Chairman of Migration Watch UK, Lord Green of Deddington, warned: “Our country is getting ever more overcrowded. With three-quarters of our long-term population increase due to immigration, the government absolutely must get the numbers down and soon. The public are getting tired of excuses.”
The leading think tank said the figures showed that Britain had to leave the European Union if it wanted to control its borders and plan well for the future.
According to the two new reports, the so called soft option where the UK remains within the single market would mean that net immigration would stay at well over 100 000 a year for at least a decade.
It would be “a disastrous halfway house” in leaving the EU but remaining in the Customs Union, as it would give the Government control of immigration from the EU but would rule out free trade agreements with third countries.
No single market or Customs Union membership, would allow the UK to repatriate border controls and then negotiate a future trading relationship with the EU, the organisation claimed.
“The prospect of having to build the equivalent of a city the size of Birmingham every two years is simply appalling in a country that already feels overcrowded,” said Lord Green of Deddington.
“These negotiations come at a critical point at which the whole scale and nature of our society risks slipping out of control. The Government must hold their nerve and get EU immigration sharply down,” he added.
The latest data, announced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), showed a total of 588 000 people entered the UK in 2016, yet just 339 000 left. Net migration has added an average of 250 000 to Britain’s population each year since 2004.
Net migration — the difference immigration between and emigration — peaked in 2014. Immigration has been higher than emigration since the 1990s, when Tony Blair’s Labour Party came to power.
Not only immigration, but also the high number of children born to immigrant mothers, has had an explosive effect. As some ONS figures released earlier this week show, 28 per cent of births registered in England and Wales in 2016 were to immigrants mothers.
When the high immigrant birthrate is taken into consideration, Migration Watch UK believes that he population will surge to almost 77 million (18.4 percent) by 2039. It is higher than the 74 million projected by the ONS.
Migration Watch UK calculated that at least 75 percent of the growth “will be due to the direct and indirect effects of migration”.
Lord Green of Deddington said it was obvious from the Breit referendum result that the scale of immigration must be reduced. He urged ministers to consider a work permit regime similar to that for non-EU workers.
“In our calculation, that would reduce net migration by about 100 000 a year – a major step towards the Government’s objective,” he said.