A report by think tank Civitas says that the population of the United Kingdom is growing at a rate of more than 500,000 a year – the equivalent of a new town of about 10,000 people being created every week.
The report, ‘Britain’s Demographic Challenge: The Implications of the UK’s Rapidly Increasing Population’, also said that based on current projections, by 2039 there will be nearly 10 million more people in the UK – enough to populate Greater Manchester three times over.
“In the year ending 30 June 2016 the population of the United Kingdom increased by 538,500, equivalent to 1,475 people per day”, the report states.
The authors note that this growth in population would require the construction of 641 homes per day – “27 per hour or one every two minutes, night and day”.
The report states that whilst the total fertility rate (TFR) amongst the settled population continues to fall, population growth has been increased in part by the higher fertility rates of immigrants, noting that “in 2013 women born in four countries – Poland, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh – accounted for 8.8 per cent of all the births in the UK.“
The report points to the legacy of former prime minister Tony Blair’s immigration policies and EU expansion as sources for the rapid growth of the UK’s population since the mid-1990s.
Until 1995, two elements contributed to a slow rise in population growth over the preceding 30 years: a falling British fertility rate and low net immigration.
“These trends were changed by two factors. The first was the decision by the Labour Government after coming to power in 1997 to encourage large-scale immigration from the Commonwealth – particularly the new Commonwealth countries of India and Pakistan,” researchers write.
Blair has been accused of presiding over a “silent conspiracy” to flood the UK with migrants whilst he was prime minster, ordering his ministers to not discuss the subject in public, with his government working to force the country to “see the benefit of a multicultural society”.
The Civitas report identifies EU enlargement, “with the admission of the countries of Eastern Europe”, as the second reason for population growth trends to change so rapidly.
Again, the arch-europhile’s New Labour government decided not to implement transitional immigration controls like the majority of other EU countries, with Blair admitting in 2017 that he had no idea how many people would migrate to Britain when the bloc expanded to include former Communist nations such as Poland.
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