Some truths about immigration

2 August 2003

Anthony Browne says Britain is already overcrowded, and that pro-immigration arguments are almost all flawed

2. Britain is already overcrowded: it is one of the most densely populated islands in the world; twice as densely populated as France and eight times as densely populated as America – and increasing population density damages quality of life. Already, we can't find space for new airports, roads, prisons and asylum centres. It is not just millions of new houses, but the new infrastructure of roads, hospitals, schools, water supplies and other utilities. Our public transport system is ridiculously overstretched and roads are excessively congested. The government has embarked on a programme of population growth through immigration that will push the population up from 60 million to 66 million by 2031 but it refuses even to talk about the consequences of this.

3. Mass immigration – as opposed to limited immigration of skilled workers to meet shortages – damages the employment prospects of those already here, particularly the unskilled. The Home Office commissioned an economic study on the impact of immigration, which found that 'an increase in immigration amounting to 1 per cent of the non-immigrant population would lead to an increase of 0.18 percentage points in the non-immigrant unemployment rate'. However, in an extraordinary act of politically correct immigration denial, the immigration minister Beverley Hughes issued a press release saying, 'The research shows that it is simply not true that migrants "take the jobs" of the existing work force.' However, London, where most immigrants come, has become the unemployment black spot of Britain, with 7 per cent joblessness, higher than any region of the UK. There is such a large pool of cheap labour that, for the first time ever, national chains such as McDonald's and Burger King are no longer paying their highest rates in central London. Shop shelf-fillers now earn 10 per cent less in London than the average for the rest of the country. The world's leading expert on the economics of migration, Professor George Borjas of Harvard University, complains that everyone is happy to accept that increasing labour supply reduces wages in all circumstances except when it comes to immigration, when they enter denial.