Philip Johnston’s article in the Daily Telegraph today states that ‘The Government’s plan for three million new houses; the misery caused to thousands of families whose homes were built on flood plains because of a shortage of space; Labour’s new transport "strategy", necessitated by overcrowded trains and the requirement for additional rolling stock and longer platforms; the issuing of 700,000 new National Insurance numbers to overseas nationals; Gordon Brown’s promise to deport 4,000 foreign prisoners; and his pledge to establish a new border agency to control arrivals to and departures from the country’ has the ‘common thread’ of immigration connecting them. ‘Not the fact, but its scale…’
Mr Johnston went on to say that ‘…. The fact that they are now being discussed is largely due to the efforts of a small, independent research outfit called Migrationwatch, which came on to the scene exactly five years ago this week. It issued a report that was denounced as alarmist, scaremongering, even racist.’
‘It was a prediction that Britain could expect to receive more than two million immigrants every 10 years for the foreseeable future unless curbs were introduced. It was absolutely spot on, but few thanked Sir Andrew Green, the retired diplomat who founded Migrationwatch, for pointing it out. More than that, efforts were made – including official ones – to traduce his motives and to trash his group’s research.’
He stressed that ‘You may or may not agree with Sir Andrew’s view, which he articulated five years ago, that "the scale of inward migration is now so great as to be contrary to the best interests of every section of our community". But you can no longer ignore that scale nor its consequences….’
Mr Johnston highlighted that ‘In a recent parliamentary debate, important speeches on this subject were made by Nicholas Soames, the Tory MP for mid-Sussex, and Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead. Mr Soames proposed moving to zero net immigration from outside the EU; Mr Field, if anything, was more radical in his prescription. He also said: "The debate is of course about numbers, but it is also about what it means to create and maintain a community. If the Government do not change track very smartly on this issue, the sense of national identity might be lost, and then we are in totally new territory." ‘
Mr Johnston concluded his article by saying that ‘….a debt of gratitude is owed to Sir Andrew and his Migrationwatch team for having the guts to stick with what they knew to be right.’