Mass migration to the United Kingdom has resulted in huge demographic shifts which could lead to a breakdown in social cohesion, a report from Migration Watch UK has found.
In a follow-up to the bombshell report released last month which found that the foreign-born population has risen to nine million and the ethnic minority population to thirteen million over the past twenty years, the Migration Watch think tank found that 62 per cent of the foreign-born population were born outside of the European Union, compared to just over a third (38 per cent) from EU countries.
Of the 9.2 million foreign-born residents in the UK — 90 per cent of whom reside in England — around half (4.3 million) of migrants came from Asia and Africa, compared to just over a third (3-4 million) from the EU.
The report found that 1.8 million hailed from South Asia and 1.3 million came from sub-Saharan Africa. For those coming from the European Union, about half came from Eastern European nations such as Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovenia, and Latvia.
Migration Watch noted that London, the West Midlands and the North West of England have seen the biggest population changes, with the population of London rising by nearly two million since 2001.
However, the South East and East of England have also felt the impacts of mass migration, including congestion, housing, environmental issues, and overcrowding. During the same time period, the South East population has increased by 1.2 million and the East of England rising by 900,000.
The report went on to note that while most migrants coming to the UK are of working age, the scale of immigration has come at a fiscal cost as well. According to estimates, the net cost of migration was between £4 billion and £13 billion per year for 2014/15 and 2016/17 respectively. The disparity in the figures relies on assumptions made by the researchers, the think tank said.
Migration Watch said that one of the main means of integrating migrants is through entering the workforce, however, it found that over six of the nine million foreign-born residents of the UK in 2019/20 said that they came to the country for other reasons than employment, such as claiming asylum, going to school, or to join relatives of migrants already in the country.
Many migrants would later join the workforce, with around six million non-UK born residents working last year in the country.
In comments provided to Breitbart London, Migration Watch UK chairman Alp Mehmet said: “This paper shows the huge size and mix of the foreign-born population now resident in Britain.
“The task of integrating millions of new arrivals into our society is huge. It is now absolutely essential to reduce the current massive inflow. And yet, the government have thrown open the doors of our labour market.”
While many of the mass migration policies were implemented under the left-wing Labour governments during the first decade of the century, the Conservative Party, which has been in power for over 11 years has so far failed to meaningfully curtail immigration — despite public demand to do so.
Alp Mehmet has previously told Breitbart London that Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s points-based immigration system would not in fact reduce migration following Brexit, as it fails to introduce a hard cap on the number of migrants per year. Migration Watch has estimated that the policy would open the door to Britain to some 660 million migrants throughout the world.
The failures of the Tory government to ‘take back control’ of migration have perhaps been best displayed by its inability or unwillingness to clamp down on the illegal boat migration crisis in the English Channel.
Despite persistent promises from Home Secretary Priti Patel to “get tough” on illegal immigration, the waves of migrants have only increased, with estimates forecasting 30,000 by the end of the year through this illegal route, alone.
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