UK NEWS
IMMIGRATION IS OUT OF CONTROL
DRAIN: Eastern European immigrants touting for labouring work
By Tom Whitehead Home Affairs Correspondent
SHOCKING new figures last night revealed the extent to which the country’s immigration policy is running out of control.
It is now clear that 2.3million people have been allowed to flock through the “open door” into Britain.
Most of the newcomers have arrived from outside the EU, making a mockery of Government claims that an annual cap on migrants would have a limited effect. Critics said the influx – equivalent to the entire population of Greater Manchester – has put a massive drain on public services.
It has also forced up the tax burden on already hard-pressed families and seen police forces pleading for more cash to deal with gangs of foreign criminals.
The figures come two weeks after the Daily Express revealed that a record number of British passports are now being handed out to immigrants settling here.
Tory MP Philip Davies said: “Immigration is having a dramatic effect on our public services. It’s one of the biggest reasons we’re having to build so many new houses and concrete over the country.
“The quicker the Conservatives can get in and get a hold of the problem the better. Mass immigration is making all services scarcer and more expensive in terms of tax.” The latest picture follows analysis of official immigration statistics by Migrationwatch UK.
Chairman Sir Andrew Green said: “As public concern has increased, supporters of immigration have tried to give the impression that the majority come from the new EU member states and that, in time, as their economies improve they will return home – thus implying that public fears are groundless.
“But the Government’s own figures show that this is far from the case. They also give the lie to those who claim that there is no point in immigration controls which do not apply to EU citizens.”
Based on figures from the Office of National Statistics, the Migrationwatch study shows there was a net migration to the UK of 2.3 million people between 1991 and 2006.
The Migrationwatch flow includes returning Britons but this number is very low in comparison. More significantly, the vast majority of migrants have come from outside the EU, predominantly the third world. Only eight per cent came from the new Eastern European members of the EU.
The debate over annual limits for migrants centres on the fact that an annual cap would not effect EU citizens who have free movement between member states.
Immigration minister Liam Byrne and the Home Office have said foreign immigration from outside the EU was no more than 52 per cent of those arriving. That figure has been regularly used as evidence that any annual cap on migrants would not have a large effect.
But in February, the Government was accused of fiddling the figures after the Statistics Commission supported Migrationwatch’s argument that the real figure for immigration from outside Europe was more than two-thirds of the total because movements by Britons had been wrongly included in Government estimates.
Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green said: “These figures blow a hole in the Government’s argument that the Conservative policy of an annual limit would not be effective. Until we have this limit, public confidence in the immigration system will not be restored.
“The Government policy of talking tough but acting soft on immigration is looking increasingly threadbare.”
Sir Andrew said: “What we need is effective control. The Government’s much-vaunted points-based system is entirely open-ended and simply fails to address the deep public concern.”
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PRAWNSANDWICH
04.06.08, 10:31pm
And where do you get your information from?
because its not correct that's for sure,
we need immigration ? like hell we do, what so that peopoe,can stand all day polishing the cars and going shopping yeah right, and we need that do we.
do not try to tell me what my eyes see, you don't know anything,
biggest percentage of these people are here for what they can get,
the media don't have to make it up, its here right on our streets,
• Posted by: jessica • Report Comment
PROUD-IRISH
04.06.08, 9:53pm
Couldn't have been that bad under 'British Rule'
if its taken 800 years for you not to be
• Posted by: Maggie • Report Comment
OPEN DOOR UK
03.06.08, 3:52pm
A certain Mr Brown will be delighted with the News... Can still picture him grinning inanely and having the audacity to say the House of Lords Landmark Committee got it wrong on immigration. He assured us it was good for us (perhaps he meant good for his own well-heeled kind)...
Those who are NOT shocked by this 'Revelation'.
Teenagers trying to get employment,
Young couples trying to get a toe on the property ladder,
Pensioners in ever-increasing NHS queues,
People who are frightened to leave their houses after dark,
Judges who cannot find places for criminals,
Schools who cannot afford to teach for teaching English to those that cannot speak it
The list is endless, but 'SHOCK' not too an awful lot of struggling British people.
..
• Posted by: DTunnag • Report Comment
WE WILL PAY A VERY HEAVY PRICE
03.06.08, 9:01am
Immigration as always been used by successive governments to keep wages low and to hell with the consequences and yes we will suffer
• Posted by: hesh • Report Comment
WAKE UP
03.06.08, 8:34am
The liberal/left (Common Purpose) want immigration out of control and its a shame we have so many gullible people in this country who believe what Common Purpose tell them!
• Posted by: Agamemnon • Report Comment
IMMIGRATION - AN ADMISSION AT LAST!
03.06.08, 4:54am
Dear Sirs,
This article has certainly rattled the proverbial cage, judging from the reaction in your comments page. The somewhat disingenuous realisation by the Tory party is such an appalling indictment on the crass stupidity of mainstream political decision making over half a century that there should be mass resignations from many MP’s starting with the “Son of the Manse”
Much of the media, particularly the “Common Purpose” brigade of the BBC, Guardian, Independent and other leftwing apparatchiks and chattering classes who have promoted the government’s immigration, or more precisely non immigration, policy cannot escape criticism and derision. They have been in raptures about the benefits of unfettered immigration.
An entire industry has grown up over the past fifty years to convince a sceptical populace that multi-culturalism and diversity is good for you; it is enriching and to compound the deception we were supposed to believe that economically and socially it was beneficial. Every crackpot idea was supported and criticism was ruthlessly suppressed and demonised by the term RACIST or RACISM and lives were consequently destroyed.
The most high profile casualty was of course the initial whistleblower, Enoch Powell. Now that his warnings on immigration, some fifty years ago have been vindicated, is it now the intention of the current Tory leadership to offer a grovelling apology to his family? Are we going to see a sea change is the media’s attitude to mass immigration and the unmitigated disaster the policy has been for Britain? I think we all know the answer; hell and freezing-over readily come to mind.
Yours faithfully,
Ross Logie
• Posted by: Ross • Report Comment
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