Immigration – It’s more than just numbers.

The problem with you nationalists is that you keep harping on about immigration. Let me try and pass on some other concerns of the Freedom Democrats without mentioning the “I” word.

For the green audience I will start with energy. It is not an infinite supply, whatever form of energy we choose. In fact we only have sufficient gas reserves to last two weeks once the supply is cut off. It must go without saying that the more people living in a country, the more energy that country has to produce , buy and use. If you believe in carbon footprints do you also believe that our country’s footprint is dependent on how many people are in the country producing carbon?

I am a great recycler. Glass, tins, cardboard, paper, in fact lucky to still be on weekly bin collections I only have to put my bin out fortnightly because I don’t produce that much waste. I do this not in the thought that I am saving the planet. I do this because I know it will all end up in ever decreasing landfill sites. Do you agree that the more people living in this country will produce more waste for our landfill sites?

I want to expel a myth. You can’t make water. The water we drink today is the same water the dinosaurs drunk. No new water has been created since the earth was created. Of course what water is available for us to drink is dependent on how much naturally falls out of the sky and ends up in underground water tables or surface reservoirs. Britain has an average rainfall and we can’t just hope that the average rainfall will naturally increase as we invite more people into the country to drink it or otherwise use it. In fact Britain’s average annual rainfall has dropped from 800mm to 600mm. (1) Do you agree then that the more people living in a country means more water being used? It may well be running out of your taps now but wait until the next summer drought and you have water bowsers in your street.

The by product of water is sewage and waste that ends up eventually in drains and sewers. The same sewers built in Victorian times for a Victorian population. Every new housing estate built will have new drains built that will lead to existing sewers. There is only so much waste a sewer can take before it becomes full. Noticed how after a sudden downpour of rain your roadside drains are overflowing with a risk of localised flooding and we are told that no drain can cope with that much rain in a short space of time. Well they always used to. Do you agree that the more people living in a country the more sewerage is produced and has to be dealt with?

I am proud of our National Health Service. In essence quality medical care free at the point of source for everyone. Of course it isn’t actually free, we pay towards it in our taxes and I couldn’t think of a more worthy cause to spend my tax on. The population the NHS has to care for now is far greater than it had to treat in 1948 at its inception. The population has grown out of proportion to the growth of the NHS and there are only so many hospitals you can build and only so many beds to put in them. There are only so many doctors and dentist surgeries we can maintain with an increasing population but decreasing NHS budget. Do you agree that an ever increasing population places an already stretched Health Service under strain?

Parents like to choose which school to send their children to. Normally the closest or one where the child has siblings already attending. That choice is becoming more restricted as the demand school places increases with the increase in population. Class sizes are increasing and children are travelling further to go to school. Do you agree that an ever increasing population places strain on our education system and the teachers and students within it?

I read an article on a far right web site about the introduction of the death penalty. They claim that since its abolition murder has increased. What they have overlooked is that since 1964 so has the population increased. It is right to assume that with population increase so too must the crime rate also increase in proportion. Death penalty aside, do you agree that an ever increasing population leads to an increasing crime rate putting our prisons and judicial system under strain?

Those of who drive will know that our roads are becoming more and more congested and there are far more cars on the road than ever before. The M25 has been widened so many times they should call it the M225. Yes car ownership is linked to affordability and the lack of a suitable and integrated public transport system but the traffic on our roads must also be proportional to the population growth. Do you agree that an increase in population will also see an increase in traffic and congestion?

So far I have covered Energy, waste, water, sewage, NHS, education, crime and traffic without mentioning the “I” word once and I haven’t even got onto loss of national identity. The word we should be focussing on is sustainability. How much more population growth can our country sustain? The Freedom Democrats say no more. That is although we do not have a zero immigration policy we do maintain the need for negative net migration, in other words more foreigners need to be leaving than are entering. Of those allowed to enter it will be on a needs basis to fill shortfalls in the skills market at the same time as matching all jobs filled by immigration with a home born apprentice to learn the same skill.

Let me ask you one last question. The UK population is estimated to be 60 million and expected to reach 70 million by the end of the decade. What do you believe is the maximum number of population that this country can healthily sustain? I want you to give me a figure to the nearest million. It is a question Labour and ConDem supporters of mass immigration cannot answer as to give any figure at all must mean population control. There are only two ways to control a population growth and that is either restrictions on births or strict immigration controls. I certainly don’t intend telling women how many babies they can have so it has to be the latter. Neither can I give my ideal figure of population other than to say we are full up, overcrowded and our population of non British born should be decreasing and not increasing.

So yes I will keep harping on about immigration and sustainability and make no apologies for it. There is too much at stake not to.

(1) Source: The Met Office.