'Mass migration is causing us harm': Andrew Lewer MP column

The day before, the Netherlands were also rocked by the election breakthrough of the anti-migrant Party for Freedom as the largest single party in the House of Representatives. Although these are issues happening outside our borders, they do serve as a warning.

Over the past month, there has been considerable unease at the open and unapologetic support for radical jihadists and Hamas apologists within the ranks of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators on our streets. This has been compounded by an impression held by many that the police and other organisations are treating these instances of antisemitism and intimidation with a hands-off approach.

What links these events together is the feeling that mass immigration is threatening our social cohesion and that our leaders are just not listening to our concerns. The level of population change in recent years is just unsustainable. Those ultra liberals who chant empty slogans like ‘diversity is our strength’ downplay or deliberately ignore the challenges that mass migration is having on our towns and cities and this includes some of my colleagues here in the House of Commons.

Last year, according to Home Office statistics 267,670 visas were granted to various categories of ‘worker’ with a further 155,343 granted to their dependants. The figures represented a 95% increase in the number of worker visas and 180% increase on the number granted to their dependants compared with pre-pandemic levels.

Some immigration is not a bad thing, and this issue is too important for some to caricature anyone with concerns as being anti-migrant or even ‘racist’. It can and has had a positive effect on Britain. What we are facing is something very different. It is out of control, and we are creating ghettos with unsurmountable pressures on public services like council housing and education. Some mediocre performing universities seem to be addicted to radically increasing their foreign student intake and using them as cash cows. This is not a healthy long-term strategy for the sector.

To compound this, we have a liberal elite who increasingly are disconnected from real life and seem hell bent on destroying British values and the very things that make Britain a strong and cohesive country. Group identities are hailed over both individual rights and collective citizenship.

The race-washing of and attempts to re-write our history is adding fuel to a fire that is already building. Last week we saw the nonsense academic argument that said black people were discriminated during the black death of the 1300s. These liberal elites are becoming increasingly illiberal and shutting down any form of dissent or argument that goes against their ‘beliefs’. Look what happened to Nigel Farage with his bank account. There are lots of other cases too of ordinary people being hounded from their livelihood for not adhering to these new controversial beliefs.

I was voted in on an election manifesto promise at the last election to radically reduce net flows of immigration. I stand by that promise, those newly in place in the Government absolutely must do the same. If political and civic leaders do not listen and act on these concerns, voters will eventually look elsewhere, as they are doing in our neighbouring countries, like Ireland and the Netherlands.