Stephen Pollard
overall number of EU migrants over the past five years turns out to be 2.4 million.
But until Thursday the Government kept up the fiction that the official figures were accurate. Now, after a concerted campaign to get to the truth, the ONS has released the revised figures.
But the Government is still trying to hide what is really happening by saying that the previous figures were indeed accurate. They pretend that because many of these immigrants are only here for a short period – around a year – they don’t count.
The immigration minister says that we should ignore short-term migrants because they have no impact on public services.
As if they don’t need a home, don’t use the NHS, don’t need schools for their children and don’t use public transport.
The Government really does think we are all idiots. They think that, even when the truth is dragged out of them, we will happily ignore it and accept their pretence that the figures don’t mean what they say. Even when we see with our own eyes and experience for ourselves the reality of what is happening. Such as half of all NHS maternity units turning away women in labour over the past two years because they simply don’t have room.
The contempt that our own Government has for its citizens is shameful. When we cannot get a GP appointment or make use of a vital public service, to be told that short-term migration doesn’t count is almost deliberately insulting.
As it is the new figure is around 1.5 million higher than the old figure that effectively excluded short-term migrants. And around 1.3 million more NI numbers were given to EU citizens than the official statistics recognised. That’s an awful lot of people to pretend don’t count. But now the truth is out it will surely have a profound impact on the referendum.
Because the real figures show that an EU migrant arrives here every 40 seconds. They show that 800,000 EU citizens used the EU’s free movement rules to move to the UK last year alone. With the new Living Wage that number is only going to go up.
And according to Jonathan Portes, a former civil servant who himself supports the EU’s free movement rules, even these new figures under-count the true immigration picture.
HE says that the figures for long-term migration, when people move here for over a year, show that 739,000 people came in the four years before June 2014. But according to HMRC data, one million EU citizens who registered for an NI number over almost the exact same period were using their NI number. As he writes: “This means they paid tax or received benefits so were definitely in the UK.”
None of this is to blame the migrants who have come here. Why wouldn’t they? They want to work and there is both more and better paid work here. So it makes complete sense to come here perfectly legally. The point is not to attack immigrants – it is to attack the political elites who have consistently and deliberately lied to us about the extent of immigration.
Only when we know the truth can we make an informed decision. Now, just weeks from the referendum, we have that truth. And now we have the power to do something about it.
‘Will have a profound effect on referendum’