It is surprisingly difficult to get to the UK legally.
Even a tourist visa requires you to fill in lots of forms and demonstrate that
you have enough money to visit here without there being a risk of you staying. To
obtain the right to live and work here and especially to obtain a British
passport is harder still. You have to pass various tests, pay thousands of
pounds and after many years you get your passport. The alternative to all of
these legal methods is to get in a rubber dinghy sail here and walk up the
beach.
Britain has a policy of making immigration difficult
in order to limit it. The legal route for immigrants could hardly be stricter
and more expensive if we tried. But it only limits those who wish to come here
legally. It does nothing to stop those who don’t.
There is a legitimate debate about immigration. Some
people believe we should allow anyone who wishes to come to Britain to do so. We
are all human beings. Why should there be borders at all?
We could say that no one requires a visa to come to
Britain and we could issue passports to anyone who arrives and says they want
one. We could do more than this. We could actively search for people all around
the world who wish to come here and send planes to bring them.
The other side of the debate argues that we should take
no asylum seekers, do everything we can to stop those who try to arrive here
illegally and send back everyone who breaks the rules.
What would be the result of unlimited immigration? It
would radically alter the demographics of Britain. For instance, after the
Second World War Polish people migrated into territory where Germans had been
living for many centuries. The Germans were forced to leave. Afterwards what
had been Germany became Poland. It ceased to be a German speaking place and
became Polish speaking. The German culture that had existed there for centuries
came to an end. This is an example of unlimited immigration.
Changes in demographics can also happen over a longer
period. The Celtic population of Britain that existed before the Romans was
gradually replaced with an Anglo-Saxon population with the Celts pushed
westwards. Celtic Britain ceased to exist. The Celtic language and culture
became a minority.
Britain like most other countries has always had
demographic change. The Celts after all were immigrants too and replaced those who
made Stonehenge and Scara Brae. But that is not to say that the Celts ought to
have rejoiced in being supplanted or delighted in becoming a minority.
Since 1945 we have been experiencing one of the
greatest demographic changes in our history. While previous waves of migration
were from across the North Sea, now people from all over the world have been
coming here in large numbers. Many of these people have made great
contributions to our society. They are our friends and neighbours and fellow
countrymen. It is foolish to oppose all immigration, not least because each of
us has an immigrant in our family tree.
But still we must recognise that Britain has moved
from being a monocultural country where 99% of the population were from
families who had been here for at least a thousand years to a multicultural
country where in some cities the majority have parents born abroad. We must be
honest about this and the direction in which we are heading, otherwise we
cannot debate the issue at all.
One of the reasons for Britain being successful as a
multicultural country is that we have been able to limit migration. This means
that those who arrive here have the chance to integrate and mix with everyone
else. This would be less likely to happen if migration were unlimited as this
would enable linguistic communities to develop who felt no need to learn
English rather as the Anglo-Saxons felt no need to learn Celtic. But even
limited migration will gradually very radically alter the demographics of
Britain.
From the perspective of those living in 1945 the year 2045
a mere hundred years later would present a vision of Britain that many would
find shocking and indeed quite unbelievable. They would find it difficult to
understand how a Britain that could prevent the Germans invading in 1940 could
fail to prevent people arriving here illegally in rubber dinghies. They would
walk certain streets and wonder if they were in Britain at all. They would ask
if Britain had been invaded by a foreign power.
But is there a way to limit migration still further
and is it something we ought to try to do?
Some countries in Europe have very little immigration.
Japan, Korea and Taiwan likewise remain overwhelmingly the same as they were in
1945. Poland lost 17% of its population in World War Two, Belarus lost 25%. The
United Kingdom by contrast lost 0.94%. But while neither Poland nor Belarus
thought it necessary to replace these losses with people from abroad, Britain
argued that we required mass immigration to replace our losses.
Football fans in Poland and Hungary rudely boo England
players taking the knee and demonstrate racist antipathy to these players, but
I think what they are really saying is that we don’t want our country to become
like yours even if that means we win fewer football matches.
There are very few non-Poles in Poland and most of
these are from neighbouring countries. Polish is a notoriously difficult
language. If you move there, you won’t find documents translated into your
language. You won’t get much in the way of benefits and anyway the Polish
Government does its very best to prevent Poland’s demographics changing.
It would be far easier for those in dinghies coming to
Britain to just get on a train to Warsaw, but they are not interested. Britain
is attractive partly because we speak English, but perhaps more importantly
because there are communities from all over the world waiting to welcome
newcomers and help them to get started. We are far less racist than the average
Pole and far more friendly to migrants. Much of what ordinary Poles say to each
other about immigration would be socially unacceptable here.
It matters little if a few thousand people arrive in
dinghies. It matters little if twenty or thirty thousand arrive from
Afghanistan. There is a good case for helping them. There is a humanitarian
case that can be made for each individual that comes here, simply because he is
a human being.
But cumulatively each of these things that matter
little matter a lot. For while places like Poland remain as they were we change
beyond all recognition from what we were even a short time ago. Some people
welcome this. Perhaps they are right to do so. It looks as if the whole of
western Europe is going to become much more multicultural in the coming decades
just like the United States.
There is a whole ideology dedicated to preventing us
from even expressing concern about how Britain has changed and will change
still further. It has become the unforgivable sin to object and so the change
will continue and indeed accelerate. We can no more stop it than we can stop
the dinghies.
To seriously stop or even much limit migration would
require a mindset that exists in some countries but does not exist in ours. It
would require us to no longer be reliant on workers from abroad but instead
have a birth-rate like we did in 1945. Turning back the dinghies is like trying
to turn back the tide.
