1,650 new migrants invade uk every day
Immigration has hit record levels with 1,650 people moving to the UK every day.
The number of foreigners living here has risen by 1.1million in three years – enough to fill a city the size of Birmingham.[>
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More than one person in 10 now living in the UK is foreign born. The number of people leaving the country has also reached unprecedented levels and nearly half of them are native Britons. [>
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Statisticians had expected net immigration to have fallen by now but so huge is the influx that instead it is continuing to rise.[>
Our society is being fundamentally changed against the clearly expressed wishes of the public
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Soaring numbers of births to foreign mothers are adding to the population explosion. Figures also show there are now more pensioners in the UK than children for the first time. The startling statistics led to calls last night for an annual limit on immigrant numbers.[>
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Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: “Our society is being fundamentally changed against the clearly expressed wishes of the public.”[>
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MEP Godfrey Bloom, of the United Kingdom Independence Party, called for stricter border controls.[>
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And Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: “Immigration can benefit the country, but only if it is properly controlled.” Yesterday’s figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, show the UK population had risen to a new high of 61million in mid-2007 – an increase of 388,000 on the previous year.[>
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Fifty-two per cent of that increase was due to immigration.[>
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In 2006/7, a record 605,000 people moved here with plans to stay for a year or more – the equivalent of 1,650 a day.[>
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At the same time, some 406,000 left the UK – a net annual immigration of 198,000, up from 187,000 in 2001.[>
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The population increases are disproportionately due to foreign migrants. Of those arriving, just 75,000 were Britons returning, while some 202,000 Britons left the country – almost half the total out-flow.[>
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The Annual Population Survey shows the number of foreign-born residents stands at 6.3million, more than a tenth of the total population. That is up from 5.2million in 2004.[>
Guy Goodwin, director of population analysis for ONS, admitted that after the initial influx from the expansion of the European Union in 2004, officials had expected outward migration to have increased by now and inward migration to be stable.[>
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“I would have anticipated a slight fall in net migration but in fact what we are seeing is it rising,” he said.[>
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Other figures released yesterday show National Insurance numbers handed out to foreign workers increased by four per cent last year to 733,000.[>
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The influx of east Europeans has led to a leap in the benefits bill.[>
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A total of 888,000 Poles and Slovakians have come here to work since the expansion of the European Union in 2004. But 185,573 of them are in receipt of or in line for state handouts costing taxpayers more than £211million a year.[>
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The bill includes child benefit and tax credits as well as job seekers allowance, income support and housing benefit.[>
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The number who arrived in the second quarter of 2008 was the lowest since 2004. There has also been a year-on-year fall in the number of those entering the UK from Bulgaria and Romania, which joined the EU in January 2007.[>
