A FEW years ago, I heard a character in a TV drama refer to post-Brexit Britain as 'a nasty little island'.
Since then, the UK has granted right to remain status to almost five million EU citizens, given visa routes to UK citizenship to potentially 5.4 million Hong Kong residents and seen non-EU net migration average around 200,000 per year in the years leading up to the pandemic.
Asylum seekers make up a relatively small part of the immigration total but tragedies such as that seen in the Channel recently might well see politicians adopt policies by which more people are admitted, but by safer – and less visible – routes.
Because of its history and the nature of its people, Britain was inevitably going to become more diverse than, for example, Japan or Poland.
But, with recent figures showing that three in 10 births are to a foreign-born mother, it’s clear that the current situation represents the biggest change to the British population in well over a thousand years and poses challenges that deserve serious – and sensible – consideration.
Sunder Katwala of the think-tank and charity British Future has suggested there should be a government department devoted to the promotion of an integrated society and William Clouston of the SDP has recommended pausing immigration for 20 or 30 years to allow time for the population to develop.
The government, however, pay lip service to the idea of taking back control because it wins votes and the likes of the BBC seem to think that raking up Britain’s past and rubbing it in the faces of the long-term population will somehow create a more harmonious country.
The arrival of the Anglo-Saxon immigrants that Stephen Blease mentions from time to time is still resented in parts of the UK to this day. We must do better in handling this current transformation.
Robert Bone,
Hebden Avenue, Carlisle
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