Migration Watch UK is a British think-tank and campaign group which argues for lower immigration into the United Kingdom. Founded in 2001, the group believes that international migration places undue demand on limited resources and that the current level of immigration is not sustainable.
The group has been praised for what is seen as improving the quality of debate around immigration while others have suggested that the group is anti-immigration and have criticised what they say are faults in the group's studies.
Lord Green of Deddington, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, is the founder and president of the group. Alp Mehmet, former ambassador to Iceland, is its current chairman. David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, is an honorary consultant.
History
MigrationWatch UK was founded in December 2001 by Sir Andrew Green, former ambassador to Saudi Arabia. In an article in The Independent, Deborah Orr writes that the organisation came into being when, "after reading some of his anti-immigration letters in The Times", the then Sir Andrew approached David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford University, and they subsequently set up MigrationWatch.
The group first came to public attention in 2002 when it stated that immigration, including an estimate of illegal immigrants, was running at two million per decade "and probably more". This claim was challenged at the time by a number of public commentators, with an editorial in The Independent at the time criticising what it called "tendentious projections and the deliberate citing of the vast populations of countries such as India to frighten people and wreck any rational debate". Two years later, Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph would argue that Government Actuary's Department forecasts that the UK population would increase by six million people due to immigration over three decades "appear to confirm claims made by Migrationwatch two years ago, when the group first sprang to prominence". A later Telegraph editorial following the 2011 Census would call the group's initial claims "overly cautious".
The group quickly attracted the attention of Home Secretary David Blunkett, who in 2002 set up a unit intended to monitor and rebut the organisation and sought to control the timing of statistical releases to avoid pressure from it.
The organisation has an advisory council, which is chaired by Baron Green and whose members include David Coleman and Caroline Cox, Baroness Cox, Alp Mehmet, former ambassador to Iceland, and Roger Williams.
Outputs
MigrationWatch's website contains a range of briefing papers to support the organisation's perspective on the statistical, legal, economic and historical aspects of migration, and on topics such as the European Union, housing, health and social cohesion, as they relate to immigration. It has also helped to contribute to briefings on immigration for third parties such as the BBC.
MigrationWatch has been frequently cited and seen its spokespeople featured in British newspapers such as the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Daily Express and Daily Star. as well as British broadcast media such as BBC News and ITV News.
In October 2011, the group started a petition on the UK Parliament petitions website calling on the government to take "all necessary steps" to stop the UK's population exceeding 70 million. The petition reached over 100,000 signatures.
Policy stances
Immigration flows
MigrationWatch argues that the growth of the population of the United Kingdom through international migration is a key "factor driving problems around pressure on school places, the NHS, housing and the transport infrastructure". The group in 2018 argued that migration was linked to 82% of population growth between 2001 and 2016, when combining both net migration and children born to immigrant parents. In the same year it predicted that the population of the United Kingdom would exceed 70 million by 2026.