Immigration is Bad For Britain | Douglas Murray

[Music] well thank you very much it's been a very interesting uh debate um it's very nice to be back at the Oxford Union apologies for being poorly dressed um I did have black tie when I was at Oxford but it's more than 12 years ago now and I tried on my black tie earlier and it looks less like a dinner suit than a wet suit um but uh not withstanding my address um I would like to tackle some of the things that have not been tackled that answer some of the speeches that have already come from both sides and to address what I think is an issue we have to take seriously because it's about our future as a country and a society and it's in my opinion not going to be easy and it's going to require quite a lot of Fairly clear tough Frank Thinking let me first of all give you some facts we have to start this off from the facts the 2011 census which was published last year showed that the number of people living in England and Wales who were born overseas Rose by nearly 3 million in the last decade alone uh only 44.9% of London residents now tick the Box saying that they are white British and nearly 3 million people in England and Wales now live in households where not one adult speaks English as their main language uh London in lond 23 of London's 33 London Burrows in 23 of those 33 London bers people who identify themselves as white Britains are now in a minority um a spokesman by the way for the office of national statistics hailed that as diversity but I can assure you that some of those Burrows are not diverse at all on the matter of the rate of immigration let's just clear up something thing nobody on my side I certainly am not against immigration and that is not what the motion is about and you can reinvent it however much you want but that's not what it's about it's that there has been too much and I would say like I think other speakers have already said that that too much did not happen in the 50s or the 60s or the 70s or the 80s it happened under the labor government in the 1990s and the early 2000s there is a motif that this country has always been a nation of immigrants that is not true it is not true for most of this country's history there was a very homogeneous group of people on these islands and the idea excuse me the idea that what is happening now is what has always happened is simply a fib and you have to look to this the hugos are always given as an example a very good example and a group that 50,000 Hugo came to this country um in the in the period uh of the 1680s onwards now 50,000 hugos over the period of years was equal to about two months of immigration in the 1990s 50,000 was about two months the Ugandan Asians expelled by ID Yamin which this country I think rightly took in numbered 30,000 people 30,000 people by the late 1990s was 6 weeks of immigration so my point to you first of all is that the speed and the rate matters and it matters for a reason which I am going to come back to in a moment but first let me mention some of the arguments that have come up which do need answering about this the first is the inevitable argument that the reason why we need Mass immigration and have needed it is because there are jobs that British people will not do and we need to import people to do those jobs let me say to you as frankly as it is possible to say that is one of the most racist arguments you can hear it suggests that there are jobs which British people not only don't want to do but shouldn't do don't have to do we don't have to even encourage them to do please you've had your go we don't even need to encourage them to do but we will go around the rest of the world and Hoover up people who are willing to work for nothing because it provides us with cheap nannies and cheap waiters in restaurants and so on I think it's a lamentable argument the second argument you can hear and we had it already tonight is the argument about uh the hoovering up as I would put it of the the other end as it were of the economic spectrum that it is the best idea possible that we will travel around the world and Hoover up nurses and doctors in Africa and across other regions of the world that we can take people from the third world who the third world has superbly educated and make sure they benefit us again I think a lamentable argument look the argument on immigration often comes down to net benefits is it an economic net benefit or an economic uh uh problem you can incidentally on the material in this find pretty much a 50/50 divide about 50% of the studies say that there's a huge uh impact positively for the country about the other 50% say the opposite and by the way that even goes Lord Singh to the study you cited you cited the UCL study that same study found that between 1995 and 2011 migrants in the UK received 95 billion more in services and benefits than they than they contributed in taxes that's the same study that you cited another one that we get told and we got it from someone on the floor we need immigrants because they're going to pay our pensions ladies and gentlemen wherever the gentleman is let me tell you something a shocking fact immigrants get old as well an amazing fact which means which means that if if you have that model every single year you need to import more and more immigrants because you need to support that it's known as the pyramid or migration model and it doesn't work either look one of the strange things about having this debate is this everyone thinks that they have to tiptoe I'm sure you're nervous about walking through the proposition Lobby tonight I'm sure you are because this is a issue which is is fervid and feted in all sorts of ways but one of The Oddities about this is that there is complete political unanimity on this side of the house complete political unanimity Jack straw who was one of the labor ministers who presided over that catastrophic period of two fast immigration now says he said it in November of last year that it was a spectacular mistake that's his words a spectacular mistake David milleran now labor leader says that at the next general election oh Ed very easily done apologies Ed millerand now labor leader um says that if he wins the next general election which he could he will bring net immigration down because he realizes his party got this wrong he said in September of last year I want to get overall immigration down David Cameron nadim's party leader the man who would be properly prime minister perhaps in 2015 said in his speech last year in 25th of March he said Contra Nadim to your argument quote under the previous government immigration was far too high and the system was badly out of control net migration needs to come down radically that's the words of the Prime Minister this is not a an out Rider argument it's what all the main political parties now say they say it because it's what the public think think 77% of the people uh in the British social attitudes poll last year said they wanted immigration to come down almost 60% said they wanted it to come down by a lot that's the British people's opinion and the politicians are simply amazingly having to try to answer that and a serious need now I'm aware that the Bell has gone but let me very quickly uh address the issue if I can find it that came up from a couple of people and this is the key thing I really wanted to mention if I may have a moment this issue of our values I hate hearing this this we don't know who we are because quite often it leads to the thing of we're not anything Britain isn't anything Britain never existed it's not an identity and so on one of the reasons you hear that is because it is an attempt I think an honest and a decent attempt by people to answer a real question when you have migration at the rate this country has had it it in recent years you have to expand and water down your definition of what you are because you have people coming in so fast that what would have been your definitions of yourself stop holding if you asked somebody 50 years ago what is britishness what what are British values they would have said it very clearly they are epitomized in a set of historic institutions in the institutions of parliament in the institutions of of trial by jury and the high courts in the Great Schools and universities they would have said the monarchy they would have said the Church of England why is it now that we have this big endless debate who are we what are we it's because we want to welcome people but it's happened so fast we have to end up doing things like saying britishness is about fair play or being nice to people everyone wants to be nice to people very few people would say our identity as a country is being mean to people but we water it down because it's what we think we have to do and in a way we're right in a way we're right because it has become very difficult to say what britishness is or can be or should be for people when immigration happens at this kind of rate I would submit ladies and gentlemen this is something which in your lifetime and mine is going to be a colossal issue migration does bring all sorts of benefits when it comes at this sort of rate I would argue it also brings some very negative things as well and one of the things that is is that people of this country including many many immigrants and I'll finish on this many immigrants including first and second immigrant second first and second generation immigrants now say there is a problem with the speed of immigration because it changes the country it is all very well to say that we are open to people who share our values but if our values water down and the people who come here come at the rate they have it is not surprising that we will end up arguing for immigration as an economic thing because we will be giving up our culture we will be giving up our identity and we will be saying what some people now do say which is that the peoples of Britain and Europe have lost their place in the world I think it is right for people to have a place they call home an identity that they're proud of I think it for all people around the world and I think it for the people of this country and I hope tonight you can vote to say you think that too thank you

Channel: OxfordUnion

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Id: 1ehGhwfd4sM

Length: 11min 58sec (718 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 31 2014