We are all immigrants, or descendants of immigrants. Britain was under ice and snow till about 10,000 years ago,  so all our “native” heritage has been created since then.

The biggest immigration impact was the Romans who ran us for 400 years and brought very many people here from all over their empire. This was the most significant cultural impact in British history. Then in 1066 very large numbers of Normans came here and were given the whole country and everything in it. The pre-existing population became serfs, little more than slaves. The Normans brought their culture and language and imposed it on us, in a diluted form.

In more recent times we saw big immigration from Huguenots in the late 1600s, in the mid 1800s the potato famines brought huge numbers of Irish here, then because of Nazi oppression lots of  Jews and Poles arrived before WW2.

These are just a few of the mass influxes that Britain has experienced over the centuries. They have made Great Britain, our culture, our language, our national identity. We are a nation of immigrants. Dig back in anyone’s family history and there will be immigrants.

So why the current ferment over the issue of immigration? Partly this is due the the sheer number of people who have arrived, due to government policy and the ease of modern travel. Partly down to sensationalising by the newspapers aimed at less educated people and by unprincipled opportunist politicians, such as UKIP. Partly down to government policy that has not sought to integrate new arrivals. Partly down to our excessively generous system of benefits and social care.  And partly due to the very nature of some groups of immigrants who seek to impose their way of life on us.

So lets look at who most of these immigrants are (with huge and inevitable generalisations):

• Black Afro Caribbeans. Although small numbers had lived here since the days of the slave trade there was a deliberate government policy to bring very large numbers here to meet perceived labour shortages. It will be no surprise that this was done by a Labour government and the MV Empire Windrush, the first ship, arrived here in 1948. These immigrants are very Anglicised, coming from our former colonies, they speak English, are Church of England and play cricket. They have integrated well into British society with very high levels of inter-marriage and they have made great contributions to British life. We are very happy to have them here. The main problems are cultural, such as drug usage, gangsterism and paternal irresponsibility.
• Indian Hindus and Sikhs. Once again very Anglicised. But not Church of England, not with English as their first language and not very good at inter-marrying with British natives. A big influx came with the Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin in 1972. They then acted as a bridgehead for very many friends and family to come here. These tend to be well educated people who are businessmen. They are proud to be British and they want their children to be doctors and lawyers. They do not try and impose their values on us. They have contributed enormously to British life.
• EU citizens. The principles of the EU are the free movement of goods, capital and labour. Anyone who understands even basic economics will understand the immense benefits of this to everyone. The people who come here have a vast common European culture but usually don’t have English as their first language, though they work very hard at this and usually quickly become fluent. They come here to work and to build a life. They are well educated and Britain wins enormously by not having to pay for that education. They fit in well, are happy to inter marry and mostly try to become British, unless they don’t intend to stay here long.
• Muslims. These have arrived in immense numbers under the policies of the Blair and Brown governments. They tend to be poorly educated and come from places like Somalia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, North Africa and the Middle East. They mostly do not speak English. They mostly don’t want to integrate, but want to lead their primitive lifestyles here, but financed by the British benefits system.  More than this they largely want to impose their lifestyle and values on the rest of us (Islamism). They often don’t want to become British. So we have 170,000 girls who have suffered from female genital mutilation (FGM), we have forced marriage as the norm, we have widespread election rigging, we have honour crimes, we have suppression of women by burqa and hijab, we have sex grooming gangs and we have bombs in London.  They tend not to integrate and so form ghettoes in places like Tower Hamlets, Newham, Blackburn, Bradford, Luton, Redbridge and Slough. They have quickly risen to 5% of the population and, with very high birthrates and continued immigration, will soon reach 10%, then more. Most of our one million illegal immigrants are Muslim, so don’t show in these percentages.

The next question is why do we need these immigrants?

• To supply labour in industrial concentration of skills. The City of London is the world’s financial centre, it attracts the best and brightest from all over the world to work in it. We are very lucky to have them. Leamington Spa has the biggest concentration of video game companies in the world, over 50 of them in a town population of 50,000. This attracts game developers from all over the world.
• To address skills shortages. For instance Jaguar Land Rover in the British Midlands is expanding very rapidly, as are its many suppliers. In many skills they have run out of people to employ so have no option but to recruit from abroad.
• Demographics. Britain has a disproportionately ageing population as a result of the post war baby boom.  These people need to be looked after as they get older, taxes need to be paid to finance their pensions. And replacements need to be found to do their jobs when they retire.
• The very low quality of the native British labour pool. Here a fifth of school leavers are functionally illiterate, two fifths are functionally innumerate. Large numbers of school leavers then get useless university degrees instead of valuable vocational qualifications. A high percentage of people have made the lifestyle choice of dependency culture, to exist fecklessly in our over generous benefits system. Many British people think they are too good to do jobs that immigrants are glad to do.

So is there a problem and what is it?

• Multiculturalism, a society “at ease with the rich tapestry of human life and the desire amongst people to express their own identity in the manner they see fit” is a ridiculous and unattainable socialist ideal. Its implementation costs an immense fortune and the end result is ghettoes. What we really need is integration.
• Political correctness. Another socialist idea. This means that if we discuss immigration we are racist. It means that all institutions and services have to practice positive discrimination. That we have to supply translators for every language under the sun and countless other such wastes of money.
• Social cohesion. Often it is not the change but the rate of change. So a town or a city district becomes no longer British. It becomes uncomfortable for a native Britain to live there. All sense of community is fragmented.
• European disparities. When a new country joins the EU we have the option of transition agreements which restrict the flow of labour. The UK had these in place for Bulgaria and Romania, but not for Poland. People in poor countries are incentivised to move to rich countries. But this effect is temporary as the once poor country catches up, as we have seen in Spain, Poland etc. Another example of an EU disparity is the French socialists punitively taxing the rich, so many have moved here.
• Nasty, opportunist politicians who prey on people’s fears. UKIP implied that 29 million Romanians and Bulgarians would be coming to Britain. A huge lie that was believed by the hard of thinking. Such politicians are utterly despicable. They use exactly the same tactics of blame that have been used against immigrant minorities throughout history, often with tragic results. Anyone who votes for them should be ashamed.
• Islam. This is not a religion, it is a way of life. And it is a way of life that is utterly incompatible with the liberal British way of life. So British Moslems need to adapt and make compromises in order to live here. Most of them do to a lesser or greater extent. But we need to massively increase the rate and the level of integration. Forced marriage has now been made illegal, this must be enforced, as must FGM law. Religion must be totally banned from all schools. There is no place whatsoever for Sharia law. Women covering their face in public must be made illegal, as it is in France. Muslims must not be allowed to get away with behaviour that other Brits aren’t allowed.
• Available housing and infrastructure. Fly over Britain in a helicopter and you will quickly see that most of it is factory farms, very little land area is built on. Industrialised agriculture is more important here than the quality of life of the population. We have plenty of room to double, triple or quadruple our population. Our problem is archaic and ridiculous planning laws, not the people who want to come and work here.
• Benefits and NHS tourism. People come from all over the world for free hospital treatment here, they can take on the identity of a friend or relative who lives here then present at A&E, or they can just throw themselves at the system and claim poverty. Either way this has become a big proportion of what we are paying the NHS to do. Likewise our over generous and ridiculous benefits system. If over a million natives choose it as a lifestyle choice it is hardly surprising that foreigners come here to also use it. Both these forms of tourism can be reduced very easily and eradicated with some effort. It just takes political will. The current government has already made some progress. It has to be said , though, that the vast majority of EU migrants come here to work. Only a very small percentage are feckless.

So, as you can see immigration defines Britishness, it enriches our society and nation in countless ways. Sometime it brings problems, but these are not insurmountable. If we make it so that people can only come here to work then the natural market of supply and demand will control numbers to be exactly what the nation needs. Immigration is also a two way street, very large numbers of Brits have chosen to live in countries all over the world. So it would be hypocritical to act against immigration without bringing all these people back.