A former Home Office minister has warned that mass migration has made it “impossible” for people to integrate into British society.
Robert Jenrick, Britain’s former Immigration Minister, said that the level of migration is at an “unprecedented level,” as he argued that immigration must be cut to the tens of thousands. It came as the Tory MP called for “control” to the UK’s immigration system, claiming over the weekend that “you cannot integrate people at this pace.”
Mr Jenrick, who resigned last year, made the comments over the weekend, after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak issued a warning over what he described as a “shocking increase” in extremist activity following the 7th October attacks on Israel, and the subsequent military campaign in Gaza, prompting pro-Palestinain marches across major British cities.
“You cannot resolve this problem, building a united country… built around British values unless you end this era of mass migration,” Mr Jenrick told Telegraph editor Camilla Tominey during an appearance on broadcaster GB News.
“We’ve been living in a time where up to a million people have arrived in our country every year, and it’s impossible to successfully integrate so many people.
“The level of migration we’ve experienced as a country the last 30 years has been unprecedented, and that needs to change,” he added.
‘You cannot integrate people at this pace.'
Former Immigration Minister, Robert Jenrick, reacts to Sunak's warning of the extremist threat to democracy by calling for an end to 'mass migration.' pic.twitter.com/RBkC0Mfs5N
— GB News (@GBNEWS) March 3, 2024
“At this late stage, all that matters are solutions and the first one to me is that you cannot resolve this problem and build a more united country, which is what the Prime Minister was calling for, a more cohesive country built around British values unless you end this era of mass migration.”
“We’ve been living in a time where up to a million people have arrived in our country every year and it is impossible to successfully integrate so many people. The level of migration that we’ve experienced in the country over the last 30 years has been unprecedented and that needs to change,” he said.
“It’s an important part of the solution to say that you can’t integrate people at this pace. And we have to roll back on that now. We have to move to a system where immigration is controlled and orderly and the numbers are just very significantly fewer,” he continued.
“I was elected on a manifesto pledge of tens of thousands. If you look at all of the polling of the public, that is around the level that they would expect, in fact, many people would like it to be less than that. And for a range of reasons, not just these important social questions, economically, in terms of the pressure on housing and public services, we’ve got to get it to that level.”
Asked whether he believed a cap should be put in place, Mr Jenrick responded: “I think we should move to that kind of system. I think we now need to move to something that’s radically different.”
In an op-ed, published in the Daily Mail on Saturday, the former Home Office minister argued that it is “crystal clear to the British public that we have a serious issue with Islamist extremism.”
“From Batley, where a school teacher remains in hiding after receiving death threats for showing pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed, to Barnet, where Mike Freer MP has been hounded out of office for his pro-Israel views, we have consistently seen it rear its ugly head in recent years,” Mr Jenrick wrote.
The MP said that an alliance between “the hard-Left and Islamists” is now on “full display” in the UK, referring to Workers’ Party leader, George Galloway, claiming a decisive victory in Rochdale. Mr Jenrick said “alarm bells should be ringing,” but claimed that “there remains a state of denial in our political and media establishment.”
“Many are worried that they will be smeared as ‘Islamophobic’ for exposing Islamist extremism, even though doing so is in no way anti-Muslim,” he wrote.
Concern from government figures in the UK comes as recent polling found that the majority of people want tighter immigration rules in Ireland. An Irish Times poll last month found that concerns related to pressure on public services and housing.
Almost six in 10 voters (59 per cent) out of 1,200 people polled across Ireland said they favoured a “more closed policy” on immigration, with 16 per cent backing a “more open” policy.
48 per cent of those polled said they believed immigration has been a positive for Ireland, while 35 per cent believed it has been a negative. A large majority of 69 per cent said they would have “some concerns” about the prospect of accommodation for asylum seekers or refugees in their local area.