Mass Immigration Is Destroying the Fabric of Society

The fashionable metropolitan elite constantly tells us that mass immigration makes our country more prosperous and vibrant.

But such claims are just hollow ideological propaganda. They bear no relationship to the grim reality we see all around us.

In truth, the vast, unceasing influx of foreigners over recent years has done colossal damage to Britain. Our social cohesion has been undermined, our civic infrastructure overloaded, our sense of national identity eroded and our standard of living reduced.

Nothing symbolises this wreckage more clearly than the growing number of filthy shanty towns and encampments that have sprung up across Britain because of uncontrolled immigration.

These havens of squalor would have been unthinkable in our towns and cities only a couple of decades ago but the collapse of our borders has meant they are now rapidly becoming a shameful part of our urban landscape.

In Hyde Park, one of the capital’s renowned landmarks, a large group of Romanian beggars recently set up a makeshift camp, bringing a mix of intimidation and foulness to the area. Though many of them were moved on last week by the authorities, with some even given free flights home at the expense of the taxpayer, a significant number of Romanians are now back at the site.

What is so disturbing is the fact that these beggars are just the advance guard of a huge army of parasites that will come to Britain from 2014, once 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians are given full rights by the European Union to settle here. The shanty town phenomenon can be seen just as graphically in the alarming incidence of migrants living in sheds, huts and outbuildings across once well-ordered suburbs.

In the west London borough of Hounslow, councillor Sheila O’Reilly estimates the real population may be 50,000 higher than the official estimate of 250,000, due to the numbers illegally renting out “beds in sheds” from rogue landlords.

“The main problem is that we have let so many people into this country in such a short time that we do not have accommodation for them,” she says.

This is the chaotic world created by the dogma of mass immigration. The social fabric of our civilisation is fraying as the foreign influx continues. The demographic revolution means that parts of our nation are no longer recognisable as British any more, with ordinary citizens now turned into aliens in their own land. Almost 15 per cent of our entire population was born abroad and in London an incredible 66 per cent of babies have at least one foreign-born parent.

In other places such as Luton, Leicester and Slough, white British people are now in the minority. So far-reaching is the change that officialdom barely has a clue how many migrants are really living here. The Office for National Statistics has just admitted that 600,000 more arrivals from the EU may have settled here during Labour’s years in office than was originally estimated. Similarly, the Home Office this month confessed to a backlog of 500,000 immigration cases.

Yet still the ideologues continue to trumpet their attachment to this failed creed. Only last week, the Office of Budgetary Responsibility urged that Britain import another six million immigrants to help pay off our debts and provide support to the elderly population. This argument could hardly be more fatuous since immigrants generally represent a burden on the state. It is no coincidence that our national finances went into meltdown under Labour as immigration exploded.

This was precisely the point that David Cameron made this week. In a powerful attack, the Prime Minister said that “lax immigration” had opened up a “frightening decade” where “the pressure on our public services and communities is too great”.

He is absolutely right.

Mass immigration is the reason why accident and emergency units at too many of our hospitals are in crisis and why our schools are increasingly overcrowded. Yesterday the Labour Party had the nerve to warn that primary schools could be short of 125,000 places this September because of soaring demand. Well that demand was created by Labour’s addiction to multicultural social engineering. In the same vein, immigration has imposed a phenomenal burden on the welfare state because, contrary to all the empty propaganda from cheerleaders for diversity, people from migrant communities are more likely to be on benefits and live in social housing than the indigenous population. Indeed, there are thought to be more than 330,000 foreigners on the dole in Britain.

In addition, there are the other social costs that arise from immigration such as the growth of political extremism and misogyny, the spread of Sharia law, the prevalence of gang violence in the inner cities and the erosion of democracy through ballot-box fraud by self-styled community leaders.

Migrants who arrive here should adapt to the British way of life, not try to change our society. But reinforcing our British culture cannot be done when immigration is still running at 500,000 a year. As Cameron admitted, that figure is still far too high, despite tougher policies such as the immigration cap and restrictions on work permits.

If he is to give any effect to his rhetoric, he has to go much further in re-establishing effective borders. And I fear that can never happen as long as we remain in the EU.