Peter Mandelson and immigration

Lord Mandelson said:

‘In 2004 when as a Labour government, we were not only welcoming people to come into this country to work, we were sending out search parties for people and encouraging them, in some cases, to take up work in this country.’

Remember that between 1997 and 2010, net migration to Britain totalled more than 2.2 million, that's more than twice the population of Birmingham.
Also remember that the annual net immigration figure quadrupled under Labour from 48,000 people in 1997 to 198,000 by 2009.

It was Andrew Neather who let the cat out of the bag when he revealed why the Labour government deliberately opened "up the UK to mass migration" - It was at least in part due to a politically motivated attempt by ministers to radically change the country and "rub the Right's nose in diversity".

Remember that in this piece I reported the very senior civil servant who said ‘When I was at the Treasury, I argued for the most open door possible to immigration [because] I saw it as my job to maximise global welfare not national welfare.’

Also remember this about the effect of immigration on jobs.

'The myth peddled by Blair's acolytes – that high levels of immigration generated significant economic benefits for the existing UK population – was demolished in 2008 by a House of Lords select committee. It concluded: "We do not support the general claims that net immigration is indispensable to fill labour and skills shortages. Such claims are analytically weak and provide insufficient reason for promoting net immigration." Reinforcing this point, the government's Migration Advisory Committee recently confirmed that immigrants do "displace" some British workers – ie, take their jobs, most likely those at the bottom end of the pay ladder.' 

Nobody should let any Labour  spokesman get away with any comments on immigration, when in power they deliberately engineered a massive rise in immigration, a rise they didn't control because they didn't want to control it. Now as British cities are increasingly split into mono-cultural ghettos and inter-race tensions rise, we are simply reaping the fruits of Labour's policies.


As an aside here's a brief summary of the numbers of people who immigrated to the UK through history:
Hugenots - 40,000-50,000 in 17th century
Indians - 80,000 pre First World War
Africans - Around 15,000 pre First World War
Germans - Around 50,000 pre First World War
East European Jews - 120,000 pre First World War and maybe another 25,000 pre Second World War
Others fleeing Nazi Europe - 50,0000

Let's compare that with immigration post 1997.
Total net migration to the UK rose sharply from 1998 onwards, with levels being above 150,000 in all but one year since 1999. That's 150,000 a year but that's net of Brits leaving the UK.  So an average of 150,000 net is equivalent to half of the immigration to this country across 300 years. Remember that the next time you're told that we've always had immigration into the UK. Also remember that when you hear David Cameron hailing as a success cutting net immigration to under 100,000 a year.