In that case I think we're arguing past eachother and making different points. You're not really replying to the point I'm making (well you are, you're just making a whole other argument).Yeeb wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 10:40 amI’m saying that if you can ignore the huge leap Blair onwards caused , then I can show your own data was largely irrelevant and that yearly changes +/-100k pa is largely irrelevant on its own as a stat, and one even the most ardent reformer says is ‘sustainable’._Os_ wrote: Fri May 16, 2025 10:21 amFirst paragraph is irrelevant to the point I'm making, which is that Thatcher's economic changes in the '80s started the increase in immigration. I've made no argument about what is sustainable and if it is good or bad. The point is simply that she changed the structure of the UK economy in a significant way and the impacts have rolled out over time. Conservatives always underestimate how revolutionary the market is, which is why you never manage to conserve anything. Thatcher opened up a freer market in labour.Yeeb wrote: Wed May 14, 2025 8:51 am
If you actually read the source of your data you would find the bit where they say that net movements +/- 100k per year are deemed to have no effect on overall county demographics due to being under 0.02% of the population and immaterial to the vagaries of normal birth and death rates across different demographics. That aligns to past targets from Cameron etc that +100k per year is ‘sustainable’ , whilst 1.1m per year is not. All you have really proved is that any net movements pre Blair were in fact sustainable and immaterial (backed up by the overall population growth during years of net emigration from the Uk)
Looking at only Net figures are a bit silly really, if 1m white Essex chavs emigrated to Costa del Boys in 1979 and 1m Pakistani males under 30 moved to Essex in the same year, there would be zero net movement and yet the demographics of the area would change considerably - this is in fact what has happened, not your Thatch-fest 2+2=5 dumbness of aligning cause and effect for your own agenda.
Second paragraph, we've been over this already and I gave you a graph for that too. Immigration went up in absolute terms and relative to emigration (net), starting with Thatcher.
In response to what you're saying (increase under Blair what is and isn't sustainable). New Labour started trying to control immigration once they were pressured on the issue by the BNP, the graph shows under New Labour it wasn't a march ever upwards it stabilised at around 250k net. The thing is the Tories tried to roll that back further after 2010 and could not (pre-Brexit, pre-Big Dog), their efforts made life more inconvenient for immigrants legally in the UK and that was about it, but they weren't trying to pack immigrants in. From about 2005-2015 you basically have two at least somewhat competent governments involving all three main parties, and they could not push immigration down to the levels you want, that was in more economically favourable conditions for at least part of that time too (although arguably, worse economic conditions help if you want immigration reduced)..
Reform have to be measured on what they're saying, and what they're saying is "net zero" not "100k a year net is okay". They talk about it like a night club "one person leaves one may come in". Of course as you've pointed out in reply to me, you still get demographic change that way, but I'm sure the Reformers definitely realise that and know what they're voting for.
As for what is sustainable what has happened post-Brexit doesn't look sustainable. But what is and isn't does start getting a bit how long is a piece of string, what is the basis for saying 100k is sustainable but 250k is not? What if I say 0 to 50k is sustainable and your claim of 100k is outrageous and unsustainable?