The Migration Myth
4 years, 8 months, 6 days, 21 hours
15 November 2024
Net migration into a country is not just a good thing, but essential to a country’s future.
‘Fewer children are being born in England and Wales and the fertility rate is at its lowest level on record, at 1.44 children per woman’, according to the UN Office of National Statistics in its latest report on UK population two weeks ago. And there were also more deaths than births in the UK in the 12 months to mid-2023, leading to the first negative ‘natural change in the population’ since 1976 (excluding 2020 due to Covid).
That should be no surprise given the report from the University of Washington that I shared in March this year, showing a similar story is unfolding across pretty much the entire developed world: Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021.
However, the UK’s population had nonetheless increased 1% in the last year, ‘mainly due to net migration’.
As it happened last night I was at a table with a group of former UK diplomats in a ‘Chatham House’ conversation about Brexit, Europe, Ukraine, Trump and other weighty, interlocked, topics. And the guest speaker, who I am sorry I cannot name, took it upon themselves to single out as in their view the single biggest failing of the UK’s political class today, to explain that net migration into the country is not just a good thing, but essential to the country’s future.
Two nights before I was in Rome. At our table beside our hosts were colleagues from Spain, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland. And we agreed we were seeing the same issue across Europe: weak economic performance insufficient to cope with increasing demands leading to greater social tensions.
The solution? We came up with four and you can (if you live somewhere where you can vote) choose which one or combination you prefer:
Accept more inward economic migration.
Work for longer.
Lower your material expectations of what the state will provide.
Blame it all on immigrants and other countries and accept the risk of a hard reset brought about by conflict.