Britain’s Conservative government has made abundantly clear over the past 13 years that it cannot cut immigration as voters want because immigration grows the economy. But strangely, despite Britain’s biggest ever wave of immigration, the economy is shrinking. It’s mysterious.
Last year, the British economy stagnated in the second quarter, fell 0.1% in the third quarter, and fell 0.3% in the fourth quarter, entering recession. These numbers are a “challenge” for the government; memo financial times That’s because the government had an election coming up and wanted to offer some kind of tax cut to distract voters from the astronomical tax hikes that had been headlong over the years.
Of course, the global economy is in a tough spot, and Western governments are battling harmful headwinds. But the British government has an answer: the shortcut to global growth is to import talent. In fact, they’ve been so bold with this policy of keeping borders firmly open and growing the economy that the UK is currently experiencing historic levels of immigration.
Illegal boat migrants have made headlines, but time and attention has been taken up by relatively unimportant issues, while the Conservatives are pushing to change the law to make it much easier to enter the UK legally. 1.2 million new people arrived in the UK in the year to June 2023. Country. Adjusting for people who retired during the same period, the net population increased by 672,000 people in just one year.
At this rate, the UK’s population will grow by 10 per cent by 2036. Of the 6.6 million new people in that period, 500,000 will be natural increase, meaning more people are born than die, leaving 6 million new people. As a result of international migration.
It is particularly important that this is a government policy. exactly the opposite Something the governing Conservative Party has long promised to deliver. He won an election based on a promise to reduce immigration to “tens of thousands” per year. Instead, it is now adding 1 million people every 18 months.
The government said it was impossible to keep this promise because economic growth is paramount and takes precedence over other considerations. Unsurprisingly, Chancellor George Osborne infamously put it this way in 2017, and the moment he took off his mask, the Tory leader had no intention of cutting immigration in the first place. It revealed that. They kept these feelings to themselves only during elections. He said:
[N]one of [the Cabinet’s] Senior party members have backed this pledge privately, and everyone will be pleased to see that we now know what has caused so much public grief for the Conservative Party… the damage to the economy from drastic cuts to work visas. was deemed too serious by the Immigration Expert Committee. The impact on community relations of further restricting family reunification visas was considered unfavorable. And few people thought we were taking in too many refugees.
Conservative party’s betrayal of voters on mass migration ‘shows corporate and government greed’ https://t.co/dHWeetkj03
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 30, 2023
The current Prime Minister, Jeremy Hunt, has made it perfectly clear that his feelings are there. In 2022 he told the BBC He said immigration has had a “very positive” effect on the economy and will continue to do so.pro-government newspaper telegraph paper said about his position Then, “Jeremy Hunt is relying on a surge in net immigration of more than 200,000 people a year to deliver economic growth…as Mr Hunt imposes high taxes on income, employment and investment. An increase in migrant workers will help support the UK economy.”
Last year, Mr Hunt claimed the government had a plan to “remove the barriers that prevent people from working in the UK”, which is what those who voted for Brexit really wanted. At the time, there was a lot of anger from Brexiteers about this, but the huge situation still persisted.
Just this month, Bloomberg scholars predicted A “surge in immigration to the UK” would significantly boost the UK economy and provide a “windfall” for the government. But a recession seems to have come instead, and now the expected floor tax cuts are in place. It would be impossible.
Of course, it is inconceivable that politicians would lie to voters. So the question remains: what went wrong? The UK is experiencing the highest levels of immigration in recorded history and the government is absolutely committed to the fiscal orthodoxy that immigration increases the pie, so the economy should definitely boom.
Without the more than 3 million additional people the country gained purely through migration in the decade between 2013 and 2023, could the economy have slipped back into the Stone Age?
Hundreds of thousands of new homes will be needed to meet demand, with mass migration putting ‘unbearable’ strain on housing market https://t.co/WMsP5aqqOx
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 29, 2023
Focusing on GDP as a measure of economic success partially obscures the problem that while the UK entered a technical recession late last year, those participating in the economy have been in a ‘recession’ for much longer. It’s hidden.
As economic growth continues, GDP per person — In other words, how much wealth per person exists in the economy — kept falling. GDP per capita in 2023 will decline by 0.1% in the first quarter, 0.2% in the second quarter, 0.4% in the third quarter, and 0.6% in the fourth quarter, much faster than the national growth rate. did.
This trend might at least seem to suggest that the benefits of importing more and more people into the economy are decreasing.
To understand how extraordinary the gulf between the Westminster political bubble (there is no party likely to enter government in the near future that seeks to reduce immigration) and the British people, we look at the public’s opinion on immigration levels. Consider a poll conducted last year on sentiment. For example, a healthy majority of voters in favor of Brexit supported the idea that further immigration to the UK could be temporarily suspended for five years to allow the UK to better absorb the immigration of the past few decades. I support it. ”
In the gulf between London and the countryside, rebel parties may feel like they have a chance to make political hay.After all, the Conservative Party ranks so low in the polls that one of the world’s oldest parties may Cease meaningful existence by Christmas. Watch this space.
