Don't mention the migration
WORKERS, OCTOBER 2008 ISSUE
Immigration has pushed population density in England to a higher level than any other major country in Europe. Figures released by the Office for National Statistics show there are 395 people per square kilometre in England. This is an increase of five per square kilometre in the past two years.
While unemployment is rising, 2.54 million new National Insurance numbers were issued to overseas nationals between 2002/3 and 2006/7. New immigrants numbered 565,000 in 2005, following 582,000 in 2004.
The ruling class promotes unlimited immigration, claiming, as usual, that it knows better than we do what is good for us. The ultra-left, as usual, supports the ruling class by spreading the slanderous lie that it’s racism that’s fuelling popular opposition to immigration.
This magazine has been talking about migration – into and out of Britain – for quite a few years, as the article on page 14 shows. We reject utterly the idea that discussion of migration is somehow “off limits”. In this we have little in common with the official structures of the trade union movement, which has stood by while immigration and unemployment have soared and which will not countenance a proper debate.
But that debate is taking place, nevertheless. A new national poll shows that the vast majority of us, regardless of party affiliation, believe that immigration should be sharply reduced: 81 per cent of Labour voters, 83 per cent of Liberal Democrats and 89 per cent of Conservatives.
Perhaps more pertinently, a survey by Unite of 100,000 of its members in marginal seats, reported in The Guardian, showed that immigration headed the list of their concerns, but you won’t find that reflected on the union’s websites...or indeed mentioned as a concern.
The newspaper commented: “The high number citing immigration was regarded as an embarrassment in some parts of the union.” That it should be seen as such speaks volumes for the blinkered and isolated world which many trade unions officials – lay as well as full time – inhabit.
The European Commission, meanwhile, predicts that Britain’s population will be 77 million by 2058. Ten million of the additional 16 million will be immigrants, they say.
You don’t need to be a statistician to work out that adding that number to Britain’s population will not make housing affordable, nor take cars off the road, nor make school places any easier to find. But it will increase the available labour force, and help employers drive down wages.
That, surely, is something the labour movement can have a debate about.