Mass migration is causing a housing crisis while failing to increase wealth per person, according to Robert Jenrick, who resigned as Minister of State for immigration at the end of 2023. Jenrick, who previously served as Secretary of State for Housing, Communities, and Local Government under Boris Johnson, warned the British government has become “hooked” on mass migration — but it is not improving the economy and amounts to a “betrayal to voters.”
A reduction in net legal immigration “from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands” was promised by Jenrick’s Conservative Party ahead of the 2010, 2015, and 2017 elections, and an “overall” reduction was promised ahead of the 2019 election. The Brexit campaign was also fought mainly on an anti-immigration basis. However, the Conservatives increased net immigration from 196,000 in 2009 to 745,000 in 2022, and illegal immigration is also at unprecedented levels.
“[T]he economic model that we’ve become hooked on isn’t working,” Jenrick admitted. “If importing hundreds of thousands of foreign workers to the UK was a route to prosperity, the UK would be one of the richest countries in the world. Instead, for almost the last two years we’ve had a recession in GDP per capita… I care about the prosperity of our own citizens, not the overall size of the economy.”
HOUSING CRISIS.
Jenrick stressed that government “modeling of the benefits of immigration has consistently overlooked the fiscal costs arising from pressure on housing, public services, and welfare.” On housing, in particular, he noted that the country currently would “have to build a house every five minutes, day and night, purely to keep up with the level of net migration to this country” — a feat that is not being accomplished, driving up home prices and rents and causing severe shortages of public housing.
The United States also suffers due to dogmatic beliefs that immigration benefits the economy. In early April, globalist media outlet Semafor argued “[t]he border crisis might be a boon for the economy,” citing an economist who formerly worked at Joe Biden’s White House.
The cost of housing, feeding, and otherwise caring for illegal aliens is costing billions of dollars across multiple states, near and far from the southern border.
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