Writing at The Guardian, Oxford professor Paul Collier says that England must slow the flow of immigrants into the tiny country.
It is worth reading the whole thing, but here (below) is one small snip to give you the flavor.
He says that British political activists (UKIP) who focus largely on the economic costs to Britain are missing the much larger impact that the size and diversity of the immigrant population will have on social cohesion going forward.
The important effects of immigration are social and long term, not economic and short term. The key long-term social effects are probably on the overall size of the population and its diversity. As to population size, Britain is already one of the most crowded countries in Europe, and there is a sound environmental argument for protecting quality of life by discouraging further substantial increases. As to diversity, it involves a trade-off: as it increases, variety is enhanced but cohesion reduced. Variety is good but, unfortunately, as cohesion erodes voters become less willing to support generous welfare programmes.
In my view, not only will voters not want to support welfare programs (isn’t that economic?), but there will be increasing tension, conflict and potentially violence as Brits look at immigrants as invaders.
Why do we write about refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal migration in Europe and other first-world countries? So that you can see what is in store for America—the only difference between them and us is our size and the fact that in Europe the number of immigrants is so large in comparison to the native population that the impact is being felt sooner. But, we are getting there!
Some US cities are already there—Minneapolis for instance!
Collier is the author of ‘Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century.’
We wrote about another of his books here in August.
