Unprecedented mass migration threatens to erode our national values

We need to reduce immigration not just to lessen the pressure on the country’s infrastructure and public services. Net migration at the current, massive rate is in danger of damaging social cohesion and eroding our national values.

There has rightly been a lot of focus on the latest net migration figure, which was this week revealed to be 672,000 for the 12 months to June 2023. Net migration for 2022 was also revised upwards to 745,000 – a new record. If immigration continues at the same pace, Britain’s population could soar to around 85 million by 2046.

These figures fly in the face of repeated promises that net migration will come down.

Theresa May pledged to reduce it to the tens of thousands. Boris Johnson vowed to “take back control” of our borders with an Australian points-based system. Rishi Sunak keeps insisting that arrivals must come down, only for them to reach unprecedented levels.

The public are justifiably angry about the failure of successive administrations to get a grip of this issue. They are also understandably worried about the impact on our already creaking infrastructure of adding a population the size of Birmingham every few years.

Yet the debate about immigration is too often viewed purely in economic terms. Of course this matters, but mass migration on such a grand scale also has implications for social cohesion.

We have seen in recent weeks worrying signs of a lack of integration among some groups attending the pro-Palestinian marches. Many people have rightly been horrified at the calls for jihad and the spouting of anti-Semitic slogans.

Too many organisations and politicians also seem to have lost confidence in our country’s values, or have become embarrassed about promoting them. We’ve seen this in the attempts by ignorant apologists to woke-wash our history and depict everything about Britain, past and present, as evil.

But it is also surely almost impossible to effectively integrate such a large number of people, all coming here at once. Britain has been far more successful than a lot of European countries at integrating new arrivals. Let’s hope this is not about to change.