00:00:00.000In communities across Canada, hourly Amazon employees can grow their skills and their paycheck by enrolling in free skills training programs for in-demand fields.
00:00:13.340Broadway's smash hit, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.
00:00:21.620The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.
00:00:30.880Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, the Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.
00:00:37.600Now through June 7th, 2026 at the Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:00:50.060I still remember my confusion nearly 25 years ago when I read an article on the BBC in which Barbara Roche, Tony Blair's immigration minister, called Britain a country of migrants.
00:01:01.820I was in my last year of school and not remotely political.
00:01:04.560I found the quote shocking not because of its political implications, but simply because I had, up to that point, done my best to educate myself on the history of this country.
00:01:14.720Nowhere in my reading had I found any justification for the claim that Britain's history was defined or even significantly shaped by immigration.
00:01:22.160Before we look at the facts, it is worth observing that Roche's claim is now widely regarded as self-evident.
00:01:28.500When I once challenged the notion that Britain was a nation of immigrants on Ian Dale's LBC show, Ian was shocked and asked me to clarify.
00:01:36.200Journalists and commentators in our public space regularly claim that immigrants, quote, built Britain.
00:01:41.220I could give example after example, but let's be honest, for all intents and purposes in the public space, this matter has been effectively settled, until last week at least.
00:01:51.500A recent report from the University of Buckingham produced by Matthew Goodwin predicts that people born abroad and their descendants will constitute the majority of the British population by 2079.
00:02:01.800This statistic triggered into action commentators like David Aronovich, who responded by claiming that the foreign born and their descendants covers just about everyone in the country.
00:02:12.400On question time last Thursday, Mark Savotka, the former head of one of Britain's major unions, claimed that Britain is the great country that it is because of centuries of immigration that brought us cultural enrichment, supporting our public services and some of our greatest things, before adding that we should be proud of it to inevitable applause.
00:02:31.800Let's set the politics aside for a moment and look at the facts.
00:02:35.720The Norman Conquest following the Battle of Hastings in 1066 brought around 5,000 to 10,000 people from what is now France.
00:02:43.380England's foreign born population at that time was in the low single digits, possibly as low as 1%.
00:02:48.560This remained unchanged for centuries, with a 1440 survey recording just 14,500 foreign born residents in England, which was about 1%.
00:02:57.100From 1330 to 1550, total immigration is estimated at 65,000 people.
00:03:03.580During the early modern period, about 1,000 people a year came to England over the course of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.
00:03:11.040The following 100 years saw a significant increase, primarily through a large wave of Irish people fleeing the Great Famine in the 1840s.
00:03:19.180In total, Britain's foreign born population increased by between 1.5 and 2 million people in the 19th century.
00:03:26.300If that sounds like a lot, remember that this occurred over 100 years, i.e. an annual increase of between 15,000 and 20,000 people.
00:03:35.300By 1901, Britain's foreign population had risen from 0.5% to a whopping 1.5%.
00:03:41.780The first half of the 20th century saw little change to this, with between 10,000 and 14,000 arrivals annually.
00:03:49.060This included immigration related to both world wars and from the Commonwealth.
00:03:53.260By 1951, the foreign born population of the UK was 4.5%.
00:03:58.140Despite significant post-war immigration, between 1951 and 2001, average net migration into Britain is estimated at just 7,800 people a year.
00:04:09.560Taking the 1990s as a separate decade, it was much higher, but still just 40,000 annually.
00:04:15.280As late as 1996, the year I moved to Britain, net immigration was running at 55,000 people a year.
00:04:23.040By this point, the foreign born population of the UK had risen, but only to 7%.
00:04:27.760To summarize this barrage of figures, immigrants have played a small but not insignificant role throughout British history,
00:04:34.000making up a few percent of the population.
00:04:38.080Britain was at its peak as a nation during the 19th and early 20th century, losing its dominance in terms of territory, population, wealth, and global influence in the wake of World War II.
00:04:48.640Of course, individual immigrants and their children made significant contributions during this period,
00:04:53.760including the great engineer Eisenberg King and Brunel, Michael Marx, the co-founder of Marx and Spencers, and the author Joseph Conrad.
00:05:00.840But we must not lose sight of the fact that Britain's glory days were built by its native population.
00:05:06.080The reason we're having this nonsensical debate, of course, is that the claim that Britain is a nation of immigrants serves two different purposes.
00:05:14.440First, in a world of global infotainment, the cultures of different countries, especially in the English-speaking world, are converging.
00:05:21.680This is why British TV channels and column inches are filled with commentary about American politics,
00:05:27.060and why American commentators tweet themselves into a rage over events here in Britain.
00:05:32.800The phrase, a nation of immigrants, is a foolish and misguided import from our American cousins,
00:05:38.020in whose context it is actually relevant and true.
00:05:41.160The uneducated, uninformed, and often dishonest elements of British progressivism
00:05:45.400use this phrase for the same reason BLM protesters in London chanted,
00:05:49.760hands up, don't shoot, at British police officers who do not carry guns.