The Real Immigration Crisis

This viewpoint from Mike Morrissey first appeared in Unity, the weekly publication of the Irish Communist Party.

LAST year, the Home Office announced ‘the biggest shake-up of the legal migration system in nearly half a century […] the reforms will make Britain’s settlement system by far the most controlled and selective in Europe’ (www.gov.uk  20/11/2025).

While some were surprised that a Labour government should boast implementing a draconian immigration regime, the issue has become more pressing and more divisive than almost any other, including the NHS and the economy. Reform’s rise in the polls, despite the absence of a coherent policy framework, has been largely based on its claim that it will stop immigration – some members talk about ‘remigration’ i.e. sending back people (i.e. ethnic minorities) with already settled status.

They claim they are not racist but rather concerned  about integration – migrant groups living in enclaves and insisting on their exclusive cultures. There has been talk about areas in big cities living under sharia law, about grooming gangs made up exclusively of Muslim men, and about disproportionate levels of knife crime.

While grooming gangs are real, though it is doubtful that they are entirely restricted to a particular ethnic group or religion, sharia law enclaves are a fantasy and Britain’s big cities are dramatically safer than those in the US – London, for instance, is about six times safer than Miami.

Last year, anti-immigration protests began to emphasise the idea of a British identity and, latterly, the primacy of the Christian faith. The Operation Raise the Colours campaign festooned many areas with English, St George and Jerusalem symbols and flags. Apparently, it was co-founded by someone with the pseudonym ‘Andy Saxon’ allegedly linked to the English Defence League and Britain First. Presumably, he was not told that the Saxons were migrants who came across the North sea after Rome left Britain.

Tommy Robinson’s Unite the Kingdom march attracted around 150,000 supporters. All this is described as simply patriotic but those of us living in Northern Ireland are well used to marches, flags, murals and symbols being used to mark territory and intimidate.

What’s interesting is the ways in which such ideas have moved from the fringes to the centre of political debate – a shift in the ‘Overton Window’. Last year, John Gray, one of the UK’s most rational commentators, wrote ‘There is a solid British majority that demands lower levels of immigration, rejects a society composed of self-enclosed ethnic and sectarian groups, and opposes incursions on the liberty and equality of women and gay people that have been imposed in the name of transgender rights’ (The Conservative Paradox, New Statesman, 31/01/2024).

Majorities, however, don’t just develop, they are nurtured and constructed, a process that has been going on for some time in Britain. Increasingly, the debate also focuses on the politics of place – ‘citizens of somewhere’ as opposed to ‘citizens of nowhere’ – not the primacy of white, Christian identity, rather pitting Britishness against globalism.

However, some of those who have campaigned against global capitalism for decades worry the contemporary furore is still about white, Christian supremacy – why the crusader symbols or the shouts of Deus Vault, the crusaders’ rallying cry as they stormed Jerusalem in 1099 killing every Muslim and Jew within? As Julian Coman commented ‘Reform’s love of place carries a logic of exclusion’ (The Guardian, 17/02/2026).

None of this is inevitable. The Manchester poet Tony Walsh wrote, ‘some are born here, some are drawn here, but we all call it home’ (www.forevermanchester.com ). Or, as the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez said recently ‘when did recognising rights become something radical. When did empathy become something exceptional’ (The Guardian, 04/02/2024)

British Peculiarities

The idea that there are exclusive national characteristics (like the mean Scots or the drunken Irish) is simply nonsense. There is, however, evidence, that the immigration debate is different in the UK than in other places even when they experience similar levels of migration.

A piece by Gallup (www,news.gallup.com, 02/02/2026) reported that immigration was (Cont. page 7) cited as the number one concern by a higher percentage in the UK (21%, statistically tied with the economy 23%) than in any other country. Other countries have high percentages – the Netherlands 13%, Portugal 12%, Ireland 11% – but it is not the top issue in any of them. Indeed, in the World’s Most Important Problem 2026 report (also Gallup), the median percentage across 107 countries citing immigration as the highest concern was only 1%. Moreover, in other countries with similar percentages of their population born overseas (UK 17%, Norway 18%, The Netherlands 16%) there is less focus on immigration – Norway 4.9% and the Netherlands as above.

The UK figure is driven by the high percentage of Reform supporters concerned about immigration (48%). This is even higher than the figures recorded for other far-right political parties in Europe – the AFD 19% even though Germany tends to have higher levels of immigration than the UK; the Freedom Party of Austria 7%; Vox 6%; Fidesz 4%. Indeed, the percentage for British Labour party supporters (16%) tends to be higher than for the supporters of other centre-left European parties. Gallup concludes that ‘factors beyond migration numbers alone shape migration concerns’ and identifies as one a ‘sustained level of national media attention’.

What Happens When Immigration Falls?

Amid the protests, little attention is being paid to the fact that immigration numbers are rapidly falling from a high of over 900,000 in 2023 to just over 200,000 in 2025. Most media attention has been on the boats but their total of around 40,000 a year made up about 5% of total immigration in the high years. Asylum applications were about 12% of the total with the vast majority of visa applications (85%) are for work or study.

In March 2024, care workers were banned from taking their spouses and children to the UK. UNISON (A Survey of Migrant Care Staff Working in the UK) estimates that about 16% of care home posts are held by those born outside the UK. Unfilled posts in the sector number around 150,000 The following month the salary threshold for work visas increased by over 50% to £33,400, or for a skilled-worker visa to £38,700. Foreign postgraduate students were told to leave their families behind – experiencing falling applications, universities are missing the lucrative tuition fees paid by foreign students with some fearing bankruptcy.

A report from the House of Commons Library (NHS staff from overseas: statistics, 25/11/2025) reported that one in five NHS staff were born overseas. NHS managers increasingly worry about falling migration.

With the UK heading towards zero-net-immigration, which some predict will happen around the end of 2026, concerns are being raised about the drag on the economy. In its latest Economic Outlook (Normality Under Strain, Winter 2026), the National Institute for Economic and Social Research models the impact of NZM (net zero migration) on the economy and public finances. Although output per head is expected to increase (as a result of higher capital intensity) a 3.6% GDP gap is estimated by 2040 and a £37 billion public finances deficit at today’s prices (Box D).

Civilisational Erasure

George Monbiot (The Guardian, 12/12/2025) raises something even more fundamental. Like the US National Security Strategy, he is concerned about ‘civilizational erasure’ but not from immigration, rather the lack of it. Put simply, couples have to bear on average 2.1 children (the population replacement rate) to forestall a falling, aging population. The rate for the EU is 1.38, for the UK 1.44. Even countries with financial incentives for child bearing fare no better – Italy 1.2, Hungary 1.55 (Eurostat, 07/03/2025).

As Monbiot comments, ‘Once the fertility rate falls below 2.1, it keeps falling, and the slide towards zero looks inexorable’. Not long from now, he concludes ‘Today’s racist obsessions will look incomprehensible to our ageing descendants, desperate for young people to look after them and keep their countries running’. At that time, there won’t be enough migrants to go around.

Oddly, the ‘pronatalists’ recognise the problem with prominent members like Boris Johnson and Elon Musk doing their personal best to raise the birth rate. Like the Nazis, many on the right want women (particularly white women) back in the home raising more children.

There remains, however, a cogent anti-immigration argument. Much migration comes from countries that have been invaded or destabilised by the West for which no responsibility is taken. Essentially, it tends to rob those countries of their most mobile, most talented people.

A moral position would be assist their development rather than benefit from their fleeing populations.