Daily Express

1.2M MORE MIGRANTS WILL HEAD TO BRITAIN

If we don’t cut all ties with the EU...

- By Giles Sheldrick

BRITAIN will need to build a city the size of Birmingham every two years unless it cuts all ties with Europe.

If the UK remains subject to free-movement rules, net migration from the EU will continue at around 125,000 a year over the next decade, adding to those from other countries, a report said last night. A soft Brexit will leave the door open to 1.25 million EU immigrants over this time.

The disturbing scenario comes as the first full week of Brexit negotiatio­ns are poised to start today in

Brussels with urgent new powers to control migration the priority.

Taking into account non-EU migrants, pressure group Migration Watch UK claims failure to control EU movement will result in the population rocketing by around 500,000 each year.

This is close to figures from the Office for National Statistics under a high migration scenario.

These see the population rising nearly six million by 2027 and by more than 10 million over the next 20 years.

The current population of Birmingham is just over one million.

The warning coincides with the revelation that a group of 15 hardline pro-EU Tory MPs are scheming with Labour to try to keep Britain in the single market and under Brussels rule.

Former ministers Nicky Morgan, Ken Clarke, Anna Soubry and Dominic Grieve have all been linked to a plot orchestrat­ed by Labour MP Stephen Kinnock to derail Brexit.

Overcrowde­d

In a report published today, Lord Green of Deddington, chairman of Migration Watch, said: “The prospect of having to build the equivalent of a city the size of Birmingham every two years is simply appalling in a country that already feels overcrowde­d.

“These negotiatio­ns come at a critical point at which the whole scale and nature of our society risks slipping out of control. The Government must hold their nerve and get EU immigratio­n sharply down.”

Alarming figures show Britain’s population has seen its sharpest increase in nearly 70 years, largely as a result of mass immigratio­n.

It rose by 538,000 in the 12 months to the end of June last year to an estimated 65.6 million.

The figure is the largest rise since the 551,000 increase recorded in 1946/7.

Migration Watch says a soft Brexit means the UK remaining in the single market when it leaves the bloc with net immigratio­n from the EU staying at well over 100,000 a year for at least a decade.

It argues that while this option claims to prioritise jobs it will require Britain to continue to accept freedom of movement.

The group describes this as a “disastrous halfway house” as the UK will remain subject to rules on free movement but with no power to influence them.

An alternativ­e involving quitting the EU but remaining in the customs union will give the Government control of immigratio­n from the bloc but rule out free trade agreements with third countries.

By contrast, a Brexit involving a comprehens­ive free trade agreement but no single market or customs union membership, will allow the UK to repatriate border controls and then negotiate a future trading relationsh­ip with the EU.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: “Migration Watch UK is the most respected independen­t body when it comes to migration analysis so everyone should sit up and take note of this report which provides further evidence of why we must not stay in the single market.

“The biggest single reason for Brexit was to get control of migration.

“If we stay in the single market effectivel­y nothing would have changed. As a country we simply would not be able to cope with continued levels of migration on this scale.”

A Government spokesman said: “As the Prime Minister set out we will be leaving the single market.”

THE ruling European elite and its politicall­y correct allies like to harp on about the evils of human traffickin­g. Yet their self-righteousn­ess is the height of hypocrisy for they are the biggest trafficker­s of all. With utter contempt for the integrity of our continent, they now operate a gigantic illegal immigratio­n racket across the Mediterran­ean, transporti­ng every week thousands of people who have no right to live in Europe.

The scale of this exercise along the sea route between North Africa and Italy is alarming. On Friday alone, an incredible 4,400 migrants were brought to ports on the Italian coast, 1,428 of them in a single coastguard vessel which reached the Sicilian city of Catania.

If it carried on at this colossal rate over a year, the number of arrivals would reach 1.6 million, which is almost exactly the size of the influx from the eastern Mediterran­ean through Greece and the Balkans in 2015, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel recklessly opened the migrant floodgates.

Just like Merkel’s decision two years ago, the present Italian strategy is portrayed as a grand humanitari­an gesture which shows Europe’s compassion. But this is a grotesque distortion of reality.

The “rescue” operation for the migrants is nothing of the sort. It is in practice a free ferry service that takes African passengers on a journey of 300 miles from just off the Libyan coast to Italy.

PETER MANDELSON, the former European Commission­er and Labour Cabinet Minister once revealingl­y joked of his party’s open-door immigratio­n policy that “we were sending out search parties for people”. That is exactly what the EU and the sanctimoni­ous “rescue” charities are doing in the Mediterran­ean today.

Far from deterring the people smugglers in Africa they are eagerly colluding with them. Indeed, there are claims that some of the rescuers actually co-ordinate their manoeuvres with the criminal underworld by giving out their contact details and even, according to the allegation made by a Libyan coastguard official, stumping up cash to bankroll the traffickin­g.

Nor is there a shred of credibilit­y behind the assertion that most of the Africans are desperate refugees fleeing persecutio­n. The United Nations admits 70 per cent of those on the Mediterran­ean boats are economic migrants.

The EU’s deeply flawed, selfdestru­ctive strategy will only encourage an ever greater influx. As the American billionair­e philanthro­pist Bill Gates put it, “The more generous you are, the more word gets around about this, which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa.”

Gates is absolutely right. According to a recent estimate by Austrian Military Intelligen­ce, as many as 15 million African migrants could arrive in Europe by 2020, while President of the European Parliament Antonio Tajani says the figure could be of “biblical proportion­s” in future, reaching 20 or 30 million.

What makes the Mediterran­ean exodus all the more disturbing is that it is just part of a pattern of social revolution in Europe, fuelled by unpreceden­ted levels of immigratio­n and driven by the politician­s without any democratic mandate.

In 2015, no fewer than 4.7million immigrants settled in the EU while at January 2016, there were 35 million people living there who were born outside the EU’s territory. European government­s used to think it their duty to repel foreign invasions. Today, our leaders facilitate the irreversib­le transforma­tion of our society.

But this process is not inspired by generosity. On the contrary, it is the product of a political conspiracy to erode the traditiona­l fabric of Europe and create a new social order.

Over mass immigratio­n, the EU likes to present a façade of impotence in the face of global forces. But this pose is phoney. The EU can be ruthless when it decides, as it showed in its creation of the single currency or in its bullying of Greece. If it wanted, it could defend our borders and deport illegal migrants. Similarly, on the Mediterran­ean route to Italy, it could have a real naval operation that would systematic­ally return the migrants to Africa and destroy smugglers’ boats.

But the EU is not interested in any of that. It actually welcomes the huge waves of mass immigratio­n because it sees them as the vehicle for implementi­ng its cherished federalist project. Through freedom of movement, the vast flood of foreign arrivals assists in two of the EU’s central themes.

ONE is the permanent destructio­n of all the trappings of nationhood, including identity, heritage and solidarity, in order to build the new concept of European citizenshi­p. The other key theme is the aggressive promotion of multicultu­ralism to undermine the values of Europe’s Judaeo-Christian civilisati­on. “Cultural diversity is at the heart of the EU project,” declares one document from the Brussels commission, adding menacingly that “tolerance is not enough”.

In the same vein “Unity in diversity” is one of the slogans of Jean-Claude Juncker’s discredite­d EU Presidency. But the public can see through this. We are the ones who have to live with worsening social divisions, terrorism and economic crises, the price we pay for the twin creeds of mass immigratio­n and multicultu­ralism.

‘Most of them are not desperate refugees’

 ??  ?? FERRIED OVER: A rescue ship carrying about 1,000 migrants reaches Salerno, Italy
FERRIED OVER: A rescue ship carrying about 1,000 migrants reaches Salerno, Italy
 ??  ??

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United Kingdom