7 ms·

Population of England and Wales grows at fastest rate since 1962

14 points by safaa1993 3y ago

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>The increase was driven mostly by international migration, rather than natural change Didn't they vote for Brexit precisely to stop migration? How's that going?
- Veen 3y ago
  No, 'they' voted for Brexit so the UK's borders and immigration policies could be controlled by politicians accountable to the people of the UK. But they didn't predict that a Conservative Party promising reduced immigration would, in fact, increase it to the highest levels in history. One reason they're heading for catastrophic electoral defeat in the near future.
  - hobs 3y ago
    So "yes" would be a shorter way to say this.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    Who could have predicted, right? It's just what conservative parties in Europe have done every time they've gotten the chance in the past few decades.
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >No, 'they' voted for Brexit so the UK's borders and immigration policies could be controlled by politicians accountable to the people of the UK You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that the EU was in any way controlling your borders before. The EU has no power over border control enforcement.
    - regularfry 3y ago
      That doesn't stop people being fooled into thinking otherwise.
    - Veen 3y ago
      I think consecutive Governments have used immigration to shore up GDP and blamed someone else for the problems it causes, whether that's the EU, the civil service, human rights lawyers, or whomever.
  - mytailorisrich 3y ago
    Well if people are dissatisfied about how the Conservatives are handling immigration then surely Labour is the last party they would vote for for a tougher stance on the issue, right? Or we might see a surprising good performance of "Reform UK" but the end result will still likely be Labour in government. That's why the PVV wins in the Netherlands, and similar parties grow everywhere: both left and right traditional parties have refused to tackle immigration.
    - regularfry 3y ago
      You say that, but... https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/labours-anti-immigrant-mug-worst-part-it-isnt-gaffe https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/labours-anti-i...
      - mytailorisrich 3y ago
        You'd be a mug to believe that, indeed.
      - Veen 3y ago
        It's not believable. All major parties in the UK talk tough on immigration control and then increase immigration.
    - Veen 3y ago
      Well there's the pickle we're in. The Conservatives talk center-right but are essentially Blairite in their actions—they seem to be doubling down on that approach with the return of Cameron to government. There's a massive gap to the right of the Tories, and someone's going to fill it. Hopefully, it'll be moderate right-wingers, but there's a danger the right will split into factions and we'll have a resurgent far right making trouble for everyone plus a center-left party perpetually in Government and unwilling to address any issues around immigration (in spite of what they might say when they're trying to win elections).
- curtisblaine 3y ago
  I'm not really sure, but it looks like the number of illegal immigrants (through the Channel) soared this year, and that's not really possible to do anything to stop them or send them back for some reason.
  - kawhah 3y ago
    It is still small in relation to population change though.
    - jibbit 3y ago
      ~ 8%
    - curtisblaine 3y ago
      I think it compounds though (most migrants stay and have children)
  - proaralyst 3y ago
    Net legal migration was 672 000 people[0] whereas illegal migration was 45 000, 83% of which were small boats.[1] [0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati... [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-september-2023/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-september-2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration...
  - gearhart 3y ago
    This is true, but not the primary story here. Illegal immigration numbers are about 50k for the period, whilst legal immigration netted out (minus emigration) at about 500k for the period, and "natural growth" (i.e. births minus deaths) are about 45k. The story here is that we're letting in a lot more legal, non-EU immigrants than we have been previously, most of whom are coming here on work visas, or as dependents / carers. Whether you think this is a good thing or not is worth debating, but the media narrative that we're being "overrun by illegal immigrants" simply isn't a fair representation of the facts. Immigration increases are primarily driven by policy. Sources: - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-june-2023/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-june-2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration... - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
- Neil44 3y ago
  Not too well, it turns out that we're still in some international human rights agreements that seemilgly twart every attempt to control immigration and/or people trafficers. For example people trafficers coaching customers to exploit modern slavery legislation or various other safeguards to avoid deportation on arrival. Pulling out of these agreements is still policically unthinkable, although the whole of europe is struggling with the same issues at present. Something has to give.
  - hd4 3y ago
    This is a red herring, they could easily control the economic migration, which has very little to do with intl human rights, they just choose to ignore it because business always pushes the "labour shortages" because they want to lower labour costs as much as possible.
    - kypro 3y ago
      It amazes me that the "labour shortage" argument is still in play. You'd think after years of importing tens of millions of people someone might have asked, "have we fixed the labour shortage yet?".
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        There will always be a labor shortage as long as labor costs are greater than zero. /s
        voisin 3y ago
        It does not have to be zero. It just has to be less than the marginal profitability of a new hire. Those can converge at a number higher than zero.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        I was being sarcastic. But yes you're right.
- charlieyu1 3y ago
  Hongkong happened, Ukraine happened. A failure of stopping dictatorship by the Western world will result in immigrants, period.
  - trilbyglens 3y ago
    Also a failure to deal with climate related catastrophe, and a refusal to help out poor countries will result in the same.
- kypro 3y ago
  What's your point here out of interest? Maybe I'm miss-reading, but the "how's that going?" seems like it might be a little passive aggressive? Politicians promised that Brexit would allow us to take control of our borders, yet I see a variant of the following argument a lot – "those who voted for Brexit are dumb because they actually believed politicians would keep their promises". Presumably the implication here is that the smart thing to do have done was to be so cynical of the democratic process that you just vote remain even if you want to reduce migration because you should know the promises of Brexit would be broken anyway. I guess I never really understood that argument. Let's say I vote for labour in the next GE because they promise to invest in the NHS but then when they're in power they actually reduce spending, is that then my fault as a voter? Would I be a dumb voter who should have just voted Tory because I wasn't smart enough to know that Labour would break their promise? But I'll be honest, I voted Brexit and I explicitly told people at the time voting Brexit would not reduce migration. Politicians have made it quite clear in recent decades that mass migration is not something we as the public have any choice over. We simply must accept it and preferably if we don't like it shut up about it. So yeah, while we probably should assume they will break any migration related promises, I don't really know what else people are suppose to do but to just vote and hope maybe one day they'll listen? What would you suggest the smart move here is?
  - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
    >Politicians promised that Brexit would allow us to take control of our borders You mean the EU was in control of your borders before? I think you don't know how the EU works and what it can and can't do with your borders.
    - curtisblaine 3y ago
      Wasn't the agreement that anyone from the EU could stay and settle without job / visa? During that period, borders were effectively non-existent between UK and the rest of EU.
      - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
- bluescrn 3y ago
  The government talks about reducing migration to win votes, but in reality, they prefer to keep wages down by continuing to increase the supply of labour.
- YiraldyGuber 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - skywhopper 3y ago
    Which people are you talking about?
- sys_64738 3y ago
  They did and they got what they voted for. Brexit at any cost.
tomxor 3y ago
.
- kypro 3y ago
  Did you read the article? It's because we have record high migration levels.
- leoedin 3y ago
  Literally the first line of the article: > The increase was driven mostly by international migration, rather than natural change – unlike the baby boom which fuelled the growth in the early 1960s. In fact, the birth rate in 2021 was below that of 2019 - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- basisword 3y ago
  Makes everyone stay indoors for a year and you also get lots of breakups, little or no dating, etc.
YiraldyGuber 3y ago
Spoiler: They're not English or Welsh.
austin-cheney 3y ago
The big city where I live has an annual average growth rate of 1.4%, which is the fastest large city in the US. The growth rate is accelerating as the population grows, so a decade from now that average annual growth rate should be a much larger number. The city is already, by far, the fastest growing city in the US in terms of adding new residents per year. My city is in tight competition with Austin, San Jose, and Jacksonville to be the 12th or 13th largest city in the US. At its current growth rate it will be the first of those to achieve (rebound in the case of San Jose) 1 million residents. Discounting growth acceleration by 2045 it may surpass Dallas to become the 8th largest city in the US provided that Phoenix does not continue to grow at its current rate. Accounting for a consistent growth acceleration trend it could happen as early as 2030, but that is unlikely.
bluescrn 3y ago
Meanwhile, infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating rather than being expanded at a similar rate. Even housing, the most profitable thing to build, can't keep up with rising demand. Although there do seem to be a lot of houses being built - but no sign of the additional roads, railways, schools, hospitals etc needed to support growing towns and cities.

14 points by safaa1993 3y ago

>The increase was driven mostly by international migration, rather than natural change Didn't they vote for Brexit precisely to stop migration? How's that going?

Veen 3y ago
No, 'they' voted for Brexit so the UK's borders and immigration policies could be controlled by politicians accountable to the people of the UK. But they didn't predict that a Conservative Party promising reduced immigration would, in fact, increase it to the highest levels in history. One reason they're heading for catastrophic electoral defeat in the near future.
- hobs 3y ago
  So "yes" would be a shorter way to say this.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  Who could have predicted, right? It's just what conservative parties in Europe have done every time they've gotten the chance in the past few decades.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >No, 'they' voted for Brexit so the UK's borders and immigration policies could be controlled by politicians accountable to the people of the UK You can't possibly tell me with a straight face that the EU was in any way controlling your borders before. The EU has no power over border control enforcement.
  - regularfry 3y ago
    That doesn't stop people being fooled into thinking otherwise.
  - Veen 3y ago
    I think consecutive Governments have used immigration to shore up GDP and blamed someone else for the problems it causes, whether that's the EU, the civil service, human rights lawyers, or whomever.
- mytailorisrich 3y ago
  Well if people are dissatisfied about how the Conservatives are handling immigration then surely Labour is the last party they would vote for for a tougher stance on the issue, right? Or we might see a surprising good performance of "Reform UK" but the end result will still likely be Labour in government. That's why the PVV wins in the Netherlands, and similar parties grow everywhere: both left and right traditional parties have refused to tackle immigration.
  - regularfry 3y ago
    You say that, but... https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/labours-anti-immigrant-mug-worst-part-it-isnt-gaffe https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/03/labours-anti-i...
    - mytailorisrich 3y ago
      You'd be a mug to believe that, indeed.
    - Veen 3y ago
      It's not believable. All major parties in the UK talk tough on immigration control and then increase immigration.
  - Veen 3y ago
    Well there's the pickle we're in. The Conservatives talk center-right but are essentially Blairite in their actions—they seem to be doubling down on that approach with the return of Cameron to government. There's a massive gap to the right of the Tories, and someone's going to fill it. Hopefully, it'll be moderate right-wingers, but there's a danger the right will split into factions and we'll have a resurgent far right making trouble for everyone plus a center-left party perpetually in Government and unwilling to address any issues around immigration (in spite of what they might say when they're trying to win elections).
curtisblaine 3y ago
I'm not really sure, but it looks like the number of illegal immigrants (through the Channel) soared this year, and that's not really possible to do anything to stop them or send them back for some reason.
- kawhah 3y ago
  It is still small in relation to population change though.
  - jibbit 3y ago
    ~ 8%
  - curtisblaine 3y ago
    I think it compounds though (most migrants stay and have children)
- proaralyst 3y ago
  Net legal migration was 672 000 people[0] whereas illegal migration was 45 000, 83% of which were small boats.[1] [0] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati... [1] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-september-2023/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-september-2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration...
- gearhart 3y ago
  This is true, but not the primary story here. Illegal immigration numbers are about 50k for the period, whilst legal immigration netted out (minus emigration) at about 500k for the period, and "natural growth" (i.e. births minus deaths) are about 45k. The story here is that we're letting in a lot more legal, non-EU immigrants than we have been previously, most of whom are coming here on work visas, or as dependents / carers. Whether you think this is a good thing or not is worth debating, but the media narrative that we're being "overrun by illegal immigrants" simply isn't a fair representation of the facts. Immigration increases are primarily driven by policy. Sources: - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-june-2023/irregular-migration-to-the-uk-year-ending-june-2023 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/irregular-migration... - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populationandmigration/internationalmigration/bulletins/longterminternationalmigrationprovisional/yearendingjune2023 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/populati...
Neil44 3y ago
Not too well, it turns out that we're still in some international human rights agreements that seemilgly twart every attempt to control immigration and/or people trafficers. For example people trafficers coaching customers to exploit modern slavery legislation or various other safeguards to avoid deportation on arrival. Pulling out of these agreements is still policically unthinkable, although the whole of europe is struggling with the same issues at present. Something has to give.
- hd4 3y ago
  This is a red herring, they could easily control the economic migration, which has very little to do with intl human rights, they just choose to ignore it because business always pushes the "labour shortages" because they want to lower labour costs as much as possible.
  - kypro 3y ago
    It amazes me that the "labour shortage" argument is still in play. You'd think after years of importing tens of millions of people someone might have asked, "have we fixed the labour shortage yet?".
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
      There will always be a labor shortage as long as labor costs are greater than zero. /s
      - voisin 3y ago
        It does not have to be zero. It just has to be less than the marginal profitability of a new hire. Those can converge at a number higher than zero.
        FirmwareBurner 3y ago
        I was being sarcastic. But yes you're right.
charlieyu1 3y ago
Hongkong happened, Ukraine happened. A failure of stopping dictatorship by the Western world will result in immigrants, period.
- trilbyglens 3y ago
  Also a failure to deal with climate related catastrophe, and a refusal to help out poor countries will result in the same.
kypro 3y ago
What's your point here out of interest? Maybe I'm miss-reading, but the "how's that going?" seems like it might be a little passive aggressive? Politicians promised that Brexit would allow us to take control of our borders, yet I see a variant of the following argument a lot – "those who voted for Brexit are dumb because they actually believed politicians would keep their promises". Presumably the implication here is that the smart thing to do have done was to be so cynical of the democratic process that you just vote remain even if you want to reduce migration because you should know the promises of Brexit would be broken anyway. I guess I never really understood that argument. Let's say I vote for labour in the next GE because they promise to invest in the NHS but then when they're in power they actually reduce spending, is that then my fault as a voter? Would I be a dumb voter who should have just voted Tory because I wasn't smart enough to know that Labour would break their promise? But I'll be honest, I voted Brexit and I explicitly told people at the time voting Brexit would not reduce migration. Politicians have made it quite clear in recent decades that mass migration is not something we as the public have any choice over. We simply must accept it and preferably if we don't like it shut up about it. So yeah, while we probably should assume they will break any migration related promises, I don't really know what else people are suppose to do but to just vote and hope maybe one day they'll listen? What would you suggest the smart move here is?
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >Politicians promised that Brexit would allow us to take control of our borders You mean the EU was in control of your borders before? I think you don't know how the EU works and what it can and can't do with your borders.
  - curtisblaine 3y ago
    Wasn't the agreement that anyone from the EU could stay and settle without job / visa? During that period, borders were effectively non-existent between UK and the rest of EU.
    - FirmwareBurner 3y ago
bluescrn 3y ago
The government talks about reducing migration to win votes, but in reality, they prefer to keep wages down by continuing to increase the supply of labour.
YiraldyGuber 3y ago
[flagged]
- skywhopper 3y ago
  Which people are you talking about?
sys_64738 3y ago
They did and they got what they voted for. Brexit at any cost.

tomxor 3y ago

kypro 3y ago
Did you read the article? It's because we have record high migration levels.
leoedin 3y ago
Literally the first line of the article: > The increase was driven mostly by international migration, rather than natural change – unlike the baby boom which fuelled the growth in the early 1960s. In fact, the birth rate in 2021 was below that of 2019 - https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/birthsummarytablesenglandandwales/2021 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsde...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
basisword 3y ago
Makes everyone stay indoors for a year and you also get lots of breakups, little or no dating, etc.

YiraldyGuber 3y ago

Spoiler: They're not English or Welsh.

austin-cheney 3y ago

The big city where I live has an annual average growth rate of 1.4%, which is the fastest large city in the US. The growth rate is accelerating as the population grows, so a decade from now that average annual growth rate should be a much larger number. The city is already, by far, the fastest growing city in the US in terms of adding new residents per year. My city is in tight competition with Austin, San Jose, and Jacksonville to be the 12th or 13th largest city in the US. At its current growth rate it will be the first of those to achieve (rebound in the case of San Jose) 1 million residents. Discounting growth acceleration by 2045 it may surpass Dallas to become the 8th largest city in the US provided that Phoenix does not continue to grow at its current rate. Accounting for a consistent growth acceleration trend it could happen as early as 2030, but that is unlikely.

bluescrn 3y ago

Meanwhile, infrastructure is rapidly deteriorating rather than being expanded at a similar rate. Even housing, the most profitable thing to build, can't keep up with rising demand. Although there do seem to be a lot of houses being built - but no sign of the additional roads, railways, schools, hospitals etc needed to support growing towns and cities.