Let’s Take Immigration Seriously

By Tim Finch

Guardian – The ‘declaration on population’, backed by Lord Carey, is the wrong way to tackle the complexities of migration management.

A “declaration on population” has been issued today, signed by 20 parliamentarians, including Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury and Lady Boothroyd, the former Commons speaker. Its headline is “70 million is too many” – a reference to an Office of National Statistics projectionthat predicted the UK population would reach that level by 2029 if recent trends continue.

But whatever the headline, the aim of the declaration is really to call for stringent limits on immigration. It is high immigration which the signatories say will have “a significant impact on our public services, our quality of life and on the nature of our society”. While much of the projected population growth is a result, directly or indirectly, of immigration, you have to wonder if the signatories of the declaration are really concerned about population projections as such. If the population was growing fast because many more British-born couples were choosing to have large families, would they have made their intervention?

Read more – http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/06/lord-carey-declaration-population-migration