Population Replacement, part 94,000

The changing face of Britain was revealed yesterday in official figures showing the immigrant population has risen by almost 1.4 million in five years.

At the same time, the number of British-born residents living in the country has fallen by 500,000.

The result, according to the Office for National Statistics, is that one in every ten people living in Britain was born overseas - up from one in 12 in 2001.

Migrants who have moved here are also having significantly more children - an average of 2.5 per woman, compared to 1.7 for British mothers.

[...]

Over the next decade, migrants will swell the population by almost two million.

The new estimate that numbers will grow by 190,000 a year is 30 per cent higher than previous figures.

Immigration Minister Liam Byrne indicated this was too high.

"This shows what could happen unless we take action now," he said.

"Frankly, it underlines the need for swift and sweeping changes to the immigration system in the next 12 months."

Of course, one might be inclined to take Byrne slightly more seriously if he were not a member of a government which has now been in power for more than ten years, during which it has presided over mass immigration on an unprecedented, and ever-increasing, scale. As things are, it is impossible to believe a word he says on the matter, and it is certainly impossible to believe that he actually plans to do anything about the problem of unlimited immigration.

As for the figures themselves: do I really need to comment on them? I seem to have discussed this issue a few million times already (here, for example)! Immigration on this scale not only has a severe negative impact on our national infrastructure, but it also has a profound impact on our very culture. As Carol Gould put it, "the concept of an Englishman has been so distorted as to be unrecognisable". Mass immigration of the kind that Labour have allowed and encouraged for ten years has turned many British people into foreigners in their own towns. And yet politicians who are raising the issue - and raising all its consequences, including its cultural consequences - are few and far between. If, as increasingly appears to be the case, our government is quite happy to turn us into a minority in our own country, then they should at least do us the courtesy of asking for our views on the issue. And when the public responded, as they overwhelmingly would, by saying that, actually, we would like immigration to be either severely limited or curtailed altogether, then the government should do that as well. As it is, what they are doing is little less than treason.