The growing rate of open-door migration: Number of new arrivals has surged by 50% under Labour
By James Slack
Last updated at 12:22 AM on 27th October 2009
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The rate at which foreigners are swelling the population has increased by 50 per cent since a secret Government immigration policy document was written.
Critics said it was clear evidence that ministers had implemented the controversial Cabinet Office report.
This allegedly claimed mass immigration would make Britain more multicultural and allow Labour to portray the Tories as racists. Speaking in the Commons yesterday, Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said it would be 'utterly disgraceful' for ministers to base immigration policy on party politics.
He asked Immigration Minister Phil Woolas: 'Can I invite you to put the record straight – what was the motivation behind the very rapid increase in immigration under this Government?'.
Incredibly, Mr Woolas did not appear to know which report Mr Grayling was referring to – despite the widespread coverage it received over the weekend.
Yesterday, the Daily Mail told how ministers were facing calls for an inquiry into claims by former Labour adviser Andrew Neather that the Government opened up Britain's borders in part to try to humiliate Right-wing opponents of immigration.
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His allegations referred to a 2001 report from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a think-tank based in the Cabinet Office, which made the case for mass immigration.
Earlier drafts are said to have included the statement of 'a driving political purpose: that mass immigration was the way that the Government was going to make the UK truly multicultural'.
Now an analysis of officials statistics has found that – from the date the report was published – the number of foreign nationals being allowed into the UK surged.
Whitehall statistics show that in the year of the document's publication, 370,000 non-British nationals arrived. That rose to 416,000 the following year and, by 2006, had reached 510,000.
In 2007, it fell back slightly to 502,000 – but this was still an increase of 30 per cent on 2001.
For net foreign immigration – the number of non-British citizens arriving, versus the number leaving – the figures are more dramatic.
In 2001, it stood at 221,000 – but by 2007 it had reached 333,000 – up by 50 per cent. This is the size of the increase in the foreign-born population of the UK.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: 'Now it has been revealed that mass immigration under this government was a deliberate policy concealed from the public, and especially from the white working class whose lives and neighbourhoods have been most affected.
Now immigration will add another seven million to our population over the next 25 years unless really serious measures are taken to cut immigration by at least 75 per cent.'
Opponents claim Labour's bungling of immigration policy has contributed to the growth of the BNP.
Mr Neather, who worked for Tony Blair and Jack Straw, said Labour's relaxation of immigration controls was a attempt to engineer a 'truly multicultural' country and plug gaps in the jobs market. He claimed the 2001 policy paper inspired the 'major shift' in immigration policy.
Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who was then Home Secretary, has dismissed Mr Neather's claims as ' complete rubbish'.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1223223/The-growing-rate-open-door-migration-Number-new-arrivals-surged-50-Labour.html#ixzz0VeN7u6Kr
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