The Bank of England has admitted that mass migration is a chief factor in the increasing cost of rent in the country, further undercutting claims from the neo-liberal intelligentsia that unfettered waves of migration result in economic prosperity.
Following the decision by the Bank of England to hold interest rates at 5.25 per cent, the central bank’s chief economist, Huw Pill, rejected the idea that the increase in rent prices in England was merely a function of monetary policy, noting that the costs were more impacted by supply and demand, with not enough houses being built to cope with the historic levels of migration allowed under the so-called Conservative government.
“The population is growing… To some extent, the rents are really a reflection of supply and demand factors [and] reflect things that aren’t to do with monetary policy,” Pill said according to The Telegraph.
The top economist at the BoE noted that “quite large increases in immigration” were driving such demand and putting further pressure on the housing market, with net migration hitting a record 745,000 in 2022.
“We don’t really build enough houses in this country. And the reason we don’t build enough houses or housing in this country is in large part [because] there’s a lot of issues around planning and so forth.
“So there’s a restraint on supply, which I think probably is not coming from monetary policy, it’s coming from other policy choices… And at the same time that is facing – and increasingly so – in recent times, increasing demand.”
The comments come as neo-liberal globalists in the British government, led by anti-Brexit and mass migration advocate Jeremy Hunt, hailed their economic track record — which has mostly consisted of high taxes and slight spending cuts — as the UK broke out of its recession, growing by a paltry 0.6 per cent in the first quarter of the year after two quarters of negative growth.
“It has been a difficult few years, but today’s growth figures are proof that the economy is returning to full health for the first time since the pandemic,” the Treasury chief said.
However, while governments worldwide often point to national GDP as the principal indicator of the economic well-being of their countries, a more accurate snapshot looks at GDP per capita, as even if GDP at the national level rises, the average individual could still be getting poorer.
According to calculations from the BBC, the latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures show that GDP per capita was 0.7 per cent lower than the previous year when accounting for inflation and population growth, which has mostly been driven by mass migration. In other words, the average Briton is £100 poorer than they were just a couple of years ago.
This disparity was highlighted by a report this week from the Centre for Policy Studies (CPS) think tank, which found that while the UK’s national GDP rose by 0.1 per cent last year, GDP per capita declined by 0.8 per cent. This was far below the G7 average of 1.2 per cent, despite the UK seeing the second-highest level of migration-driven population growth.
“If large-scale migration of the sort we’ve seen is really so great for the economy, we have to ask ourselves why we are not seeing this in the GDP per capita data,” the CPS noted.
The report went on to find that migration now accounts for approximately 89 per cent of the 1.34 million increase to England’s “housing deficit”, which tracks the disparity between population growth and the lack of houses built to keep up with demand.
With little appetite from either major party to reverse the trend of mass migration, the problem is likely to only get worse, with the ONS projecting in January that the UK population will climb by another 10 per cent — mostly due to migration — by 2036, driving the population to nearly 74 million, an increase of over 6 million more people over current levels.