By Dr John Sydenham.
The destruction of the environment, lack of housing, destruction of the countryside, competition for jobs and under investment in education and healthcare in the UK are all due to population growth. As will be seen below, population growth in the UK is due to migration.
Migration has polarised the population of the UK and a third of the population believe that to talk about migration is racist. This is particularly tragic because a large proportion of those who support high migration rates are young adults who have no prospect of buying their own house and find it difficult to even rent accommodation because of rapid population growth.
In Note 1 below there is a detailed explanation of how all population growth in the UK is due to migration. This is also the official conclusion of of the Office of National Statistics.
How big a problem is population growth due to migration?
About 600,000 people are immigrating to the UK every year and 300,000 are leaving. When all factors are taken into account the net growth in the population due to migration is 500,000 a year.
The biggest problem with migration to the UK is that Britain is a
relatively small island. England has one of the highest population
densities in the world. A population growth of half a million a
year results in about a 10% growth in population a decade. By 2050
the UK is likely to have almost 80 million people. This will
devastate our countryside. If population growth is allowed to
continue nature will become relegated to National Parks:
Half a million extra people every year in the UK is a huge number. A stunning number. It requires housing on the scale of a new Glasgow or Sheffield every year just to provide accommodation for 500,000 people. The huge population growth has, according to a survey by Heriot Watt University, led to a shortage of housing where the "total level of new housebuilding required is around 340,000 per year for England, 26,000 per year for Scotland, and 14,000 per year for Wales (380,000 for GB)." Young adults who cannot afford to buy or even to rent housing should take note.
There is a clear correlation between the price of housing and the demand for housing. This should not surprise anyone:
The rise in the value of housing also allows the wealthy city dwellers to acquire second homes and disturb the housing and societies of rural and coastal counties.
Migration also affects wages. Recently it has become clear that migrant labour in the UK has been used to keep wage rates low and working conditions poor. Rather than training British people to do work and paying a decent wage employers have been importing cheap labour from overseas. Some industries, such as meat preparation have employed huge numbers of foreign workers "Meat processing in the UK employs around 97,000 people of which approximately 62% are EU27 nationals. Some producers report workforces of up to 85% EU nationals. This has been the case for the last 15 years or more and EU workers are now an integral part of our food supply industry. " (British Meat Industry).
We have seen a similar pattern of dependence on cheap foreign labour across industries that has been unmasked by Brexit and COVID. This imported labour led to static UK wage rates as the flow of foreign labour came on stream in the early noughties:
Source: Office for National Statistics
If you are a young adult you should consider the origin of your low wages: wages have been kept low by the continuous influx of workers from abroad.
The best news for any ordinary working person is that there are now labour shortages. At last it will be possible for workers to experience real wage rises. Even if there is some inflation workers will be able to get jobs with rising wages to compensate.
Population growth also means that increasing investment is required in health and education every year:![]() |
Institute
of Fiscal Studies. UK Health and Social Care Spending Notice that the second column combines population growth and demographic changes. |
As the Guardian notes, education is also under tremendous funding strain as a result of population growth - 25.7% of children in the UK are born to migrants (see Note 1). Migration is also placing huge strain on social services. The UNICEF Working paper:THE SITUATION OF CHILDREN IN IMMIGRANT FAMILIES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM makes it clear that immigration is a major cause of childhood poverty and suggests that about 50% of child poverty in the UK is due to immigration.
The children's care system in the UK is also under pressure from migration. One in sixteen children in care have been sent to the UK unaccompanied from foreign countries. Almost a third (31%) of children in care were from ethnic minorities. At an average cost of £200,000 a year unaccompanied minors are costing £800 million a year and children of migrants about £4 billion a year.
There is abundant evidence that almost every area of British life is being adversely impacted by population growth. What of the future?
Climate change means that there are likely to be severe food shortages by mid century.
Most of the world except Russia will be relatively short of food.(World Meteorological Organisation).
In 30 years food prices will rise precipitately and the UK population will have increased to almost double that which can be supported from our own agriculture. Young adults in the UK can look forward to possible starvation in later life. At the very moment that we should be decreasing our population to be sustainable we are increasing it.
The overall picture is that the whole population of the UK is being used to carry the costs of "cheap" labour for industry. It would be better for the UK if the industries that are benefiting from this cheap labour were just given millions of pounds rather than the whole of the land and society of the UK being exploited to subsidise them.
All of the population growth is completely unnecessary. The UK has no need to expand its population and can find ways of automating processes where there is a lack of labour and can train its own people. Illegal migrants should be regarded as not having entered the UK and imprisoned until they agree to return home. None of this is racist, it is hard headed politics. Everyone in the UK including migrants who have settled here should support an end to population growth. "Say No!" to racism and "Say No!" to population growth, you can do both and still be a moral person.
Who is pushing for population growth? Obviously businesses that desire cheap labour want open borders but the political drive comes from the Labour Party and Internationalists. Population growth is so high in the UK that it can affect voting patterns, especially in inner city constituencies:
The Labour Party depends on migration to keep support in its inner city constituencies where the migrant vote is concentrated.
The Internationalists who support the merger of nations to end diversity also favour migration:
The focus on smearing Brexit voters as racist during political campaigns is designed to deliberately frighten migrants. Expect Internationalists and Labour to keep playing the "racist" card even if it kills us because they are relying on migration for support. The irony is that racism in the EU is far worse than in the UK. Illegal migrants all tell tales of being hounded across the EU to the Channel coast.
In some areas, such as housing, racism in the EU is absolutely appalling:
Yet the Internationalist UK mass media never mention EU racism but try to make it appear as if the UK has a major problem with racism, somehow due to Brexit, to scare the migrant population in the UK into supporting them. Internationalists want open borders but migrants who have settled in the UK share the interests of their compatriots in stopping further population growth. Labour and the mass media, especially the BBC, should cease misleading migrants who have settled here.
"Say No!" to racism and "Say No!" to population growth.
Note 1: Why Migration is the Source of UK Population Growth
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Annual Population Growth Without Migration |
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Excess of births over deaths per year |
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