11 million immigrants since 2000. When I

[Uggbootsforever]

Sorry, it’s another immigration one.

I always see immigration discussed in terms of race, religion, who may or may not be a good fit for the UK, whether it’s by small boats - to be honest, this is not the biggest worry for me.

The biggest worry is the sheer increase in our population and how many people this country can reasonably accommodate. We are now 8th in Europe for population density - only behind Belgium and the Netherlands, and a handful of places like Vatican City and the Channel Islands. At present we have net migration of around 500,000 a year.

I’m worried that the key issues of overpopulation are being overlooked to make this conversation all about race. What about our pollution levels, wildlife habitats, flood risk, food security, infrastructure? Will this eventually be a polluted city state country? It seems to be heading that way.

Posters always say we need immigration, but we have already welcome 11 million since 2000. If that still isn’t enough; what is? Or do we just keep going?

So you maybe can turn to the point of the thread is a 18% increase in the population over 25 years with 60% of that coming from net migration a sensible number for you?

Hang on. If you’re non-white you’re are an immigrant?

or just undesirable?

which is it?

every now and again the ‘I’m not racist’ mask just slips doesn’t it

i haven’t made that comment in the first place

why is it so terrible of me to prefer things how they used to be in the 90s?

It says it has increased, NOT that there have been 11 million immigrants!

What about the reduction in UK migration due to new EU regs post Brexit?

What about life expectancy increasing?

Stats are NEVER that cut and dry!

With headlines like that you could work for the Daily Fail 🙄

Genuinely, haven’t I already answered this?

You said ‘there is white flight’ meaning white people are leaving because people of other colours are coming in.

you then said ‘which is a shame’ which suggests that white is the desirable colour for an area.

but also people of other colours than white are not automatically immigrants, which is what this post is about so which it would be inferred you’re speaking about.

so you have indicated you believe those very things I said. And clearly

So what though

a balance is fine but not so great when the area becomes like Southall

So you lied in your original post; you lied repeatedly defending it and now you come up with more figures intended to alarm and sow division.

Don't get me wrong here: I completely agree that immigration needs to be controlled and I firmly believe that the asylum system is being abused by economic migrants. But if you have to lie to make your point, you have lost the argument. Also, this may be old fashioned, but I can't stand liars.

Well at least you own your racism I guess. It’s the insidious posters who are worse.

‘It’s nothing to do with colour / race - I just care SO MUCH for the environment me’

It’s a lot of things

i think a lot of people feel the same but they mutter about it in corners

Indeed. Like anonymous MN posts where they create figures and go on about infrastructure and the environment whilst not saying what they really mean. Like that?

We’ll beg to differ

Well, I can only conclude that we must have very different ideas of what might be conducive to good mental health, happiness and a healthy environment. You lauded Bumblebee's suggestions that included getting rid of old people, banning newbuilds from having gardens, and intensively rearing chickens underground! I think these would be most people's idea of hell.

Bumblebee's suggestions:
> Increasing the size of the country like Dubai and the Netherlands do. As suggest we could dam the Wash for example. There must be area of coast we could recover and build on.
> Reducing the number of older people to house and feed. Which is pretty unpaleble to most.
> Increasing housing density. Like build a second tier of social house on top of the existing social housing on stilts. Or my other suggestion of using unproductive buildings - convert all reglious buildings to flats. We could alternatively ban gardens for new builds, make smaller houses, build higher or deeper - maybe we build underground housing. benefit the fields for food.
> Or increase food production density. We are already start to build verticals farms. May be intensively food like chickens could be raised underground underneath housing
What ever it is we need fundamental discussion about how to change the country. Spending 21 pages arguing if we should the numbers are 7, 8 or 11 is really irrelevant.

Your response:
These are all such interesting point and one of the most thoughtful posts I've seen on a MN immigration thread. I really like your point about food production density, unfortunately the government don't seem to be engaging with the farming industry very well but I'm sure plenty would be up for this.

i agree OP -it’s too much -most move to London which then gets all of the investment and the rest of the country goes to hang. The MPs deny it cos they are happy to lie to get votes - pretend immigration is needed to get immigrant votes, deny it’s an issue to get white votes -then what do you know - we end up with Reform.

I didn't 'laud' her suggestions, I said they were interesting then I expanded on a couple I agreed with, neither of which were the ones you've focused on here. Another example of you wilfully misinterpreting what I actually said for the sake of being argumentative 🙄

There are other reasons behind a housing shortage. Firstly empty homes and holiday lets are a massive issue that did not exist 50 years ago. Secondly the way we live. I am a part of this problem admittedly- I live in a 3 bed house with one child. My divorced parents each live in 4 bed house. I have two neighbours, both retired widows who still live in their family 4 bed.This is a modern phenomenon that has contributed to the housing shortage.
Population increases, (which are definitely not 11 million immigrants) are only part of the housing crisis but immigrant invasions make better headlines than dull fact!

London pays almost a third of the UK’s tax and generates almost as much tax as the next 37 largest cities combined. London subsidises the rest of the country.

That is unlikely to change with Reform.

You said (to Bumblebee), "I really like your point about food production density", which is absolutely one of the points I focussed on - her suggestion of intensively reared chickens kept underground! 😂

Ah fair enough my mistake I did mention that - I'm not really sure about underground chickens specifically, but I said it would be good for the government to engage with farmers to explore vertical farming.

I don't agree with all of her suggestions but I like that she gave suggestions and actually engaged in a good faith and open minded way. I hardly ever see that on these threads, many people just seem to be looking for an argument and that's not going to get us anywhere

Reservoirs near us are just not filling back up, each year they get lower and don't fully recover. I think there will be a water crisis if we keep expanding our population while Summers get drier.

I thought Bumblebee’s suggestions were a joke! Eliminate old people? Like Logan’s Run?! I can’t disagree that living with advanced dementia for years is pointless (experience here) but actually eliminating people would be a difficult one to sell!

But making the UK into Hong Kong would be very depressing. My council seems keen on this idea: building on every scrap of green space (even wanting to fell ancient woodland!) and then trumpeting that we have - ta da! - a new amenity space with a jogging track, skate ramp and a bit of green smaller than my back garden (which I can assure you is not large).

It wasn't a thought out plan. It was that there are only so many streams that can balance bring more people in to the country and food security. You make the country bigger, you make increase population density so you have more people but keep farm land, or you increase farming density so that you can have people in more space but feed them with less space.

I definitely think some things should be underground. Mass transit systems. These warehouses have very few people and lots of robots so can work fine underground. I'm not sure that social housing on stilts is really a goer and I can't imagine. Many chickens never really see the light of day anyway so why not have them underground. Some things like vertical farming are already underway.

Increasing food production density can take many forms. It doesn't have to be underground chickens - although given that something like 30% of UK eggs come from indoor chickens that never see the sun anyway it doesn't seem much of a stetch. For boiler chickrens the new and improved standard only requires 3% of the floor to have light from windows. I recently met someone who grows veg in a shipping container - they have 10 levels within so could grow something 6 times the amount of the same plot.

Someones arse.

I mean if 11 million people have immigrated since 2000, then 1 in 7 of us are immigrants.

Fuck that bollocks.

11.4 million people living in the UK were born outside so actually more than 1 in 7. I love that you thought a figure even less than that was so shocking as to be ‘bollocks’ - hoisted by your own petard.

Let’s do this once and for all.

Since then, net migration has been consistently positive, so adding to the population of the UK. It averaged 223,000 during the 2000s and 260,000 during the 2010s. The figure demonstrates the very unusual levels of net migration observed since 2021.

223,000 x 10 =2,230,000
260,000 x 10 =2,600,000

So that’s nearly 5 million (4.83m) net immigration from 2000-2019.

2020 - 34,000 (Covid)
2021 - 484,000
2022 - 745,000
2023 - 860,000
2024 - 431,000

Total from the above plus 4.83 million is around 7 million. That’s the minimum, as this doesn’t include off the record immigrants and visa over-stayers. That is likely a couple of million more.

All taken from ONS.