Stephen Pollard
Over the past decade the foreign- born population of some towns has tripled. In Boston, Lincolnshire, it is up by 389 per cent and makes up 15 per cent of residents, an increase from three per cent 10 years ago. In Aberdeen, Hull and Wrexham the proportion of migrants has more than doubled.
Overall 12.5 per cent of the population is now foreign- born, increasing by more than 50 per cent between 1993 and 2013.
This is, you would have thought, self- evidently an issue that should be at the heart of political debate. But although papers such as the Daily Express and some politicians do raise the subject there is a parallel universe in which the debate is utterly irrelevant: Whitehall and the BBC.
In those establishment bastions it is regarded as uncouth and evidence of “Right- wing madness” even to hint that the merits of openended immigration might be an issue that should be discussed.
Migration Watch says there is “a strong bias in the BBC in favour of immigration, combined with a reluctance even to address the case for reducing immigration”. It reports on the “pro- immigration bias of parts of the civil service” and “continued Treasury enthusiasm for GDP growth, irrespective of
MORE damaging still is the knee- jerk hostility within the upper tiers of the civil service to the idea of restricting immigration. So even though, as we learned from figures published last month, the supposed economic benefits of immigration are a mirage, nothing changes. The figures showed that the impact of non- Europeans on the public sector bill is £ 8.1million a day – a day! – which wipes out the £ 105million that the official statistics say is contributed by EU migrants.
In some ways it’s a mystery why these attitudes remain. These are the same civil servants who have to grapple with an education system where in some schools the first language is not English, with an NHS that cannot cope with the extra demands placed on it and with a housing shortage that is getting worse by the month. And yet such is the depth of their conviction that immigration is always a good thing that these problems are brushed aside.
The EU’s commitment to free movement is usually and rightly cited as the main obstacle to substantial action on immigration. But it’s not the only one. This deep- seated belief is itself a real block.
The public has a firm and settled view. The most recent YouGov poll showed that only 10 per cent think immigration in the past 10 years has been good for Britain, while 71 per cent think it has been bad.
It is bad enough for democracy if there is a strong disconnection between the public mood and the Government’s behaviour. It is, if anything, even worse if the Government actually wants to act but finds its efforts frustrated because of other forces. That is unsustainable and means that the public will start venting its anger.
‘ Knee- jerk hostility within the civil service’