The immigration figures for the last year…ending september 2013:
ONS estimates of Long-Term International Migration in the year ending September 2013
The latest ONS provisional estimates of Long Term International Migration (LTIM) show that there was a statistically significant increase in net migration to 212,000 in the year ending September 2013 from 154,000 the previous year.
Net migration is the difference between immigration to and emigration from the UK. The increase in net migration is due to the combined effect of a slight increase in immigration and a slight decrease in emigration, neither of which were statistically significant changes.
532,000 people immigrated to the UK in the year ending September 2013, compared to 497,000 the previous year, whilst 320,000 people emigrated from the UK compared to 343,000 the previous year.
Here is Tim Stanley in the Telegraph spelling out the real reasons people have for opposing uncontrolled immigration so often ‘forgotten’ by the BBC in its rush to assure us of the benefits of immigration:
Here’s a classic example of how the metropolitan elite gets it wrong every darned time. The latest immigration figures show that there are currently 144,000 Bulgarians and Romanians working in the UK – a rise of 26 per cent since 2013 and 44 per cent since 2012. “Ah, but,” says the aristocracy of Notting Hill, “the number actually fell after work restrictions were lifted in January. And didn’t Nigel Farage say that we’d be swamped with migrants in the New Year?”
Well, if he did say that then he had drunk too much London Pride: the idea that the whole of Bucharest was going to relocate to Bexhill on January 1, 2014 was a nonsense. But the failure of that particular prophecy to come true is beside-the-point. As is the small dip in the numbers since the restrictions were lifted. What will actually matter to most voters reading these words is that there are now 144,000 Bulgarians and Romanians working here. That’s the equivalent of building a whole new Notting Hill. A frightening thought in itself.
A word about the figures. First, the number of Bulgarians and Romanians might be down 4,000 since January but they are up 29,000 compared with a year ago. Second, we’re talking about net migration, so while some people will have left the country since the New Year, many new may have arrived – which means that the small overall fall might disguise fresh arrivals. Third, the work restrictions were lifted in all EU countries – so it’s likely that many Bulgarians and Romanians have chosen to work in other nations rather than our own (but may come here eventually). Finally, the number that really matters in the report is the one that shows there are now an astonishing 4.5 million non-UK workers here in Britain. That represents a 7 per cent increase year-on-year.
So will voters look at the latest figures and think, “Nigel Farage got it wrong?” Or will they look at them and think, “Ok, so the Bulgarians and Romanians didn’t all arrive in one go aboard a Megabus, but 144,000 still seems like a large number and 4.5 million is eye-watering?”
The latter, probably. People approach this issue on an instinctual level.
The establishment doesn’t understand that Ukip doesn’t get judged by the same political standards as the mainstream parties. When David Cameron or Ed Miliband makes a prediction and gets it wrong, they suffer in the polls. But when Ukip talks about “invasions” or “swamping”, they are dealing in metaphors rather than statistical facts – and the floating voter senses that they contain a kernel of truth, even if they are shrouded in tub-thumping nonsense. Yes, there is something dark about Ukip’s conversion from a libertarian eurosceptic party to a populist nativist one, and there is something farcical about its tendency to make up warnings and solutions on the spot.
But they are a protest vote, not a vote for a Prime Minister, so people will tolerate their mistakes. Moreover, Ukip’s fumbling pessimism accords with the experiences of most Britons. Our lives have not gotten better in the last six years but much worse. The middle-classes are overtaxed. The working-classes – white, black, Asian, whatever – have to compete for work with EU migrants while the price of living goes ever upwards. For everyone living outside of the metropolitan Xanadu, mass immigration is not about celebrating our wonderful diversity as a continent (viva Conchita!) but about fewer jobs, school places, council houses, hospital beds.
No one is for zero immigration: they want controlled immigration. And these latest figures will add to the sense that we don’t have any real control over our borders, that they are too porous and that this works to the detriment of regular Britons.
That’s what matters and that’s what people will probably vote on next Thursday.
This from Der Spiegel might be of interest:
‘Fresh Meat’: A Bulgarian Businessman Moves His Village to Germany
Kurt knows that his people are unwanted in Germany. They are poorly educated, rather than being doctors and engineers, they don’t speak German or English, they are not members of any elite and they are not even skilled workers. But none of this has deterred them from coming to Germany.
Those who leave Slivo Pole usually have a brother, a sister or a cousin already living in Wilhelmsburg. They have neighbors whose wives have become prostitutes, siblings who live in basements in Wilhelmsburg, paying €250 a month to sleep on a mattress or acquaintances who sleep under bridges. They are familiar with the stories of bosses who pay €3 an hour and beat their workers when pallets aren’t being packed quickly enough, or of construction foremen who suddenly leave without paying their workers.
And still they board Gül’s bus.
Kurt doesn’t even need to speak German in Wilhelmsburg. His doctor is Turkish, and so are his bosses. The grocer, the cigarette seller and the man at the Western Union counter are all Turks. “What do I need to learn German for?” he asks. “To talk to the bums?”
didn’t Nigel Farage say that we’d be swamped with migrants in the New Year?”
Well, if he did say that then he had drunk too much London Pride
What particular beverage do you suppose your glorious leader was imbibing at the time?
But the failure of that particular prophecy to come true is beside-the-point
Ah, yes: “we made up this scare story, and it didn’t come true. Never mind, we have another one up our sleeves. And this time, it involves ‘people who don’t show up in statistics’, so you can’t disprove it, no matter what!”
the work restrictions were lifted in all EU countries – so it’s likely that many Bulgarians and Romanians have chosen to work in other nations rather than our own (but may come here eventually)
“Fear them! Fear them! We told you they’d run straight here, and they haven’t – so we’ll have to switch to telling you that they will, eventually, in their own time, because THAT WAY YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO PROVE OUR BATSHIT CRAZINESS WRONG!”
Read the figures properly. Many thousands came in BEFORE 1 January. It is the ANNUAL increase that matters.
MigrationWatch still reckons we will see 50,000 a year coming here – and I would trust Sir Andrew Green 1000 times over your cherry-picking
The 144000 figure refers only to workers – not to any non-working spouses, children. So it can justifiably be multiplied by a factor of 3-4 to give a more accurate picture of the number of immigrants. (Say one wife and one or two children per worker).
It doesn’t include the “self-employed” Big Issue sellers or car washers, either. Or non-workers.
And if the majority of these new immigrants are on minimum wage-type jobs, they will earn more in in-work benefits than they will pay in tax. For example, a family of four with one adult worker on minimum wage will receive £300 per week net in in-work benefits. Unbelievably true. (If they have more than 2 children, they will receive even more in benefits. And then there’s the additional cost for education, healthcare and so on.)
http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/1.38
Please don’t confuse Scotty with the facts
Let’s see if I’ve got this right: a relatively small increase in one quarter means that any criticism of the open borders lobby is scaremongering, but the lack of any rise whatsoever in global temperatures for 17 years doesn’t say anything about climate change?
The truth is we just don’t know how many will come because we don’t control our borders with respect with other EU residents. In 2004 we were swamped because of an attractive job market + welfare system. So it was only right that some people stood up for British people and considered what may happen again.
For those claiming some victory because the figures weren’t so huge: you didn’t know how many would come either. Personally I prefer not to play this game of EU migration roulette. You may not mind, because it’s not your beloved culture taking a bullet to the head, but others do.
The BBC certainly cherry-picked with the figures from January 2014 onwards, using them to lead that story.
“The truth is we just don’t know how many will come because we don’t control our borders”
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/05/15/eu-border-patrol-sham
Nor can we within the EU
Can any one explain to me why this post needed to be cleared by the moderator?
The truth is there will be very few actual Bulgarians or Romanians arriving , what we will get are thousands of unwashed illiterate gypsies who will suddenly be in possession of passports a document most of them would probably never have dreamt of applying for until recently.
Both the Romanian and Bulgarian Governments are complicit in this deception,no government on this planet would ordinarily encourage mass emigration of its population unless it saw an opportunity to rid itself of a centuries old problem .
Cameron Miliband and the rest if they are unable to recognise this are totally unfit for any public office and to join in the howls of racism against UKIP orchestrated by their BBC mouthpiece is an act of deliberate treason
A lot of “Romanians” are, in actual fact, Moldovans, with passports given to them by the Romanian authorities. In turn they could encourage them (as EU citizens) to travel to more lucrative countries (for them).
“EU migration roulette”
Love the metaphor.
The BBCs never ending saga of “let `em in” continues relentlessly.
Yesterdays Today programme had a sly little piece about the number of Chinese tourists we have….such good new, but would it not be nicer if we waived visa requirements so that more of them could come over from the Eurostar?
Er, just a couple of problems there my gullible sinister Beebers!
1. After the Chinese cockle pickers tragedy and those snake head gangs of 2004/5….it`s probably safe to say that the poor of China are better protected by having visas needed.
2. Our Beebette compares the Chinese experience of London with that of Paris…and ,oh those French seem to be getting it right.
Not quite-for these are dedicated Chinese officers stationed in Paris specifically to defend Chinese tourist from the gangs of Africans, Muslims and French that prey upon them. Robbery, assault are commonplace against the Chinese there.
Funny that the BBC don`t think to mention these issues-they only want no visas for anybody, and thence increase the tourist spend.
Typical lying hounds there at the BBC-and always just a bit of the story.
I am rather sceptical of the alleged 4000 drop in Romanians & Bulgarians in work in the first quarter. With the economy booming and all border controls ended, a 4000 drop just doesn’t pass the sniff test. My first question was “How are these figures calculated?”. Checking the ONS website it turns out they are just “estimates based on a small survey sample then seasonally adjusted”. So they’re not ‘figures’ atall. Just estimates based on a small survey. Strikes me these estimates are eminently fudgeable to produce the desired result. From my own experience, I recently worked with a small service company in London who were employing exclusively Romanian staff for unskilled work and bringing in new ones by the month. They were all sharing a small house nearby…. 4000 drop my arse.
According to a Tory MP on Newsnight last night, the “sample” was 5 people, yes 5!
Even Paxo did a double take, and when he was assured that this was the case, dropped it like a hot (U)kipper.
I’ve just asked 5 people if the BBC should be shut down, they all said yes, ergo, 100% of the population want to axe the BBC – I like your methods beeb! – Let’s do it!
Exactly. This is almost certainly based on the “not fit for purpose” International Passenger Survey, which is simply random questioning of a small sample of arrivals at a very few entry points.
Does every jobless Romanian and Bulgarian state that he intends remaining here to work (still less that he intends living here on benefits or taking an illegal job and not paying tax)?
Its a load of bull.
I am also sceptical of the convenient drop in Romanians and Bulgarians, just announced in the run up to the election. Evidence from the streets, from the queues in doctor’s surgeries, tells me that ordinary folk are more reliable than estimates fed to statistic hungry politicians and their media.
“while the price of living goes ever upwards. ”
Well Tim Stanley should be careful what he writes, because if the BBC had included that then most would be crowing about bias pushing the Labour agenda of the ‘cost of living crisis’
Of course the price of living isn’t going ever upwards, it’s taxation which does that, and the removal of government subsidies which amount to the same thing, and all the parties are guilty, and all the stealth taxes levied affect the working poor far more than the non working poor, or the rich.
Council tax has more than doubled in the past 10 years because the government settlements to councils has massively decreased.
Doesn’t affect those not working as they don’t pay much council tax, and the system means the rich don’t pay a large amount pro rata either.
Market rents mean that again the working poor are affected, the non working have theirs paid save the bedroom tax, and the rich don’t normally rent anyway.
Public transport subsidies reduced and VAT now charged on fuel.
Affects the working poor massively, some people are now reporting that travel is their highest outgoing, greater than the mortgage!
Doesn’t affect the unemployed as they don’t need to travel everyday and the rich don’t normally use public transport.
Utilities – loaded with stealth taxes, 30% plus 5% VAT !
Affects everyone to some extent.
Affects the costs of producing & selling goods in the UK which is then passed to the end customer.
Television tax – massively raised to pay for the new digital services with a scheme called ‘top slicing’ has never come back down again.
And there are many more, which politicians of all parties want to be kept quiet, and it’s so much nicer to blame some great bogeyman rather than face reality.
When are we going to see a Taxed Enough Already party here?
I understand that Suzanne Evans was the UKIP person against Labour and Tory people on this evening’s LBC drive-home prog. A Romanian phoned in to ask her to apologise about Farage’s remarks about Romanian neighbours. She replied to the effect “You sound a nice guy, the sort of immigrant we are OK with – but hows about the plain fact that 90% of ATM crime in London is now committed by Romanians (I thought it was previously gangs of Albanians – same difference ?)
Better yet – she asked the Labour guy for an immediate apology from Harriet Harman for all the PIE stuff. Great gal our Suzanne ! I wish I had heard it – apparently she wiped the floor with them. She has been a good performer on TV as well, straight answers, quick thinking.
Oh – and apparently she told Iain Dale on LBC this evening that UKIP now has evidence that a lot of people are being paid on zero-hour contracts to crawl over UKIP Facebook and Twitter accounts. Apparently Dasle said that was a very serious allegation – do you have evidence for this ? She said she would brief him directly after the prog – but sounded dead serious about it – the UKIP fight-back ?
‘a lot of people are being paid on zero-hour contracts to crawl over..
If proven, this practice (and not just as deployed by the EU against UKIP) to use public funding to target critics… allegedly (see Mr. Hislop, I can use your trick too)… has serious ramifications for free speech and democracy at every level.
as a former labour voter and ukip supporter now, i cant understand why ukip are only highlighting white european immigration when they only represent about 15% of the mass immigration we have had since new labour opened the borders to the whole world to come into england when they took power in 1997.the truth of the matter is 85 % of mass immigration whe had into england approx 10 million people not including the 1 million illegal immigrants many of them criminals who came to england from third world countrys from south east asia and the africa,why is this immigration debate only about eastern european immigration and not about mass immigration from third world countrys that worrys most people i talk to,this is the real issue no politician including ukip are talking about and i cant understand why.
There is never any mention of the biggest source of immigration , namely through the maternity wards !
The reason Stuart is simple.
The only allowable debate in this country on immigration has to be about (predominantly) white immigration.
Any mention of different races from further afield, i.e. the ones who are coming to stay indefinitely; Brings the cry of RAAAAAAAAAAAAYCIST! from the left.
Therefore the only allowable debate has to be about Europe.
The BBC and left wing press deliberately miss the point when they say only so many Romanians etc. have arrived they real problem is the numbers who have been GIVEN THE RIGHT to enter the UK, a slow steady trickle over an indefinite period will be just as serious as a sudden influx and even more difficult to monitor.
If you want to know how out of touch our rulers are see the European results . I have died in the wool labour supporter mates who are voting ukip all the negative reporting has had the opposite effect haha