back we can see clear evidence that recent revelations about a political motive in promoting mass immigration were indeed correct."

Huge Cost of Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants Quantified

2009-11-04T17:57:28+00:00

An amnesty for illegal immigrants would be bound to encourage further illegal immigration, their present number has been seriously underestimated and the lifetime cost would be in the order of £130 billion even on that low estimate of numbers, says a report out today from think-tank Migrationwatch.

The report is in reply to a paper published by the London School of Economics on 16 June in response to a request from London's Mayor. Introducing the document, Boris Johnson claimed it proved that immigrants were "far from a financial burden". He added:

"This new Report has introduced some long overdue facts, hard evidence and academic rigour into a debate which has far too often been dominated by myth, anecdote and hearsay".

Clearly the Mayor had not read the Report which makes it clear that "It has to be emphasised that these are ball park estimates at best" (page 110) and that "many of the numbers that had been generated for this Report have required heroic assumptions" page 113).

The Mayor also claimed that:

"So far from a financial burden, as some suggest, this new research has found an amnesty could be worth up to £3 billion a year to the country's economy."

What the Report actually says is:

"Neither the literature nor currently available UK data provides a quantitative basis from which one could at all reliably start to estimate the scale of effects on UK output which would be likely to follow from regularisation"(page 73).

The Report is, in fact, astonishingly thin on its claim of economic benefit - just two paragraphs in 125 pages. It goes on to take what is described as "an example". This gives, on the basis of four hypotheses, an expected increase in GDP of some £3 billion (page 73).

Migrationwatch have now examined this Report in detail and have found that:...

See Full Press Release

Comment: Mass immigration deliberate Labour policy

2009-10-26T16:16:55+00:00

Following the recent revelation, in the Evening Standard, by Andrew Neather, a former senior adviser to Tony Blair, Jack Straw and David Blunkett, about the Government's political agenda to open up Britain's immigration controls to mass immigration Migrationwatch Chairman, Sir Andrew Green said, in The Daily Telgraph that

"Now at least the truth is out, and it's dynamite.

"Many have long suspected that mass immigration under Labour was not just a cock up but also a conspiracy. They were right.

"This Government has admitted three million immigrants for cynical political reasons concealed by dodgy economic camouflage."

Immigrant population has increased by more than two million in eight years

2009-10-19T16:13:31+01:00

Immigrants have almost doubled under Labour

The number of immigrants in the UK has increased by more than two million in the last eight years, says a Government sponsored report – that is nearly 700 a day - entirely consistent with the figure predicted by think tank Migrationwatch in 2002 which at the time was vilified by critics.

The report by Oxford Economics, was quietly slipped out on the website of the Department for Communities and Local Government last month with no attention drawn to it.

‘The report has confirmed that what Migrationwatch has been saying for seven years has turned out to be pretty accurate,’ said Chairman Sir Andrew Green.
‘In 2002 we published a prediction that net migration into the UK would be two million every decade and probably more. That estimate included an allowance for 60,000 illegal immigrants per year.

The Oxford economic report states ‘recent evidence indicates that the 2001 figure of 4.2 million foreign born people in the UK could have grown further by more than two million in the last eight years’.
See Full Press Release

Conservative Party Conference

2009-10-08T17:06:49+01:00

Sir Andrew Green, Chairman of Migrationwatch, in a press release, said that:

It is welcome news that immigration will be a "big priority" for a Conservative Home Office, as Chris Grayling put it. The key will be how the Conservatives annual limit is defined and whether it will be low enough to hold the population of the country well below the 70 million now officially projected for 2028. We hope that the Conservatives will soon be honest and forthright on immigration as they have been on the economy. Both will affect the whole of society for generations to come."

New research shows impact of immigration on social housing

2009-09-23T16:46:39+01:00

Proportion of foreign born in social housing rises 50% in ten years.

New research by Migrationwatch, based on official figures, shows the pressure that uncontrolled immigration has placed – and will place – on social housing.

Speaking at the annual conference of the National Housing Federation in London Migrationwatch chairman, Sir Andrew Green said that in the last ten years, the number of UK born tenants in social housing in the UK has fallen by about 1.2 million while non UK-born tenants have increased by 300,000. As a result, the proportion of foreign born has increased from 7.2% to 11.1% - an increase of 54%.

Migrants who arrived here in the last five years and are not refugees are not yet eligible to apply for social housing but could become so in future years if they are granted settlement. Grants of settlement for non-EEA nationals are running at about 160,000 a year, giving a potential pool of 800,000 although, of course, by no means all will apply.

The rise in the proportion of foreign born in social housing is greater because the supply of social housing has not merely failed to meet the demand in a period of very high immigration, but the stock of social housing has actually fallen over the last ten years.

See Full Press Release

Migration figures, not prejudice

2009-09-23T15:34:46+01:00

Independent Newspaper Letters Column 23 September, 2009.

Mark Steel's column on 9 September, "The Poles might be leaving but the prejudice remains" claimed that most of the apocalyptic warnings of an Eastern European take-over could be traced back to the organisation Migrationwatch. On the contrary, we have been saying for over a year now that we expect East European migration to come back into balance in a few years' time.

He further asserted that we have declared that the UK population is still destined to rise to an unsustainable 80 million in the next 40 years. In fact, we always stick closely to the principal population projection prepared by the Office for National Statistics. That gives a UK population of 78.6 million in 2056.

Finally he attributes our view to "millions coming from Africa. He is putting a gloss on a paper we produced on world trends which was based firmly on the UN medium projection of the world population (2008).

None of this could be described as "prejudiced", which is an unjustified slur.

Sir Andrew Green

Chairman, Migrationwatch UK.

BBC Today programme: asylum seekers, Calais

2009-09-19T12:05:19+01:00

Sir Andrew Green was interviewed on the Today Programme at 8.35 this morning about the asylum seekers' camp near Calais, together with Donna Covey, the Chief Executive of the Refugee Council.

Sir Andrew said that the reason for people queueing up in Calais must be that Britain was perceived as a "soft touch". The official statistics suggested that this might be the case as anyone reaching Britain and claiming asylum had a nearly 80% chance of staying, often illegally.

He suggested that the government should take three steps:

1 Double the resources for removal.

2 Clamp down on employers of illegal labour.They had started to do this.

3 Take on the absurd arguments for an amnesty which could only make a bad situation worse.

You can hear the discussion on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme web site.

The Economist on-line debate on international migration

2009-09-12T15:12:07+01:00

The Economist's motion is "This house believes that there is too much international migration". Migrationwatch Chairman, Sir Andrew Green, is one of the debate's expert guests.

There are opening, rebuttal, and concluding statements from two main debaters, with commentary from the expert guests.

The debate, which started on 8 September, is moderated by Adam Roberts, the Economist's news editor.

To vote and to add your view to the debate go to http://www.economist.com/debate

Should the UK stop trying to control immigration?

2009-09-07T10:45:54+01:00

Migrationwatch Chairman, Sir Andrew Green, will be one of the panellists on BBC Radio 4 'Iconoclasts' programmes on Wednesday, 9 September at 8.02 pm.

This live three-part discussion programme, chaired by Ed Stourton, will examine controversial policy suggestions.

Philippe Legrain, journalist, will propose that the UK should stop trying to control immigration. His views will be challenged by Mrs Ann Cryer (MP Labour),Tony Saint, writer and former immigration officer as well as Sir Andrew.