By some distance the scariest news of the week came from that unexciting body, the Office for National Statistics. You didn’t think statisticians could actually frighten the life out of you? Well, suck on this: according to them, 10 million (9,914,000 people) will come to settle in the UK from abroad in the next ten years. That’s right; about a million a year. It estimates the population will pass 70 million by the middle of next year rising to 75 million in 15 years’ time. Given that nearly five million people will leave the UK in the same ten years, we’re left with five million more people in a decade.
A nice round figure, isn’t it, ten million? And I think it’s actually the more important number than the five million net figure which includes people leaving as well as coming in. The people who are arriving tend to be from outside the EU and English speaking countries like Australia – Nigeria, Pakistan are at the top of the list – and many will be from very different cultures. Some, like Kemi Badenoch, will not just integrate, but actually galvanise the country; lots won’t. Whether you’re reaction to the figures is, “yay, more vibrant diversity”, or just “uh oh” or simply, “Christ!”, I think we can agree that there are challenges ahead in the way of what is politely termed social cohesion, or to put it another way, feeling that the country is recognisably what it was.
