Britain's problems are worsened by massive immigration.

• Position: CASE STUDY: Polish Migrants to Britain: Pros and Cons - Viewpoint essay

Immigration is now on an unprecedented scale. East Asians from Uganda and elsewhere in East Africa who arrived in the mid-1970's amounted to 27,000. We are now taking 12 times that number every year. Recently, concern has focused on immigration from Eastern Europe. In the first two years since 2004 when eight new countries joined the European Union, 447,000 have registered--62 percent from Poland. The actual number of immigrants is estimated by the Home Office at 600,000. It is not known how many have since returned home. About half say that their employment is temporary, but even if they have all returned, net immigration from Eastern Europe would be about 150,000 a year (compared to the government's prediction of a maximum of 13,000). Anecdotal evidence would suggest that this estimate is too low. Migration from the new EU countries is, of course, in addition to immigration from the rest of the world, now running at nearly 300,000 a year.

Immigration (immigrants and their descendants) will now account for 83 percent of future population growth in the United Kingdom. The population projections took account of increased migration resulting from the expansion of the EU but they assumed that total migration flows would rapidly decrease from 255,000 in 2004-5 to just 145,000 in 2007-8. So far there has been no sign of a decrease in immigration from the new EU countries and the accession of Bulgaria and Romania (and possibly other East and Southern European countries) will add to immigration pressures.

The economic benefit from this in-flow is very limited. Government arguments are fallacious. Immigration is not essential to our economic growth. It adds to economic growth but also adds nearly proportionately to our population so that the benefit to the host community is small. (A result found also in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands.) In the UK it amounts to about 25 [pounds sterling] per head per year.

Immigrants will have little impact on our ability to pay pensions in future: immigrants, too, will age and require pensions. their financial input to the Exchequer is, despite government claims, approximately neutral.

Immigration is welcome to many employers because it holds down pay levels, especially for the unskilled, and contributes to lower interest rates. It can also be a source of cheap skilled labor with no training costs. But it is the taxpayer who picks up all the costs of the extra infrastructure required. The extra population...