UK is turning into place we don't recognise… migrant boat disrupting Dunkirk tribute tells you all you need to know

The Sun

23-05-2025

IF you ever wanted a powerful symbol of what is wrong with Britain and its ruling class, then take a look at what happened in the Channel this week.
Hoping to mark the 85th anniversary of Operation Dynamo — the evacuation of our brave troops from Dunkirk in World War Two — a flotilla of more than 60 'Little Ships' set off from Ramsgate, Kent.
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But their 45-mile trip to France was disrupted when Border Force and the French navy demanded the boats make way for a dinghy bringing illegal immigrants to our shores, perhaps including terrorists among them.
What on earth would our ancestors have made of this, I wonder?
An attempt to mark our shared identity, history and collective sacrifice being disrupted by people from distant nations who are breaking our laws?
While nobody in Westminster has yet said anything about this incident, I think it perfectly symbolises a major dividing line in our country.
A line between those who cling to the things that once defined a country they both recognise and love, and those who are seeking to radically transform this country into something that most British and English people no longer recognise at all.
If you think I'm taking things a bit far, then I'd urge you to consider two points.
First, the reality of what is now unfolding in the English Channel.
4,500 boats — equivalent to filling an entire town almost the size of Luton.
And, astonishingly, one data analyst this week predicted that nearly 46,000 illegal migrants will cross this year, smashing all records to date.
But what we also learned this week, thanks to new figures released by the Office for National Statistics, is that our country and its population are being transformed much more rapidly and profoundly by legal immigration.
'Drop' in migrant numbers is nothing to celebrate... there are still 1,180 people arriving in the UK every DAY
While Keir Starmer and Labour will try to distract you in the days ahead by pointing to the fact the overall rate of net migration into Britain last year fell sharply, to 431,000, meaning nearly half a million more people arrived than left, just look at the bigger picture.
For a start, who voted for adding a city the size of Bristol to our country every year?
Seriously, who voted for a level of net migration that is still huge by historical standards — 80 per cent higher than the yearly average during the 2010s and seven times higher than the level of the 1990s, before Tony Blair and New Labour forced us into this mass immigration experiment.
When millions of people voted for Brexit, which many saw as an attempt to lower immigration, did they think that nearly a decade on from that vote the net migration figure in this country would be 100,000 higher than it was at the time of the referendum?
As a result of these mind-boggling trends, today, one in every 25 people in this country arrived in the last four years, according to the Spectator magazine.
Let me say that again.
One in every 25 people arrived in the last four years.
While Keir Starmer was recently criticised by the Left for suggesting we are 'at risk' of becoming an ' island of strangers ', I think he was too soft.
We are already an island of strangers.
How is it possible, you might ask, to maintain and unify a population that is undergoing this scale of rapid demographic change and in which millions of people only arrived in the last few years and so have no roots in our long identity, history and culture?
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Furthermore, while the Labour Party wax lyrical about 'regaining control', can I ask them another simple question?
If net migration was close to half a million people last year while at the same time our leaders built only 218,000 homes in England, then how on earth will we ever solve our housing crisis, bringing down the soaring cost of homes and rent for hardworking Brits?
Between 2013 and 2024, according to the policy wonks at the Centre for Policy Studies, the 'housing deficit' in this country, meaning the number of homes we need, surged by 1.7million and immigration accounted for close to 1.6million, or 94 per cent, of this total.
The message is crystal clear, even if nobody in Westminster will be honest with you about it.
You can have available and affordable housing for the hardworking, tax-paying British people, or you can have mass uncontrolled immigration.
You cannot have both.
And look, too, at how these insane numbers are transforming our economy.
In the aftermath of the vote for Brexit, countless politicians told you that we would switch to a policy of lower but 'high skill' immigration — that we would attract the best of the best.
'ISLAND OF STRANGERS'
But now look into the detail of those numbers, released this week.
Here's just one bonkers statistic.
Of the nearly 3.6million migrants from outside Europe who arrived in Britain, since 2021, just 16 per cent of them came on work visas.
Think about that.
Once you exclude students, relatives and asylum seekers, only around one in eight of the millions of people who have flooded into our country came primarily to work.
I'm not an economist but I would bet my house that this is one very big reason why our economy is now in the toilet, with low rates of growth and dismal levels of productivity.
We should be attracting people who want to work, not providing a safety net for people who are taking more out of our economy than they are putting in.
And, lastly, look at how all this is transforming our culture and identity, leaving the country unrecognisable to millions of ordinary Brits.
Another stat we learned this week is that 81 per cent of all immigration onto these islands is now coming from outside Europe — typically India, Pakistan, Nigeria and China, which have radically different cultures, identities and histories.
Given all this, then, is it really any surprise that according to one pollster this week, close to half of all British people, including the vast majority who plan to vote for Nigel Farage and Reform, openly agree with the line: 'I sometimes feel like a stranger in my own country.'
I know I do.
And you know what?
I suspect that were those brave soldiers in Dunkirk, our ancestors, returning to the Britain and England of today, they would too.