Britain has always needed a level of immigration to help fill temporary skill gaps.
However, all intended immigrants should be carefully vetted prior to entry.
Immigrants attempting to enter the UK illegally via air, sea, or train are rejected and immediately returned. This policy must be applied to illegal entry from cross-Channel dinghies too.
Below are my views and policy on:
- Immigration Statistics
- Why high levels of immigration
- Effect of high immigration
- Reform UK policy
- Cross-Channel Migrants
- The Tory Migrant Bung Schemes
1. Immigration Statistics
For the year ending December 2022, approximately 1.16 million people migrated to the United Kingdom, while 557,000 people migrated from the UK, resulting in a net migration figure of 606,000.
There have consistently been more people immigrating to the United Kingdom than leaving it since 1993 when the net migration figure was negative 1,000.
As a result of the Conservative Party signing the Marrakesh Agreement, the attractiveness of emigrating to the UK via either legal or illegal means has increased and this has led to the increased numbers in recent years.
2. Why high levels of immigration
In December 2018 Theresa May, the Conservative Prime Minister at the time, signed up to the UN Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. While not legally binding, "it is a framework for international cooperation". This compact is often referred to the Marrakesh Agreement. The United States, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Australia, and Israel have pulled out of the agreement as it infringed National Sovereignty.
The UK has traditionally offered a very generous benefits package to migrants, and coupled with the Marrakesh Agreement, the Country is now both willing and able to attract and retain 100,000s of migrants in line with Conservative Party Immigration Policy, a policy that the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats support.
The UK has extended its immigration support to cross-Channel migrants who enter the UK via illegal means with the benefits package that they receive including free accommodation and services, free food, free gym, free dental and medical services, spending money, free bus, and taxi fares, and outings all paid for by the taxpayer.
3. Effect of high immigration
With net immigration of 606,000, assuming two people per household, 300,000 extra homes for the migrants. However, only 191,801 dwellings were built in 2022. The effect of excess demand over supply was to increase house price inflation. This also made it more difficult for first-time buyers to get onto the housing ladder as supply was less than the previous year.
With the privatised water companies preferring to distribute dividends rather than invest in better facilities, the increased population has led to increased dumping of raw sewage into rivers and seas, including in the Havant Constituency. The low level of fines levied on the water companies for pollution has been insufficient to encourage them to change their ways.
The rapid growth in population has put additional pressure on our NHS both in hospitals and General Practice. Elective surgery is delayed more than ever and GP practices are struggling to serve the increased population. The NHS has been further impacted by Government Policy that encourages overseas medical students (who return home after qualifying) rather than UK students. The removal of nurses' bursaries further discourages school leavers from entering the valued nursing profession.
4. Reform UK policy
Reform UK policy is NET ZERO immigration; this will have the additional benefit of reducing demand and prices of housing and renting as well as alleviating the pressure on providers of infrastructure, particularly in the NHS.
The resolve the problem of illegal immigrants crossing the Channel and costing the taxpayer £12 billion a year (or £550 per family), the following strategic steps would be taken:
- Withdraw from the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, which gives asylum-seekers the right to travel through other safe countries to reach the UK.
- Withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, and reform the UK Human Rights Act 1998 which is based on the ECHR
- Merge the existing Border Force and Immigration Enforcement departments into a single dedicated force, to be called His Majesty’s Border Force (HMBF) as a separate entity
- The UK has paid £500 million to France to halt the migrant small boats; and cease all future payments.
5. Cross-Channel Migrants
Once the strategic decisions have been implemented, the following tactical approach will be applied.
- Publish the origin of Channel migrants monthly
- Instruct the Navy to immediately give the location of launch points to the French police and also put the details in the public domain
- Prevent the migrant dinghies (often accompanied by the French Navy) from entering UK waters
- For dinghies that enter UK waters, pick them up and return them to France under the existing laws provided in the 1974 International Convention of Safety of Lives at Sea (SOLAS).
- Single male illegal immigrants should not have housing provided by the taxpayer. The Conservative Government policy of having university students kicked out from halls of residence to make space for illegal male immigrants must be canceled.
- Meanwhile, the Labour Party has committed to taking 100,000 illegal immigrants from the EU, while the EU is unwilling to take any illegal immigrants back that land in the UK from across the Channel.
Additional pressure could be put on the EU's Freedom of Movement doctrine by revoking all agreements that allow EU fishing boats to fish in UK waters unless and until the EU takes back migrants leaving the EU and entering the UK illegally. UK taxpayers are funding illegal immigrants with £6 million per day. Please read more here.
6. The Tory Migrant Bung Schemes
The Conservative Party has spent £240 million of our money to exchange some of our cross-channel migrants arriving illegally with asylum seekers in Rwanda. This is an enormous sum of money that taxpayers will need to find for a project that is wholly unnecessary, and must be scrapped.
Meanwhile, the Tories are paying France £500 million to halt cross-Channel migrants, and all France is doing is sending us more. The agreement does not allow for any intending illegal migrants who are picked up in French or UK waters to be returned to France.
I ask, Follow The Money; who is personally benefitting from these schemes that do NOT benefit the UK.