I was wrong before. Only net zero immigration can now save Britain

Telegraph

14-05-2025

For thirty years, at every election, Labour and the Conservatives pledged to reduce immigration, and then did the opposite. Far from feeling any contrition, let alone apologising, many of these politicians, convinced of their superior morality and grasp of economics, seemed proud to defy a 'bigoted' electorate.
This was the foundational lie at the heart of modern politics, an unforgivable breach of trust. More so even than economic failure and creeping anomie, it is the ultimate source of the anger and anti-establishment resentment engulfing Middle England.
This deception went hand in hand with an anti-democratic drive to gaslight ordinary voters, to cast doubt on their memory, to downplay the scale of what was happening and trivialise its consequences, to deny that promises were being broken. History was rewritten, social tensions covered up, a fake economic narrative constructed, inconvenient truths memory holed and dissidents demonised or cancelled.
Tony Blair promised 'firm control over immigration' before throwing the borders open. David Cameron said he would cut net migration to 'tens of thousands a year', a promise he broke every single year. A furious electorate voted for Brexit, and what did the Conservative Party do? Terrified to take on the Blob, out of ideas to grow an economy crippled by socialism and lockdowns, the Tories doubled-down.
The UK always had a migrant component to its long story, but it was never really a country of immigrants, until now. In the 25 years to 1997, total net migration into Britain was 68,000. In the 25 years to 2022, it was close to 6 million; in 2023, it hit 866,000 (and gross arrivals are much larger). This is orders of magnitude greater than anything experienced in the 19th or 20th centuries, and total recent immigration, as a share of the population, is far greater than the Roman, Viking or Norman settlements.
Like in every other European country, voters are losing patience with this madness, and are turning to political disruptors, in our case Nigel Farage. In response, Sir Keir Starmer, a lifelong pro-migration activist, would love us to believe that he has suddenly discovered the virtues of civic nationalism.
Britain is becoming an 'island of strangers ', he says, and has unveiled a series of reforms to cut arrivals. 'Settlement in the UK is a privilege that is earned, not a right', he tweeted, a great sentiment that is incompatible with his love of human rights law.
Few will trust Starmer, and his 'solutions' are tweaks when only a revolution will suffice. Every orthodoxy of the past 30 years must be rejected. We were told that largescale immigration was necessary to boost productivity, and yet its rate of growth has diminished; we were assured it would save the NHS, and yet it is in crisis; we were told we needed workers, and yet, of the 956,000 visas issued in the year to December 2024, only 210,000 went to main applicants in all work categories.
Some of these were doctors, investment bankers or PhD scientists, but most were not. Economists are finally acknowledging that many immigrants, even some who work, will end up a net drain on the public finances. Relatively high earners are net contributors; low wage migrants are not, especially if they have dependents. The NHS surcharge isn't enough. Migration cannot save unfunded state pension systems either: to rely on migrants that also age is akin to believing in Ponzi schemes.
By the standards of virtually all of British history, I'm a liberal on immigration. I support a multi-faith, multi-racial, colour-blind society, united by a love of Britain, its democratic institutions, its values and its traditions. My family's story is born out of immigration. I'm very comfortable in today's pluralistic Britain of hyphenated identities. Millions of migrants make a massive contribution.
But no mature society can cope with the scale of inflows we have experienced, and the woke, self-loathing ideology that dominates in Whitehall has led to the deliberate fragmentation of our country. We are heading towards disaster, and everything that is great about our country, including our remarkable tolerance and our success at integrating previous waves of arrivals, is now at risk.
I worry about the threat of Islamism, and the rise of anti-Semitism, about the loss of social cohesion and the increase in intra-minority tensions. I worry about the emergence of openly sectarian politicians, and about the idiocy of policies that discriminate against white people, that tell the young that Britain's history is shameful or pit one group against another. I worry about our failed colonial-style model of policing, which seeks to keep the peace between different groups rather than treating everybody as individuals. I worry about the insanity of trapping millions of UK-born adults on out of work benefits, and recruiting foreigners to work instead.
I now realise only drastic solutions will do. We need a five-year moratorium on net migration – in other words, zero net migration until 2030, before returning to 1990s volumes. Given annual departures – 450,000 in 2023 – this would still at first allow a large number of arrivals, diminishing rapidly over the next few years, allowing the economy to adapt. This would allow the country to take stock, trust to be rebuilt and our creaking infrastructure and housing to catch up.
Becoming British ought to become a lot more like joining a club: race or religion must not matter, but the applicant should need to show commitment, demonstrate how he or she will contribute, and explicitly pledge support to our democratic institutions and rule of law. Those who can't or won't make the commitment should either be given temporary visas or rejected. Citizenship ceremonies and the current vacuous 'British values' are insufficient. We should welcome a generous number of refugees, but should choose who we let in to bar criminals or those who dislike our values. This would require quitting the European Convention of Human Rights and several other international treaties, and being willing to treat anybody who arrives illegally like ordinary criminals.