I live in Scotland, a country which is facing radical depopulation.
Geographically, much of our terrain is unpopulated wilderness. There is
insufficient population to justify the provision of commercial services
and not enough traffic to justify the development of an adequate
transport network. Current trends, however, are that we are losing
people from some of the established communities we have. Depopulation
threatens the viability both of rural communities (like the Borders, the
Highlands and Moray) and urban communities (like Dundee and Inverclyde.)
Some areas have become economically unviable, and basic services (like
medical practices and post offices) struggle to maintain a presence
because there are not enough people to justify their existence. That
is why our First Minister has appealed for people to migrate to
Scotland. The South-East may be overcrowded; the United Kingdom
certainly isn't.
I was puzzled by the statement from Migration Watch, so I looked at the
website to see how they justified their position. Their home page
states:
"In 2002 net foreign immigration was nearly 250,000 while 91,000 British
citizens left the UK. If immigration continues at these levels our
population will grow by 7.6 million by 2031 - equivalent to seven times
the population of Birmingham, of which nearly 90% will be due to
immigration."
On another page they write:
"Our research indicates that, on current trends, we can now expect a net
inflow of at least 2 million non EU citizens per decade. This is
confirmed by the figures issued by the Office for National Statistics in
November 2003 which showed that the number had reached 233,000 in 2002."
That is 17,000 less than on their first page.
Later they write:
"Until the early 1990's the outflow of migrants exceeded or balanced the
inflow so there was no resultant increase in the population of the U.K.
However the latest government projection is that our population will
increase by 5.6 million by 2031 of which 85% is due to immigration.
Since 1997, net international inward migration has more than trebled
from 47,000 to 153,000 in 2002. Illegal immigrants are additional to
this total. 50,000 were detected in the year 2002 so a similar number
undetected would be a low estimate. Adding this brings the total to
203,000 a year or more than 2 million every decade."
I don't know where the 153,000 comes from; if the figures they give
before are right, it should be 233,000 - 91,000, which is 142,000.
203,000 times 29 (their high estimate) comes to 5.9 million. I can see
no basis here for a claim of 7.6 million.
The agenda laid out by Migration Watch is based in myth, xenophobia and
a cavalier misuse of figures. This is surely the sort of activity which
Radical Statistics was founded to oppose.
Paul Spicker
Professor of Public Policy
Centre for Public Policy and Management
Aberdeen Business School
The Robert Gordon University
Garthdee Road
Aberdeen AB10 7QE
Tel: (0) + 44 1224 26 3120
Fax: (0) + 44 1224 26 3434
Website: http://www.rgu.ac.uk/publicpolicy
The mission of The Robert Gordon University is "to inspire and enable
the transformation of individuals, economies and societies".
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