Mass migration isn't Britain's lifeblood. It's an economic disaster

Telegraph

12-06-2025

Within hours of stepping up as Reform chairman on Tuesday, David Bull triggered his first media controversy by remarking that 'immigration is the lifeblood of this country – it always has been'.
As popular as this sentiment is with Britain's politicians, it isn't true today and it certainly wasn't in the past. From 1066 through to the end of the Second World War, the population of Britain has been marked by relative stability. As a crude illustration, as late as 1951 the total non-White population of Great Britain was estimated at about 30,000 people, or about 0.07pc of the population.
Today it's roughly 20pc, and on course to pass 50pc by the end of the century. In other words, the population changes induced by migration over the past seven decades are essentially without parallel in 1,000 years of British history.
Even within this modern period, however, it's not quite right to say that migration has been Britain's lifeblood. It would be more accurate to say it's been the default policy of a state that keeps repeating its mistakes.
A brief summary of the last 70 years might fairly cast British migration policy as a mixture of blunders, unintended consequences, and myopic pursuit of short-term objectives, right from the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948.
As other writers have pointed out, while the narrative promoted today is 'you called and we came', internal government communications show that efforts were made to dissuade Caribbean migration in ways that wouldn't imperil the precarious bonds with Britain's colonies.
Shortly after the ship's arrival, Britain adopted a sweeping nationality act that permitted anyone with a passport issued by the British government to enter the country. This act, while 'never intended to sanction a mass migration', combined with policies aimed at attracting workers in specific fields to create a mass inflow.
Now, where have we heard that before?