November 24, 2023 - 2:10pm
Boris Johnson has made his mark on British history. As a result of his brief tenure as prime minister, Britain is now undergoing its most significant period of demographic change since the Anglo-Saxon migration.
Yesterday’s ONS statistics — showing net immigration figures of 672,000 for 2023, as well as its upward revision of 2022 figures to 745,000 — are entirely unprecedented. The gross figures, revealing that 1.2 million people entered Britain last year, are now equivalent in absolute numbers to the turn-of-the-century immigration wave that transformed America’s demographics. This led to a 40-year restrictionist policy geared towards allowing that far larger and more populous country to integrate its diverse new population. As a surely unintended result of Brexit, the majority of Britain’s new population wave now comes from outside Europe: indeed, this year more migrants came from Nigeria alone than from the entire European Union.
Until recently, conservatives were wont to observe that New Labour’s immigration maximalism transformed Britain. As just one result, London’s ethnic British population fell from 80% in 1991 to less than 37% today, a statistic with few parallels in world history. But the Conservative Party’s devotion to mass migration dwarfs Tony Blair’s efforts, and the results will be even more transformative.
In 2022 alone, Britain saw more immigration than from every year between 1945 and 2000 combined. Yet, at the same time, the Tories have managed to alienate liberals with their entirely performative restrictionist rhetoric, to the point that many of Britain’s self-declared sensible centrists seem to sincerely believe the Conservatives to be a Right-wing party edging on fascism.
Precisely the opposite is true: Britain is indeed ruled by political extremists, but on the opposite side of the spectrum. The Conservative Party’s chosen policies reveal our government to be open-border zealots, whose policies are supported by only a tiny fraction of the population. At every available opportunity, British voters have demanded a clampdown on immigration numbers, yet every Tory leader has increased them as a willed policy choice. When even Keir Starmer can describe immigration numbers under the Tories as “shockingly high” and “a failure”, we can appreciate how far our government has departed from centrist norms, as well as from trends across the rest of Europe.
The ONS figures come at an interesting time, when we compare Britain to our closest European neighbours. What distinguishes the UK from the rest of the continent is not just our government’s extremism on migration, but the political placidity of its native population. Just last night, Dublin saw unprecedented anti-immigration rioting after an Algerian migrant was suspected of stabbing four people, including three children, in a primary school. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders’s election victory, not to mention a majority among voters aged between 18-35, highlights how even proverbially tolerant, liberal European countries are responding to the continent’s mass migration experiment. Comparisons with France, Spain, Germany, Denmark and Sweden — our closest cultural and geographic neighbours — demonstrate what an extreme political outlier Britain under the Conservative Party has become.
Yet while the Tories are heading towards electoral oblivion, their radical migration policies present both a threat and an opportunity for Labour. On the one hand, Starmer can emulate the Danish Social Democrats, one of Europe’s few remaining governing Left-wing parties, whose political survival is precisely a product of its turn towards immigration restrictionism. The problem is that many among Labour’s activist base are, on immigration, as much British exceptionalists as the Conservative Party, ideologically committed to demographic change as a positive goal in itself.
But if we assume that Britain is not somehow immune to the strongly negative reactions to demographic change that have transformed Europe’s politics, then the most likely result, eventually, is the creation of a new political force on the British Right — or a convulsion to dwarf Brexit. The current order is a fragile interregnum: through this government’s failure to pursue moderate conservative policies, British Right-wing politics looks fated to move beyond mere conservatism.
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SubscribeThis country is beyond a total and utter shambles. It is truly disgusting to behold. I am 27 years old. Seeing the absolute state of the economy, cultural degradation and disintegration, and seeming lack of any political will from the ruling class to change things for the average brit, I must say, is demoralising beyond measure.
It is never said enough in my opinion, but Peter Hitchens, despite what you may think of him, was completely right. Enoch Powell, despite what you may think of him, was completely right. In fact, Powell vastly underestimated the scope of the problems this country would face.
It has gotten to the point where not only do I believe this country cannot be saved, I actively hope for it’s demise. The sheer grime of the ruling class and their total inability to implement the changes they’ve been repeatedly elected to enact is abhorrent. The complete lack of resolve on the part of the British public themselves to say or do beyond voting for the same two groups of shysters makes me embarrassed to be British.
I fully intend on leaving behind this country as soon as is financially possible for me, and I very much doubt me or my descendents shall ever return. The hollowing out of the British soul is almost complete. The metaphysical transition from Britannia to Air Strip 1 will soon follow. Vote for anyone, literally anyone outside the establishment, or resign your country to cultural death.
Uterrly vile.
Have you considered getting an education or learning some marketable skills?
“cultural degradation and disintegration”
What exactly are you referring to?
He is probably referring to people like you.
Probably. You racists don’t have much of a sense of humour.
That was quite witty.
Hm. Cultural degradation and disintegration is a matter of opinion, isn’t it? I think it means that our culture is great, so diluting it with other cultures is bad.
The starting premise is, at best, arguable.
I’m from New Jersey. I did a philosophy masters at Norwich. The state of the UK is shocking. It’s just a big corporate hellscape like America. There is no ‘British culture’ to speak of, anymore. This is probably what he means. The total cultural decay wrought by capitalism, the total deracination of any real meaning ascribed to place (culture).
Extremely bold of you to presume I haven’t had “an education”, or don’t possess “some marketable skills”. Then again, socialists do nothing but make bold and unfounded assumptions. How else could you believe the most murderous (and possibly most racist) ideology in human history will “work this time if I’m in charge, trust me bro.” Also, I thought socialists were against market forces?
Not that it’s your business, but I am a final year university student at a Russell group university, and I’m on course to achieve a First Class Joint Honours degree in History and Philosophy.
I don’t usually respond to baseless ad hominems, but for you I’ll make an exception as your comment made me laugh. I noticed earlier you also called me a racist, par for the course from a left winger. Perhaps you should stop engaging in childish mud slinging and engage with the substance of the comment I made.
You don’t know the first thing about me, and yet you’ve read all sorts of messages into my comment which just aren’t there. I’m sure you did very well in university with critical analysis skills such as your own.
To sum up my reply in a colloquialism from my area of the UK: you’re an eejit.
Let me agree with this characterization of your opponent:
To avoid objections, I inform you that I am a PhD.
The left wing middle class have dominated education since the late 1930s. If Britain had implemented the Butler Act of 1944; kept evening education for training in engineering and applied science; expanded degrees in applied science and engineering post 1960s not arts, we would have a technical education system similar to Switzerland and Singapore while retaining the best of British.
Mitchell – Spitfire, de Havilland- Mosquito, Chadwick – Lancaster, Camm- Hurricane and B Wallis – 101 Airship, Wellington Bomber, Bouncing, Tall Boy and Grandslam Bombs, Swing Wing Technology all studied for their engineering degrees via night school.The Institutions of Engineering had two basic exams Part1 was HND Level and Part2 was degree level with the Inst’ of Mechanical engineers paper considered harder than a degree.
Corbyn studying Trade Unions Studies at North London poly does not develop industry; B Wallis taking a degree in engineering from the University of London Extra Mural Department does.
The left wing middle class who run education have stopped evening study where pople can sit Chartership and degree Exams in applied science and engineering thereby reducing upward mobility.
The un and semi skilled unions resisted improving technical and academic standards required to enter advanced high tech manufacturing because they would lose members. Car assembly and the docks employed tens of thousands of unskilled me in the mid 1960s, now very few. There are about 100,000 employed in the Formula 1 industry but they are very skilled people. Docks now employ very few. The EETPU, a craft union had a school to train it’s members in new technology which why it’s members took over from the print unions running computer controlled printing presses.
The vast expansion in art low grade subjects ( not classical languages ) post 1960s at O Level/GSCE A level and Degree is nothing more than a job creation scheme for the left wing middle class; to the detriment of the blue collar manual and craft workers; who have not received the resources similar to those in Switzerland. Compare entry and final standards to be an electrician and a mechanic in Britain and Switzerland today.
That’s a very heartfelt comment, and i’m glad to hear from someone in their 20s with the ability to express themselves eloquently.
I would, however, implore you to reconsider. I was in my 20s as the last dire years of the 1974-79 Labour government took a similar toll on our collective spirits. I too considered emigration. Then something changed in 1979, and us Brits demonstrated once again our powers of resilience and recovery, built over many centuries.
The writer’s point about current demographic changes being unprecedented since the Anglo-Saxon influx is stark and well-made. I’ve been critical of his recent articles but this one is on firmer ground.
I’m sure if you decided to leave, you’d find that “the grass is always greener” and would be hankering to return before long.
As Cat Stevens sang:
“Take your time, think a lot, think of everything you’ve got”. We’ll endure and so should you and your children.
I didn’t think my comment would appeal to anyone, honestly. It was a venting of frustration for which I see no outlet in the public square. If I were to write such a thing for popular public consumption, I would surely have my life quickly ruined.
For those wondering, I am not intending on emigrating to anywhere within the Western cultural sphere of influence. I was thinking that the only way to truly escape the degradation would be to leave for Asia. Somewhere entirely disconnected from our cultural milleau seems like the safest bet.
As for those kind fellows imploring me to stay: I wish to have a family, and I wish to raise them in a country which will grant them the ability to thrive, and to be proud of where they live. The Disunited Kingdom is not a place which can offer my children, or myself frankly, the opportunities to succeed. Even if I were to be economically successful in this once great land, I would suffer the social and spiritual ineptitude of the bug-men who are running this place into the sea.
It truly pains me that this beautiful and honourable country is in the state it is, but I am struggling to see through the haze of anarchy, to how this land may prosper once again.
I wish all you who stay or leave the best of luck. I am truly lost as to how things will unravel for Britain.
“Then something changed in 1979, and us Brits demonstrated once again our powers of resilience and recovery” I don’t think you paid attention to the article. Ethnic ‘Brits’ are essentially being demographically obliterated as a distinct group. There won’t be another 1979.
Well stated, Gregory! To hear such honesty from a younger person in Britain is not only refreshing, but represents a flicker of hope in a dark sky.
But where will you go GT, the entire Western world is ruled by the same clowns with the same foolish ideology, some countries are worse than others, but all are going in the same direction
Best of luck what ever you do
Yes, Australia is well down the woke path, what’s happening here with the Israel/Gaza war is incredibly disheartening, mobs at the Opera House chanting ‘g–‘ the Jews, schoolkids yesterday showing support for Hamas egged on by activist teachers. If I was younger I’d be looking at Hungary or Poland.
The Evil Woke Mainstream Media (aka the Sydney Morning Herald) estimated the crowd at the school students’ pro-Palestine march in Sydney at “about 300.”
Yes, most of them are idiots, but it’s a long way from Armageddon.
If you are ambitious, if you want to make a difference, if you want to work hard – then Britain is not the country for you.
If you want to work for 35 hours per week from home, if you want to take a lot of time off work to pursue your private interests, if you want to take the day off every couple of weeks because life is boring – then Britain is for you. Britain is a place to hide from responsibility.
Our daughter is 22 and says she also will emigrate to Asia for similar reasons. We on the other hand are struggling to muster a credible counter argument. Our governing party obviously lied to its voters and our once high-trust society is all but gone. Thirty years of cavalier (or perhaps deliberately destructive) governance is not what we were promised. Manifestoes are so 1980s it seems.
I said this elsewhere, go East young man. I moved to Thailand and I have never looked back. The increase in my quality of life is incredible. A small, nice condo with its own pool and gym will set you back about 300 dollars a month. Heating costs are zero because it’s glorious sunshine all year round. And the women. The women are beautiful. And they appreciate men and masculinity. They aren’t bitter, cynical and woke like in the UK.
Thank you for your comment, Waffles.
I have just one question. Would you suggest I start my professional career in the UK, then move abroad, or; would it be just as sensible to leave straight after university and just see where the wind takes me?
In the words of the boyfriend of Ashling Murphy, the young teacher brutally murdered by Jozef Puska, “…how can someone come to his country, get social housing, social welfare, not hold down a job of any description and never contribute to society for 10 years?”. Well in Ireland people can, and many do.
The British voted to leave the EU to end Freedom of Movement, a prerequisite to stopping immigration. They would, in a heartbeat, vote to leave the ECHR or any other body which ties the hands of the government in deporting illegals. And they voted for the Tories and their promise of sub-100k net immigrants policy in 2015, 2017 and 2019. They have done all they can within the current democratic confines. What can they do?
Personally I have recently joined the SDP and intend to volunteer for them come election time. Their immigration policies:
1. Legal migration capped at net 50k per year for next 20 years
2. Withdraw from ECHR, 1951 Convention of Refugees and any other agreements that limit democratic control on border policy
3. All illegal immigrants deported to camps on UK Overseas Territories prior to repatriation
4. A limited number of asylum places will be offered to fully vetted applicants from UNHCR camps
5. Student visas will be cut by half, limited to main applicant only and to high-quality academic institutions
6. Exit checks reinstated and reconciled with entry data to identify overstayers
£2 monthly membership fee if any other readers are interested.
Saying and doing are not the same. It is easy to say these things when you don’t have any responsibity.
That is true of course. But saying these things is a very important step. Like GK Chesterton, I am a firm believer that people should lay out the things they want to do in a straightforward, manly fashion and then try to achieve them rather than the endless, cagey triangulation and focus grouping that currently passes for political discord.
“Manly” is a proscribed word because of its triggering effect on certain people. Please find another.
“Forthright” rather than “a straightforward, manly fashion” ?
Manly, manly, manly, MANLY!!
You ask “what can they do?” That’s probably what the Irish were asking themselves the other night, and what happened is the answer they came up with.
Democracy works because it enables peaceful implementation of what people want. When it ceases to do so, pressure builds, and builds.
Democracy is dead if the vote goes against the will of those who really run the show.
On immigration Britain is Europe’s only (semi) democratic country as we are not in the EU (or have to accept FoM like Norway or Switzerland). I say semi as we still have the ECHR problem to sort out (but that is much easier to get out of than the EU).
All other countries in Europe have to do as they are told and take who they are told regardless of votes or even riots.
All we need is the right government.
Excellent, bring it on. I have always hoped that the point about immigration could be made without bloodshed, but that hope is fast fading.
A fifth of our inhabitants not born here, and some immigrant cultures showing resistance to assimilation. Our birth-rate dropped to replacement levels in 1974, so all the overcrowding, cultural friction, destruction of the countryside and appeasement of other cultures largely the result of open borders. One would hope that our leaders and media would glance across the Irish Sea and learn a lesson or two. But there’s absolutely no chance. They would rather confect a narrative around thick bigoted racists who are the root cause of all our troubles.
Here is a take.
Why not cut all forms of social welfare across the spectrum.
Eliminate the massive lure thats pulling in those from other countries.
Only those coming over to work and contribute to society should be allowed in.
To think (in Ireland at least) you can waltz in without a passport and get immediate payments and down the line a house with zero incentive to work is absolute madness.
I honestly believe that Britain’s bonds with it’s former colonies make this less likely. Countries with no such bonds but which took in large numbers of immigrants in an ultimately shallow and incontinent bout of virtue signalling, like Ireland and Sweden, will come out worst
I agree. It’s a hard thing to put one’s finger on, and I don’t know how anyone would approach an academic study of the hypothesis (or IF anyone would – Rakib Ehsan possibly, or Tomiwa Owolade), but it just seems to make perfect sense to have people with Indian, Pakistani, Nigerian, Sierra Leonean etc. heritage at the higher rungs of British society, whatever you think of their characters or policies. Whether you see it as one of the lingering benefits of Empire, or as poetic justice for it, it must surely be a healthy indicator of the UK’s ability to integrate communities from the Commonwealth.
Call that a riot? Have you spent your life under a stone perhaps?
Both the Falls & Newtonards Roads have previously set the benchmark for this sort of ‘sport’. May I suggest you do a little more research?
Once the duplicity of the Conservative Party is fully understood one assumes there will be a convulsive reaction by the sheep lulled into the present stuporous apathy. Or maybe they will go on being sheep.
That’s rather rude about Sheep, but otherwise correct.
You should read ‘The Sheep’s Tale’ by John Lewes-Stempel*.
(*An UnHerd contributor,)
Those of us who slavishly follow the depressing progress of the Tory party already know the staggering figures around immigration
What is less clear.is how much the public at large grasp the scale of it
Now the genie is out of the bottle this might well be the end of the Tory party in it’s recognisable current form.
I can only presume a few reason why it has come to this:
1. The Border agency and blob in general ihs been impenetrable and the Tories gave up trying to control it years ago
2. Sunak, Boris, Hunt and other centrists actively want demographic change to the UK.
For what reason. For Sunak perhaps simply an unwillingness to identify and recognize British identity – for reasons we can easily speculate.
For the rest, they’ are not great minds and perhaps glibly accept the 2 dimensional idea of a global Britain, the cosmopolitan international future – we know as Ill considered and childish
And more prosaically
3. The obsession with propping up house prices
4. The cowardly reluctance to be branded racist
Sunak’s firing of Suella Braverman, and his appointment of Cleverley as Home Secertary and Cameron as Foreign Secretary could not be more calculated to deliver a kick in the teeth to all who voted for Brexit and elected the Boris Johnson government to sort out immigration.
If Starmer aspires to a long term in office as Prime Minister, he should apply himself to reinforcing Brexit, pulling out of the of ECHR and totally sorting immigration.
Think we all can agree that we have been unforgivably betrayed by the Tories.
I’m working on the assumption that they will be unelectable for 20 years.
Reform , William Clouston’s SDP, perhaps even Reclaim are in a state of disarray.
A simple & recognisable new pathway to a truly conservative government is required right now
A deal should be done by Tice and Clouston, asap. Both should hold their nose, and the nerve, for the sake of the UK
This will absorb the Right wing Tory exiles in due course.
We need ‘Violence’ to be perpetrated figuratively in Westminster to avoid the literal variant on the street.
This needs to happen ‘Yesterday’
Placidity? due to extremely harsh measures against populist uprisings in the 1950s, the safety valve of out migration for the indigenous population, in those days mostly to English speaking countries, awareness that the whole establishment was against the people on this issue ( and seeing what happened to those who were vocal about it), quiet white flight from cities and suburbs, still uncharted and unexamined, and finally the series of lies: it’s not happening, integration will solve any difficulties, we will benefit, we wont but we deserve to suffer, and in any case it is too late to do anything about it: the last being true,
I appreciate that sane and sober people are reluctant to indulge in conspiracy theories but sheer incompetence cannot explain the scale of wilful destruction inflicted on all our institutions, society and economy. Just by the law of averages good faith incompetents would get it right occasionally but destruction is so comprehensive and determined I am sorry to say we have to consider that we are in the control of very sinister people, rather than mere hapless cretins, and they do not wish us well
https://twitter.com/pidgeonchest/status/1728680807223697627?s=46&t=7zpaIESnP-ph5BtAH2JcGg
Nothing less than treachery.
No wonder one of the fist things Blair did was to scrap the treason laws.
why can’t you this writer write a straightforward sentence?
When historians look back on the the most significant British referendum result, they may choose 2011, not 2016.
Our rejection of AV means that even now, when Conservative betrayal of voters couldn’t be clearer, it’s hard to imagine any party other than Labour forming the next government.
Can the LibLabCon Uniparty be removed without violence?
“In 2022 alone, Britain saw more immigration than from every year between 1945 and 2000 combined.”
This seems very unlikely.
Remember he’s just talking about the net figure.
Are you just talking about your feelings and impressions, or is there some reanalysis of the government’s figures that we could have a look at?
Now one of oft cited reasons for many on Right supporting Bojo, despite all the warnings, was he got Brexit done didn’t he. Well putting aside he didn’t really as we’ll be tortured by it for years, would they trade that for a level of net migration a third of what he and his cabal bequeathed? Think about it. You were warned.
And before some jump on Bandwagon Braverman – why didn’t she resign when Bojo and the Sunak lowered the points and professions which opened the floodgates? Incompetence or Calculation, or both?
Fundamentally the mismanagement, fixation on rhetoric on Boats whilst c1 million walk through front door, failure to address Britain’s reliance on low wage, low productivity economy wedded and reliant on cheap labour, all stem from the abject failure of Right Wing Populism. All Slogan no Substance.
I’m sorry. Are you implying that BoJo was right wing and a populist? He was neither.
Certainly Populist. That aside he was a strange mix for sure but that was well known. But the point is the Right leaning supporters bought the schtick entirely despite the warnings. Sometimes one has to just hold one’s hands up and admit ‘yeh ok we didn’t have alot of options but we were pretty stupid on this one and we had been warned’.
The alternative was Corbyn and a second referendum. Unless you refused to accept the 2016 vote there was not an alternative to Johnson.
No fan of Corbyn, but he would have had to have gone some to be worse and to leave a worse mess.
The issue is more who the Tories picked to be leader. They loved the idiot didn’t they. Fools.
I always thought the 2016 referendum meant we had to leave, albeit a Soft Brexit would have better represented the majority. As it is we are working our way back to a Softer version. I don’t think at the time a 2nd referendum though would have resulted in a greatly different result, but were it now all the Polls point to it being v different and a more sizeable win for Remain. However we are where we are and won’t be going back anytime soon.
Boris was a wrong’un, obviously, but are you suggesting that we’d be in a better place (on immigration, or any other issue) if we’d voted for Corbyn?
Durham Book Festival. The Royal County Hotel. They sound sedate, do they not? Yet many years ago, that was where David Goodhart introduced me to Malbec, so blame him. The net migration figures that have just been published are from when Suella Braverman was Home Secretary. Danny Kruger was Political Secretary to Boris Johnson, who abolished the requirement that vacancies in Britain be advertised first in Britain, and who wanted visa-free travel with India, the most populous country in the world. That wing of the Conservative Party supported Liz Truss, who pretty much wanted to abolish immigration controls altogether, as is the logic of the political choice, such as all economic arrangements are, to have a “free” market. Such a market has to be in goods, services, capital, and labour, which means people.
In London, when a million people marched peacefully for an armistice on Armistice Day, around a thousand rioted at the Cenotaph, injuring nine Police Officers, as had always been the intention from the decision to go equipped with bladed articles but not with firearms. They had not gone to shoot Hamas. They had gone to stab the Police. We are the 76 per cent for a reason, and in any case there now is a ceasefire. In Dublin, after perhaps one Algerian has committed a heinous crime, look what we see from the same people who rioted in London, and who will march there again on Sunday, since only “Tommy Robinson” wants to attend that event.
Such are the people who valorise Geert Wilders, whose sort the centrists wanted to keep legislating for us periodically in the European Council of Ministers, and permanently in the European Parliament. As with their support for the Azov Battalion and its ilk, to whose legislative will they also wish to subject us by admitting Ukraine to the European Union while reacceding the United Kingdom to it, they demonstrate that centrism and right-wing populism are both con tricks, designed to sell the same extreme and unpopular economic and foreign policies to different audiences by pretending to wage a culture war.
In reality, when the issue of immigration is researched in depth, at least in Britain, then concern turns out to be about the pressure on public services. 10 years after The British Dream, whatever else mass immigration may have done, it has definitely not, as David feared, weakened support for social democracy itself. So far from it, in fact, that the proponents of such either have to be starved of coverage, or have to be subjected to a torrent of hysterical defamation and abuse. People will then vote instead for the unpopulists, who do not in fact disagree with the eccentrists on anything very much at all. The reverse also applies, since Anywheres are in fact Somewheres, with a distinct culture and with many close communities, and since the sheer size of the popular majorities for everything from publicly owned utilities, to the ceasefire in Gaza, must include the majority of both.
to the ceasefire in Gaza
I must honestly admit that I experience certain difficulties in selecting arguments when communicating with a man who wants to see me, my wife, my two grandsons and five granddaughters, not counting my children and their wives and husbands, to be killed.
Presumably a reference to Benjamin Netanyahu.
The release of the Thais must have been negotiated through Iran. If you know, you know. Bibi really would be ineligible for membership of Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. All the best people are. And so is he.
No offence, I didn’t understand 90% of this: I was actually going to delete my comment for being rude, but I’m not doing anyone a favour with that.
Then you were not the target audience.
Yeah. I don’t think Mr Lindsay was entirely sober…
please edit your writing so it is not as hard to read as porridge mixed with bolts is to eat.