Debating Immigration

"Alan Johnson, home secretary, has recently admitted that the government has been 'maladroit' in its handling of immigration. This is British understatement. It has been dishonest: it has pursued a radical policy, with profound consequences, on weak grounds, without serious debate. ... The government has been able to get away with its dishonesty because immigration is the 'third rail' of politics. Few wish to discuss the topic openly. But some discussion is essential. That is the democratic way. ... First, on the government's own figures, the population of the UK is likely to hit 70m by 2030. Immigration would account for 70 per cent on the increase, directly and via births from immigrant parents. The assumption here is that the net inflow would continue at 190,000 a year. It might be higher: government actuaries have, in the past, tended to underestimate the immigration rate. ... Third, net immigration from outside the European Union, which is, in principle, subject to control, has dominated the net inflow: this has been running at around 200,000 a year since 2000. Asylum seekers have become a small part of the total. ... Already, just over half of inner London school pupils have a first language other than English. Continuing immigration will transform populations in many areas. Such changes are significant. Are they desirable? ... The UK has a real income per head of about five times the world average. One must assume that the inflow, under unrestricted immigration, might be numbered in the tens, if not hundreds, of millions. The impact is not hard to imagine. I, for one, have no difficulty with arguing that immigration is a privilege, not a right. Most people agree. We are then, inescapably, in the messy world of having to decide how--and on what principles--to control immigration. My view is that the interests of the existing citizens are of decisive weight, though we should also place some weight, too, on the interests of immigrants. ... Yet there is little net economic benefit to the existing population from immigration", my emphasis, Martin Wolf at the FT, 5 November 2009.

"But while the President gears up his campaign for Climate Change [CC] awareness in Denmark, a Population Change anti-awareness campaign has long been in full swing in America. The acid test of the sincerity of the [CC] activists: do they publicly demand a US immigration moratorium to keep carbon emissions from increasing? ... 'The campaign recognizes immigration as the number one factor driving US population growth and makes the point that when immigrants settle in the US their energy use quickly becomes Americanized. As a result, immigrants' carbon emissions skyrocket. The result is a quadrupling of immigrants' carbon footprint compared to the amount of carbon emissions they produced in their home countries.' Mexicans don't illegally immigrate to avoid starvation. The average life expectancy in Mexico is over 76 years. ... Yet why are those [CC] insights so seldom applied to the quesation of Population Change? ... The changing nature of the population has far-reaching ramifications that deserve well-informed public discussion. But, of course, that's not a fashionable view on either the Left or the corporate Right. ... To serve my country, I just have to have a thick enough hide to withstand rage-filled respectable conduits of the reigning dogmas screaming 'How dare you? at me. ... California has already been inundated, fiscally, by the rising tide of population change. But only evil people like me are aware of that--and dare to tell the rest of America", Steve Sailer at Vdare, 3 December 2009, link: http://www.vdare.com/sailer/091203_climate_change.htm.

Britain, see your fate in California. London sounds like Los Angeles, see my 11 October 2009 post: http://skepticaltexascpa.blogspot.com/2009/10/boskins-baaack.html.

Yes Sailer.