What are the facts about immigration?
BBC News Online looks at the current debate. Figures from Migration Watch UK, a new group led by a former diplomat and an Oxford University demographer, predict more than two million people will arrive in the UK every 10 years for the foreseeable future. Not surprisingly, the figures have dominated headlines amid the continuing debate over asylum, immigration and race relations in the UK. According to the government’s own figures, the UK has the “third largest foreign population and labour force in the European Union”, around 2.2m people. No one disputes that immigration to the UK has been increasing since the late 1990s. The problem is it’s almost impossible to agree by how much. So how does Migration Watch UK reach its conclusions? ” We start from the belief that the scale of net inward migration is now so great as to be contrary to the interests of all sections of our community ” Migration Watch UK The most up-to-date official statistics reveal that 125,000 people settled in the UK
