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Government minister considers children of immigrants to be a problem

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Home Office Minister Lord Bates, responding to a question from Lord Green of Migration Watch on population control and the effect of the children of migrants:

Lord Green: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their latest assessment of the impact of international migration on the population of the United Kingdom, taking into account the children of immigrants already in the United Kingdom.

Lord Bates: My Lords, the Office for National Statistics publishes results from the Annual Population Survey. In the year ending December 2013, an estimated 7.8 million people were born outside the UK, while 4.9 million were non-UK citizens. For the calendar year of 2013, births in the UK to non-UK born mothers accounted for 25% of all live births. That is why we need to reduce immigration.

Lord Bates goes on fawningly to suggest that Migration Watch is “widely regarded as a balanced think tank that makes a positive contribution to the debate on immigration in this country” and that there is a need “to protect the public services of this country”. To cap it all, he ends the exchange by saying

What we are doing is drawing a line to say that we must get much tougher with those who want to come here and abuse our openness.

Protect public services… from the children of immigrants? From those who abuse our openness… by having children?

A sample of responses on Twitter:

One is left with the suspicion that for nativists like Lords Green and Bates, the children of Fraser Nelson are collateral damage; not the real target of their ire.

A parallel might be drawn with the United States and the electoral hole the Republicans are digging for themselves, although the demographics are more pronounced there. Take a look at this piece from this week’s Economist.

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Colin Yeo

Immigration and asylum barrister, blogger, writer and consultant at Garden Court Chambers in London and founder of the Free Movement immigration law website.

Comments

One Response

  1. “non UK-born mothers” could of course be British citizens born abroad…I suspect the noble lord may have particular characteristics in mind however.