Does a country have the right to determine the composition of its population? If so, how should it do so? These questions are hard to answer. That is presumably why the government has run what amounts to a "stealth" immigration policy. But that approach is now unworkable. The time has come for a debate. That debate should focus on whether restricting immigration is legitimate, desirable and feasible. Only then can one decide what policy to pursue.
The government is in difficulties on this topic, for three reasons. First, the inflow has been substantial. Between 1997 and 2006, gross immigration was 4.8m and net immigration 1.6m, or 7.8 per cent and 2.6 per cent of the 2006 population, respectively. The latest projections suggest that the population might rise by 4.4m between 2006 and 2016, with immigration generating close to half of this increase.
The second reason is that the government seems to have little idea how many immigrants are in the country. It has just had to admit that the number of foreign-born workers who had arrived since 1997 was 1.5m. Foreigners also seem to have filled more than half of the additional jobs created since 1997. Aware of the potential political risks, the government has announced the continuation of controls on workers from Romania and Bulgaria, and introduced a point system to manage immigration of workers from outside the European Union.
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