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MIGRANTS

The UNHCR report on Forced Displacement showed that 44,000 people were newly displaced each day in 2017 and the world migrant population grew by 2.9 million to a total of 68.5 million which is much the same size as the UK.

85% of migrants are hosted in developing countries with Turkey providing for 3.5 million and Parkistan and Uganda both housing 1.4 million.

9% of the UK population was born outside the EU. This is similar to Germany with 8.8% but is lower than most European countries such as Ireland 14.9%. However it is higher than both France and Italy who both have only 4.2% of immigrants.

The OECD Policy Debate 2014 says that migrants boost working age populations and they contribute positively to technological areas and to jobs thought to be unattractive or lacking career prospects. The report concludes that they pay more in taxes than they take in benefits as ‘most immigrants, after all, do not come for social benefits but to improve their lives and those of their families’.

Recently there has been a significant rise in the number of migrants attempting to cross the channel in small boats. They are trying to escape poverty, persecution, war or famine in countries such as Iran, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Sudan.

Groups gather in makeshift camps in Northern France waiting for an opportunity to get to the UK. French police have been criticised for their ‘rough treatment’ but if the migrants persist they are often persuaded by people smugglers into paying some £450 each to board a boat. Often 30 people are packed into an inflatable meant for 6 and many are stopped by the French coastguard and returned to France. If, however they are able to dodge the authorities and the heavy sea traffic in the channel they may finally get to the UK.

Here they will be met by a slow bureaucratic process. This prevents them from working and places them in ‘temporary accommodation‘. This can be inadequate, cramped and insanitary, so much so that some asylum seekers are saying of the government “This is part of the hostile environment..... It is as if they are sending the message to us saying, If you can’t take it here, go home”.

A recent BBC Radio 4 More or Less programme talked to Peter Walsh from Oxford University’s Migration Watch who found that when comparing all forms of intake of migrants and comparing them to the size of the population the UK is 20th in the European table. Sweden is highest with 12 per 1000, Germany has 10 and the UK takes only 1 per 1000, leaving only Portugal below us on this list. 

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A recent Guardian article reports that “off the Belgian coast, police found the body of an Iraqi migrant wearing a homemade lifejacket of empty water bottles, who had drowned while trying to swim to the UK”.

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