Finding a Historic Norm for Gross Immigration into UK
"Protect our Country: Stop the Boats. Send them Back." A key part of our message at the "Enough is Enough" rally in George Square, Glasgow, 7-9-24.
Why we Choose Gross Immigration – not "Net", as the Figure
The formula for Net Migration is I minus E = N; where I is immigration into the country and E is emigration out of the country, and where N is Net Migration (whether a positive figure of immigration or a negative figure of emigration).
Some people say we need to aim for "Zero Net Migration" – which means that the same number of people enter and leave; or they may say things like "no more than 100,000 Net Immigration a year".
"Gross" means the total of something. "Net" means what remains from that total after certain deductions are made.
In the context of immigration, "gross" means the total number of immigrants coming in per year. "Net" means the figure that remains, after the number of emigrants leaving per year, has been deducted.
There are two problems with aiming for a "Net" figure.
Firstly, it still allows for massive immigration!
You could say there was "Zero Net Migration" if 1 million new people entered, while 1 million left! However, that is still 1 million new people entering. That still represents a massive social and economic shift, regardless of the fact that the population has appeared to stand still, on paper.
Of these people, we can rightly ask, "Who are they?" "Can they economically contribute?" "Can they even speak English?" "Are they families with lots of children?" "Are they old people who need services?" If these 1 million immigrants are predominantly young people and families, then the population is going to increase disproportionately in time.
Secondly, however, the most obvious problem in using "Net Migration" as a goal is that it represents a formula which includes the variable 'E', which we cannot control.
That is, we do not control, or cap, or stop those who choose to live elsewhere! We don't stop people leaving the country if they want!
Therefore, levels of emigration out of the country are always going to be changing. It is always going to be beyond our ability to influence (specific deportation policies excepted, of course). Sometimes there will be a lot of emigration, sometimes there will be less.
Therefore, if we aim for a certain amount of "net" immigration each year, then we will never achieve the target.
We cannot set a yearly 'N' figure because we cannot cap 'E'. We can only cap 'I'.
Or put another way, we can cap 'I', but we cannot cap 'E', and so we cannot set a yearly 'N' figure.
For example, one year there may be 300K come in and around 300K leave. In that year we could say we have achieved "Zero Net Migration". However, the next year, there may be 700K arrive and 500K leave, and so in that year, we've failed to achieve our goal of Zero Net Migration, and we've surplus immigration of 200,000.
It will be like this every single year! We cannot control the "Net" outcome because we cannot control the emigration variable.
CORRECT POLICY: CONCENTRATE ONLY on "GROSS" IMMIGRATION, not "NET"
The correct approach is to focus on the variable which we can control.
That is, we should only concentrate on the gross number of people entering the country. This is a figure which can be strictly controlled and maintained by law. We can control 'I'.
Emigration numbers will just have to be left to themselves (again, specific deportation policies excepted, of course).
This means that in some years (maybe most years) the Net Migration figure may end up being a minus quantity, with more people leaving than entering. Sobeit.
Instead of basing immigration policy on a formula which we cannot control, we simply base it on the one figure we can control, which is gross immigration into the country.
Therefore, what we must do now is find a guideline figure for the "historic norm" of gross immigration into the UK.
REDUCING BACK to the HISTORIC NORM
In a Speech at the "Enough is Enough" rally in George Square, Glasgow on 7 September 2024, we said that the UK needs to get back to the "historic norm" of immigration coming into the UK.
In this article, we find a figure for that "historic norm".
Particularly helpful has been the Bank of England's excel spreadsheet "A millennium of macroeconomic data for the UK" published on 30 April 2017, and the spreadsheets found under the section "Population and GDP per capita 1086-2016". (1)
It is downloadable here.
This spreadsheet lists figures since 1853, when some emigration figures began to be collected, and then from 1855 when some immigration figures also started to be collected, albeit in a haphazard manner.
THE HISTORIC CONTEXT of IMMIGRATION FIGURES
Demographer, David Coleman, helps to put these figures in their historic context. Emphases are our own:
Passenger lists had first been required from 1803, initially of passengers travelling steerage only. The intention was to prevent ships being overloaded and under-victualled, to protect emigrants from danger and hardship on their voyage. This requirement was partial and only weakly enforced even after further legislation in 1852 (Carrier and Jeffrey, 1953). Because there was at that time no policy on immigration, no equivalent series of data on inward movement exist.
No records of incoming passengers were required until 1855 and ship's masters were not expected to list alien passengers until 1876, and even then from non-European ports only. This was unconnected with the later concern about the migration of poor Jews from Eastern Europe in the 1880s, and should be regarded as an aspect of the general extension of official fact-gathering then in progress. Intended migrants – those intending to stay for at least a year – were not distinguished until 1906, after the passage of the Aliens Act 1905.
By 1908 all incoming movement – on short sea voyages from the continent as well as long sea voyages – was recorded, although only totals without details were collected on passengers arriving from short sea voyages. Even as that time the volume of traffic was considered too great for the collection of details. Similar simple data were collected from air passengers starting in 1920. By then, these deficiencies were less important since the numbers of alien arrivals were controlled and published by the Home Office. (2)
He continues:
The Acts of 1962, 1968 and 1971 transformed the statistical coverage of Commonwealth immigration. Until 1962 the only official statistics on Commonwealth migrants, except for the occasional sources detailed by Peach (1968), came from the passenger statistics collected by the Board of Trade. Since the 19th century, as described earlier, these had recorded the details of passengers arriving by long sea routes only. Initially, most of the Commonwealth arrivals came by long sea voyages, but even by 1955 half were arriving by air and therefore leaving hardly any statistical trace at all, except in the census and in surveys (Jeffrey and Carrier, 1953)…
The enormous growth of air traffic eventually made data for long sea voyages – the only general data on migrants published in detail – quite useless for demographic study, and also useless for the monitoring of traffic, tourism and exchange control in which the Board of Trade was interested. To fill this gap, in 1961, a voluntary sample survey – initially about five percent – of arrivals and departures was set up by the Board of Trade, known as the International Passenger Survey (IPS). (3)
Writing in 1987, of the IPS he said:
This survey, together with the Control of Immigration Statistics from the Home Office, comprise the two chief sources of immigration figures for the UK. Its original function was to "collect migration and tourist statistics of British and Commonwealth passengers on long air routes by voluntary sample…in particular to estimate tourist receipts and expenditure, two important items in UK balance of payments – with minimum inconvenience". It was to apply to all passengers, including British passengers on short sea and air routes to continental and Mediterranean destinations (Board of Trade Journal, 1961).
After the Commonwealth Immigrants Act of 1962, it was extended in scope to provide a sample of demographically defined immigrants and emigrants from 1964 onwards (Registrar-General, 1966). The IPS provides a sample of intended immigrants and emigrants of all nationalities and all origins and destinations (except the Republic of Ireland and other parts of the 'Common Travel Area' – below) with some details on their characteristics. …Its standard definition of a migrant is a person intending to stay in the UK for 12 months, having been outside the country for at least 12 months, and vice versa for an emigrant. These can be 'grossed up' according to the sampling fraction to provide estimated totals. (4)
It should be noted that the Control of Immigration Statistics from the Home Office will not exactly mirror the IPS figures because the Home Office figures detail the numbers allowed to remain in the UK indefinitely. These are people who have resided in the UK for a period longer than 12 months, which is longer than the IPS definition.
Furthermore, as per Dr Coleman's explanation, we should note that the IPS figures are/were best estimates, which consist of interviewing a small number of people at ports of entry and "grossing up" the estimated figures.
He writes:
Inevitably, this gives considerable problems of sampling error and corresponding error in the grossed-up estimates of the total flows. The standard error of the total grossed-up estimate of about 200,000 immigrants, for example, is about 3 percent (OPCS, 1979). (5)
Of course, he was writing in 1987, and we include his comments here because he was writing during the time of the period which we're examining in order to find a historic norm.
Since August 2020 the Office of National Statistics (ONS) calculates long-term migration statistics differently.
It now states:
2. Improving how we measure international migration
The International Passenger Survey (IPS), which underpinned our estimates of migration until 2020, had been stretched beyond its original purpose. More information can be found in our 'Improving international migration statistics using administrative data' article. To improve migration statistics and produce more regular and timely statistics without compromising on accuracy, we now focus on producing estimates using administrative data supported by statistical modelling. (6)
1947-1997: FINDING a HISTORIC ANNUAL AVERAGE
In May 1997, Tony Blair became Prime Minister. It is from this date that immigration into the UK really "took off". This may have been for economic reasons or for ideological reasons, or both. (7)
For example, we're grateful to the report "Taking Back Control" for highlighting the quote from Gus O'Donnell (Labour's Permanent Secretary for the Treasury 2002-05, and Cabinet Secretary 2005-11) who said:
"When I was at the Treasury I argued for the most open door possible to immigration…I think it's my job to maximise global welfare, not national welfare". (8)
People have been concerned about levels of immigration since shortly after WW2. However, 1997 can be seen as a point at which it really shifted into high gear; after which it doubled, trebled and quadrupled until the point in 2022 which saw 1.2 million gross arrive, and another 1.2 million gross in 2023!
Therefore, to find a "historic norm", we're going to look at the 50 years prior to 1997 (actually 51 years inclusive).
This takes us neatly back to the period just after WW2 when statistics – which had been suspended during the War years – began to be collected again in 1947.
Let's look at the section in the Bank of England spreadsheet (link above) entitled
"Population and GDP per capita 1086-2016".
Now, let's go to the Table, "A20. UK migration flows by citizenship, 1855-2016".
In the graphic above, we've highlighted the 51 years 1947-1997, and we've totalled the columns.
What do the columns mean?
The first column indicates the total amount of gross immigration, which is further divided between the second and third columns.
The second column entitled "UK" represents people who had a form of UK citizenship, which conferred upon them a right to live in the UK.
For example, since 1947, this would be returning British citizens, who would be mainly white; people from the "Old Commonwealth" (Canada, Australia, New Zealand) who would also be largely white; and people from the colonies and Commonwealth countries who would be usually non-white but with a legal form of British citizenship and a right to live in the UK. This right extended up until the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, which narrowed the right – hence why the column is labelled "incl Commonwealth citizens from 1947-1962".
The third column is people who did not have an automatic right to live in the UK, hence it is labelled "non-UK". This column includes, from 1964, those Commonwealth Citizens who – previous to the 1962 Act – would have had an automatic right to live here, and would have fallen into the second column, but are now considered "non-UK". (We don't know why there are statistics missing for 1963, and we're ignoring the EU figures which kick in from 1975.)
If we are going to consider the degree of – what used to be called – "alien" immigration, and today what we can simply call foreign immigration into the UK, then let us only consider the numbers of those who, from 1947, were considered "non-UK". That is, those who were not British citizens or subjects with a legal right to live in the UK – these are the figures in the third column.
Now, of course, there would be many people in the second column under "UK" who, today, we would consider to be foreign – such as the Caribbean immigrants – nevertheless, they were not considered legally foreign prior to the 1962 Act.
This is not ideal, but it is the best "work-around" – given the inadequate statistical details collected at the time – that we can think of, in order to discover a figure for a historic norm of foreign immigration.
Therefore, as can be seen from our calculation in the graphic, the total of the "non-UK" foreign people entering from 1947 to 1997, is 5,852,000. Over those 51 years inclusive, that is an average of 114,745 a year.
"100,000 ANNUAL GROSS IMMIGRATION, HISTORIC NORM"
We therefore have an approximate annual gross "historic norm" figure that we can use.
We can say that gross foreign immigration into the UK (which doesn't include British citizens coming back to the UK or those with a legal right to live here) should be set at the historic norm, which in the 50 years prior to 1997, was around 100K a year. That's what we need to get back to.
That's the annual gross figure for "non-UK" nationals immigrating long-term into the UK, in the 50 years prior to 1997.
Now, that's still a lot, but it's nowhere near the 1.2 million annual gross, which it's been running at recently!
So, for starters, that's the gross figure we should not go above – no more than 100K a year, annual gross immigration maximum.
Now imagine if we got annual gross immigration down to those figures.
What we would find, almost certainly, is that the annual emigration figures – the numbers leaving – would be a lot higher, and so we would actually have negative Net Migration, which would also involve a lot of foreign people leaving – and not being replaced with new foreigners!
No more than 100K gross in, per year.
This is a far better policy than allowing gross immigration to run out of control, while hoping to somehow hit a theoretical "Net Migration" figure, which is impossible to hit because we cannot control the emigration factor in that formula.
REFERENCES
1. Bank of England Excel Spreadsheet, "A millennium of macroeconomic data for the UK", 30 April 2017 here (downloaded 2-10-24).
The "Mitchell (1988)" listed in the Bank of England spreadsheet refers to BR Mitchell, "British Historical Statistics, (Cambridge University Press, 1988). Some of the book can be browsed at google books here.
2. David A Coleman, "UK Statistics on Immigration: Development and Limitations", International Migration Review, Volume 21, No. 4, Winter 1987, pp 1138-1169 at 1142.
3. Ibid at 1150.
4. Ibid at 1150-1151.
5. Ibid at 1152.
6. Office of National Statistics, "Methods to produce provisional long-term international migration estimates", 23 Nov 2023 here downloaded on 4 Oct 2024.
7. In 2012, Labour Party speechwriter, Andrew Neather, wrote in The Standard about his love of mass immigration. See Andrew Neather, "Don't listen to the whingers - London needs immigrants", The Standard, 13 April 2012 here (downloaded 4-10-24). It's worth quoting him at length. He wondered:
So why is it that ministers have been so very bad at communicating this?
I wonder because I wrote the landmark speech given by then immigration minister Barbara Roche in September 2000, calling for a loosening of controls. It marked a major shift from the policy of previous governments: from 1971 onwards, only foreigners joining relatives already in the UK had been permitted to settle here.
That speech was based largely on a report by the Performance and Innovation Unit, Tony Blair's Cabinet Office think-tank.
The PIU's reports were legendarily tedious within Whitehall but their big immigration report was surrounded by an unusual air of both anticipation and secrecy.
Drafts were handed out in summer 2000 only with extreme reluctance: there was a paranoia about it reaching the media.
Eventually published in January 2001, the innocuously labelled "RDS Occasional Paper no. 67", "Migration: an economic and social analysis" focused heavily on the labour market case.
But the earlier drafts I saw also included a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural.
I remember coming away from some discussions with the clear sense that the policy was intended - even if this wasn't its main purpose - to rub the Right's nose in diversity and render their arguments out of date. That seemed to me to be a manoeuvre too far.
Ministers were very nervous about the whole thing. For despite Roche's keenness to make her big speech and to be upfront, there was a reluctance elsewhere in government to discuss what increased immigration would mean, above all for Labour's core white working-class vote.
This shone through even in the published report: the "social outcomes" it talks about are solely those for immigrants.
And this first-term immigration policy got no mention among the platitudes on the subject in Labour's 1997 manifesto, headed Faster, Firmer, Fairer.
The results were dramatic. In 1995, 55,000 foreigners were granted the right to settle in the UK. By 2005 that had risen to 179,000; last year, with immigration falling thanks to the recession, it was 148,000.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of migrants have come from the new EU member states since 2004, most requiring neither visas nor permission to work or settle. The UK welcomed an estimated net 1.5 million immigrants in the decade to 2008.
Part by accident, part by design, the Government had created its longed-for immigration boom.
But ministers wouldn't talk about it. In part they probably realised the conservatism of their core voters: while ministers might have been passionately in favour of a more diverse society, it wasn't necessarily a debate they wanted to have in working men's clubs in Sheffield or Sunderland.
In part, too, it would have been just too metropolitan an argument to make in such places: London was the real model. Roche was unusual in that she was a London MP, herself of east European Jewish stock.
8. As quoted in David Goodhart, The Road to Somewhere, (2017), p15; and highlighted by Centre for Policy Studies, "Taking Back Control: Why Britain needs a better approach to immigration", 2024, p33, downloadable here (opens in new page) as a PDF.
For more articles on this subject see our Territorial Sovereignty: Article Index
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