Population surge
MASS migration will ‘change the UK for ever’ if the country votes to stay in the European Union, with more than 7 million foreigners arriving in just 20 years.
A damning report by a major thinktank predicted that runaway immigration would see Britain’s population – currently 64million – rise by 12.8 million to 76.8million in 2035, then to 80.2million in 2039.
Some 60 per cent of the 7 million migrants will be from the EU, the paper forecasts.
In a blow to David Cameron, MigrationWatch said the findings were a ‘ final wake-up call’ ahead of the EU referendum.
Leading Brexit campaigner Boris Johnson said: ‘Many people will welcome Britain going up to 75 million, 80 million, and think that’s a good thing, but people are also entitled to ask where are the houses going to be built? How will our hospitals cope? How will the schools handle it?’
Immigration has been a key battleground in the referendum campaign. MigrationWatch warned that an extra 100,000 Turks would flock to Britain every year if the Muslim country became a full EU member. The numbers flocking here under free movement rules would be ‘inevitable, substantial and sustained’.
In that scenario, annual net migration would rocket to 420,000 – equivalent to adding a city the size of Bristol to the population each year.
Britain’s official position is to support Turkey’s accession to the EU and David Cameron has explicitly spoken out in favour of its membership – promising to ‘pave the road from Ankara to Brussels’.
Challenged over the threat it would pose to Britain’s security, the Prime Minister has since insisted its potential accession was a red herring and that it will be ‘literally decades’ before Turkey, with a population of 77 million, can join.
But there are concerns that Brussels will cave into the demands of the country’s hard-line Islamist leader recep Tayyip Erdogan to maintain his co-operation in tackling the Syrian migrant crisis.
Leaked diplomatic cables also suggest British diplomats have already secretly discussed granting visa-free travel to the UK for 1.5million Turks.
Leading Brexit campaigner Chris Grayling, the leader of the House of Commons, said: ‘If this level of immigration continues it will change the nature of the places we live in. Our country will become much more developed and vast tracts of our green spaces will disappear. It will become more congested and our public services like the NHS will face ever growing pressures. And if we stay in the EU people in the UK will have no say at all about this change. That can’t be right.’
Ex- Cabinet minister Liam Fox said: ‘If we remain in the European Union we will be forced to accept unlimited free movement of people as the Prime Minister’s renegotiation failed to achieve any limits on this whatsoever. Yet, there will be no free movement of space coming with them.’
Lord Green of Deddington, chairman of MigrationWatch, said: ‘ This report is a final wake- up call. Even leaving aside the prospect of Turkey joining the EU, it shows that net migration could still be running at 265,000 a year in 20 years’ time. This would change our country for ever against the express wishes of a very large majority of our fellow citizens.’
A spokesman for Britain Stronger In Europe said: ‘The overwhelming majority of independent experts agree that leaving the EU would damage the economy – pushing up prices, risking jobs and reducing the amount of money available for public services. Throwing our economy into this kind of uncertainty is not the answer to immigration, an issue that is much more complex than the Leave campaign would have the public believe.’