Government departments and agencies are hiding key data on the economic contribution of immigrants by nationality. Conservative MP Neil O’Brien (yes, I know, we haven’t forgiven him for going after sceptics during lockdown, but stay with me) writes about the problem in the Times.
The Government collects fabulously detailed statistics on many things. We know that the average Brit drinks about 542 cups of tea a year. We know how many people have been struck by lightning since 1852.
We know what proportion of buses in Rutland run on time. We know that while the Beatles sang that there were “four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire”, there were in fact 4,817 potholes there in 2022. But if you want to get hold of statistics about migration, it’s surprisingly difficult to get reliable data.
Start with the basics. How many people live in Britain? The official answer has changed radically in only a few months. Alongside the budget in March, the Office for Budget Responsibility announced that by the end of its five-year forecast the population would be a million higher than its last forecast, only three months ago. It stated: “About two thirds of this increase is due to a higher estimate of the current U.K. population.”
Paul Johnson, from the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said: “This is astonishing when you think about it. We now think the U.K.’s population next year will be more than one million higher than we expected less than three years ago. Driven by much higher net immigration.” …
And that’s just the basics of how many people are here. Go a level deeper and there are no data at all. How many people of different nationalities are in the country? Amazingly, we don’t know. The ONS used to publish an annual breakdown of our population by nationality. But that has been discontinued. When I asked the ONS when the breakdown might resume, it said it was unable to give a date. The organisation is working on it and will provide a progress update some time this year.
What about the economic effects of different types of migration from different places? That question is becoming harder to answer because officials have stopped publishing the data we need to have a sensible conversation about it.
HM Revenue & Customs used to publish annual data on how much tax people of different nationalities paid. But it recently confirmed to me that it has stopped publishing it. Similarly, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) used to publish data on welfare claims by nationality. The DWP published figures every year for a decade or more but it, too, has decided to stop publishing this.
Many EU countries, among them Denmark, Germany and Austria, produce sophisticated analysis of the fiscal contribution of migrants who come on different types of visa, from different places. They use this to ensure they are getting the most beneficial types of migration. We should do the same.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: Watch Migration Watch’s Alp Mehmet discuss the scandal of the hidden immigration data with Nigel Farage on GB News.
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The civil service is unaccountable and its senior ranks are populated by radical leftists intent on imposing their will on the citizenry.
This is really quite sinister.
“Lip Service” is that thing where you pretend your listening to people but have no intentions of doing anything other than what you have long ago decided you are going to do. ——-I think we can call this Official Government Policy on Immigration —LIP SERVICE. Unfortunately the Labour Party’s policy is one where LIP SERVICE is even more entrenched and where not listening on this issue will be honed into an art form after the next election.
|It is simple number for them. A growing population represents a growing substantial power base, a stagnant or declining population the opposite. But of course the equation is more complcated than that. A country’s industrial capacity for example and how readily a civilian infrastructure can be converted into a miiltary one. Very large number of immigrant suits the agenda perfectly. You wouldn’t be able to stop it without revolutionary change and we do not live in pre-reviutionary times. This is the future whether you like it or not save some black swan event. We were told in the 1980s that greed is good. Might be good in the very short term but now it is coming back to bite you in the arse.
It is no excuse to say that cheap labour is the bottom line. You can have mass immigration or you can have a welfare state. The two cannot co-exist it is simple mathematics. And the natives aren’t exactly in good health in terms of looking after themselves. According to one expert we will experierince a massive wave of ill health and death in the next few weeks followed by a huge die-off in October. You might’ve noticed that your immune system isn’t what it used to be. We are being attacked by a force that knows how to diminish our physical and fighting spirit.
If you’re well off then then might enjoy cheap nannies and cheap restaurants. There is a bigger picture and you will be left with neither.
It will get way more serious. What are you going to do? Lets say you live in some leafy suburban cul-de-sac and then all of a sudden a car driven by a Somali high on something just crashes into your drive and he is serously injured but he doesn’t even care because he got his kicks just with the driving. Report him to the authorities? There are no authorities. It is like the film Apocalypse Now where Willard asks for the officer in command and is told that there is no officer in command. We really are at that point where any elected government will be powerless to stop what is happening to us. It requires a completely new way of thinking about things.
The uk government is much the same as most governments worldwide – corrupt and actively working against the best interests of the people.
They’re importing poverty for British taxpayers to provide support …. all part of the “level down the west” strategy of the UN.
There’s been a huge demographic change in Norwich in a very short time frame, mainly within the last 12 months. It started with a nearby hotel being requisitioned for young male migrants. Now, the area around the University is swarming with Africans, obviously living in the accommodation that used to be let to students, which explains the current spate of building of student housing blocks in the city centre. Young black men, usually on their own, and wearing headphones and carrying rucksacks, are spotted walking randomly, but regularly, around every area of the city. It’s almost as if they have their own little patch to walk. Who knows what’s in the rucksacks, eh? We seem to have a barber shop appearing on every street staffed by young Kurdish men (from Iran and Syria mainly). Rubbish I fests the streets.
Graffiti is proliferating. The councils (I have three ‘serving’ the area I live in, and there’sa fourth half a mile up the road) all have wordy and worthy policies on the environment, climate change and net zero, but do nothing to address these issues. They can’t even provide litter bins, or regularly empty the few that exist.
A decade ago, I would’ve recommended Norwich as probably the best city to live in in the UK. Now, I’m planning to get the heck out at the first opportunity.