Daily Management Review

UK's Foreign Population Highest Ever, Set to cross 8 million


08/26/2015




UK's Foreign Population Highest Ever, Set to cross 8 million
Academics from Oxford University's Migration Observatory said that UK's foreign-born population is set to top 8 million for the first time ever. The official figures on this are due to be released by the Office for National Statistics on Thursday.
 
The key factors driving this trend are believed to be the relatively fast recovery of the Britain's economy coupled with the expansion of the European Union.  
 
“In the last few years we have had a situation where the UK economy recovered a bit faster than in the other EU countries," Madeleine Sumption, director of the Oxford University's Migration Observatory explained. 

The data that was last released by the government in 2013 showed that there were 7.9 million people living in the UK who were born overseas. It is obvious that the number has gone up ever since the last data collection and is headed to be the largest ever in the history of Britain.
 
"Given that we know net migration has been running in the hundreds of thousands since 2013, it would be surprising if the foreign-born population didn't go above eight million,” Sumption commented.
 
The data further reveals that most of the 8 million foreign-born migrants living in the UK are non-EU citizens. This trend happened in Britain despite the share of EU migration approached half of all non British migration.

Experts and sociologists like Alp Mehmet, of Migration Watch UK claim that more resources were needed to "get immigration back under control".
 
"This very rapid increase in our population is the direct consequence of Labour's mass immigration which the coalition was unable to bring under control," said Mehmet.
 
It was perhaps coincidental that a day earlier, the UK government made public the details of the new measures that are to be contained in the Immigration Bill proposed to be placed in parliament and expected to come into force in Autumn.
 
Last week the UK government had said it was considering all options to prevent illegal migrants from entering the Channel Tunnel while referring ot the possible measures in the Immigration Bill.
 
“We have and continue to consider all potential courses of action to improve security at the Channel Tunnel in Coquelles and to prevent any loss of life,” David Cameron’s office said in a statement on Friday.
 
“A number of new security measures have been introduced and ministers both here and in France keep the situation under constant review,” the statement said.
 
In recent times, there have been several attempts by migrants trying to reach the UK through the Eurotunnel terminal at the French port town of Calais. The attempts resulted in the death of a Sudanese asylum seeker after he was hit by a truck that was leaving a cross-Channel ferry. Another Sudanese man was arrested fater he walked the entire 31 kilometres of the channel.
 
In June last year, the net long-term migration to the UK rose to 260,000 which was an increase of 182,000 since 2013. This rise in 2014 was largely contributed by a rise of European working migrants by up 45,000 to 247,000.
 
This year however the trend has changed with more non EU country citizens have illegally immigrated into the UK
 
(Source:www.theguardian.com &  www.digitallook.com)