Some truths about immigration

2 August 2003

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

9. White flight is ghettoising Britain's cities and fragmenting communities. A totally unpublicised report commissioned by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister last year found that white flight was now a leading cause of internal migration in the UK. In London as a whole, white Britons account for just 60 per cent of the population, and for fewer than half the population in six London boroughs. Mass immigration from the Third World to the cities exacerbates white flight, but the government refuses to face up to the consequences. Professor Robert Putnam, author of the celebrated Bowling Alone, which is about the decline of community spirit in the US, has found that the more ethnically diverse a population, the less sense of community there is.

The government may not face up to these issues, but an increasing number of people are doing so. Bob Rowthorn, the left-wing professor of economics at Cambridge, dismisses all the economic arguments and opposes mass immigration on the grounds that all people have a right to decide their culture; Geoff Dench of the left-wing Institute of Community Studies in London's East End opposes mass immigration because of the welfare loss to the white working class, and because it is so damaging to race relations; Professor Lord Layard, the designer of Labour's welfare-to-work programme, has warned of the damaging impact on the unskilled; Ruth Lea, the head of policy at the Institute of Directors, has called on government to reduce immigration – she insists businesses must look beyond the short-term profits of cheap labour, and look at the long-term social and economic consequences.

As the taboo about immigration is broken, more people are becoming more open-minded about it. The government will eventually be forced to face reality and to curb its addiction to mass immigration. It is just a question of how much pain it puts the country through – and how much it sacrifices the working classes and race relations – before it does so.

Anthony Browne is environment editor of the Times.