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Sometimes, what matters in politics is how one issue merges with another to produce an explosive reaction.
Think about the last decade.
In the 2010s, it was the fusion of immigration with the European Union which collided to pave the way for Nigel Farage, Brexit, and then Boris Johnson, dramatically expanding the amount of space for these populist revolts.
Now look at the years ahead.
If I’m right, based on what you’re about to read, then the 2020s and the 2030s will likely see immigration become linked with a very different issue in a way that will produce a similarly explosive result.
And what is that issue? It’s housing.
As I said in a television debate this week, which has since gone viral, the blunt reality is that millions of ordinary people up and down Britain are utterly fed-up with how immigration is driving up house prices, rents and flooding social housing.
This is best symbolised, as I said during the debate, by the fact that about half of all social housing in London, the country’s capital city, now goes to households that are headed by somebody who was not even born in Britain.
Cue the outburst of outrage among professional elites on social media whose luxury beliefs lead them to simultaneously demand more immigration while knowing full well they are the least likely to feel its effects on the housing market.
Was I wrong to say this? Not at all.
The fact that mass immigration is worsening our housing crisis should not be a controversial point. In fact, it’s common sense. And anybody who has actually bothered to look at the evidence knows this full well.
Let me share a few remarkable statistics.
Last year, we built 177,000 houses in England and 204,000 in Britain —well short of the government’s official target of 300,000 homes.
But that target is based on the assumption that Britain is running a net migration rate of around 170,000 each year —something it’s not done for more than a decade.
In reality, as we saw last week, Britain has now been running record net migration rates of 745,000 in 2022, and 672,000 in 2023.
What does this mean for housing?
It means —as the Centre for Policy Studies points out— that Britain actually needs to build at least 515,000 new homes each year —more than half of which are needed just to keep up with the extra demand because of immigration.
In England, to put this in context, it means that last year we only built around one-third of the homes that we now need to build because of immigration.
We should be able to talk about this openly. We should be able to talk about how immigration is fuelling the housing crisis, driving up house prices and making many homes unaffordable for British families and British workers.
Don’t believe me? Here’s what researchers at the University of Oxford recently said:
“ … there is some evidence that migration is likely to have increased house prices in the UK. For example, the Migration Advisory Committee (2018) found that a 1-percentage point increase in the UK’s population due to migration increased house prices by 1% … Their finding was broadly consistent with other modelling by the former MHCLG (2018) and the Office for Budget Responsibility (Auterson, 2014).”
In fact, there’s more evidence than people like to think.
In Spain, for example, a recent study found that a 1-point increase in the rate of immigration increases average house sale prices by 3.3% (as did this one).
And while in Britain one (old) study suggested immigration lowers house prices this was only because more affluent locals ended up selling their homes and leaving their communities altogether —no doubt alarmed at what was unfolding.
Record immigration has not only been driving up house prices; it’s also been driving up rents in the private rental market, something that becomes immediately obvious to anybody who has had to attend a viewing with some two dozen other applicants.
The fact that, in 2022, net migration is estimated to have added at least half a million people to England’s already absurd rental market is something most pro-immigration lobbyists, MPs, academics, and columnists, who usually live in their own homes, made possible by privileged parents, are unlikely to ever encounter.
According to Oxford’s Migration Observatory, while only 14% of UK-born people are in the private rental market this figure surges to 37% among the foreign-born and then, remarkably, to almost 75% among recent immigrants. In London, too, the foreign-born are more than twice as likely to be in the private rental market.
It is this mass immigration which partly helps to explain why 2023 saw the sharpest year-on-year increase in average rents since records began, in 2006. According to recent research, immigration increased private rents by 8% while fuelling demand for another 205,000 rental homes, underlining the growing pressures and how many of us are now stuck in a never-ending doom loop with no end in sight.
And, as I said in that debate, mass immigration is also piling enormous pressure on Britain’s social housing sector, which used to be reserved for impoverished British nationals who had been paying into the collective pot for years, who had long roots in their local communities, and who were considered to have good character.
Today, however, things are very different.
Nationally, as the Migration Observatory points out, between 2019 and 2021 16% of UK-born people were living in social housing compared to 18% of the foreign-born.
That figure then climbs to 19% among people born in Pakistan or elsewhere in South Asia, and then to a striking 30% among the rising number of typically low-skilled migrants who were born in sub-Saharan Africa, many of whom have also been shown to be a net fiscal cost, rather than benefit, to the British economy.
And now look more closely at London.
If you look at the data —presented below— you’ll find 48% of all social housing in London, almost half of it, is now occupied by households that are headed by somebody who was not born in Britain.
The most common households are headed by somebody who was born in Africa (18.4%), the Middle East and Asia (11.7%), or elsewhere in Europe (8.7%).
Some of the other statistics are also completely mind-boggling. Like the fact that, in London, 74% of all Somali households are in social housing.
As are almost half of all households headed by people from Jamaica or Ghana, 44% from Bangladesh, 42% from North Africa, 41% from Nigeria, 37% from Turkey, 35% from Afghanistan, and 28% from Zimbabwe —compared to 23.5% of the UK-born.
Look at specific areas, too. In the likes of Ealing and Haringey, close to 60% of social housing is occupied by households that are headed by people born overseas, while in areas like Westminster and Brent it is at least 60%, if not higher.
And contrary to the popular claim that many of these people are born and bred Brits who have been paying into the collective pot for decades, have long roots in their communities, or belong to the ‘Windrush Generation’, this is simply not true.
University professors on social media might wail that their parents arrived in Britain 50 years ago and are just as British as everybody else —which is true— but these are not the people who are disproportionately more likely to be living in social housing, often in highly desirable areas that young Brits cannot afford.
As the data show, a substantial share of social housing is occupied by households headed by people who simply were not in Britain twenty or thirty years ago but who have nonetheless been given social housing in some of the most well-connected, vibrant and culturally enriching parts of Britain, and at the expense of others.
The social housing occupancy rates of recent arrivals to Britain, for example, are a substantial 32% in London, 25% in Birmingham, 26% in Manchester, and 30% in Leicester, with longstanding British nationals who have lived in the country for decades, who have passed through the system, and who along with their families have contributed to the collective pot, now finding themselves pushed out.
All of which raises a number of important questions that you would ordinarily expect to be addressed and answered by our political leaders.
Why are so many young British people, workers, and their families forced to pay half their monthly income if not more to live out in the periphery, in places like London’s Zone 4 or beyond, sitting on expensive, packed and dirty commuter trains while wondering why they and other Brits are having to subsidise newcomers to be given preferential treatment over themselves, who are frequently economically inactive and more prone to criminality, and who, in some cases, clearly hate Britain, its values, its history and its ways of life?
If the policy of mass immigration, supported by both left and right, is so beneficial to Britain, as its leading advocates routinely claim it is, then why exactly is Britain importing so many low-skilled, high-need people from places like sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East who are disproportionately more likely than the UK-born to be placed in social housing and to be a net fiscal cost to the economy?
And, lastly, if we are serious about wanting to build a more united, cohesive, and successful country then is it not time to recognise that we need to face this crisis head-on? That we need to start by lowering the overall level of immigration into Britain, building more homes, and reshaping our laws so that the people who have contributed most to our society over many years are the ones who are prioritised when distributing these homes and scarce resources like social housing?
Personally, I don’t think it’s irresponsible or inflammatory to point this out.
I think it’s just common sense.
And I suspect many other people out there feel the same way.
Matt Goodwin’s Substack goes to more than 57,100 subscribers from 167 countries around the world and thousands of paying supporters who support our work. Like our stuff? Then help us expand by becoming a paid supporter and access everything —the full archive, Live with Matt every Friday, exclusive posts, polling, leave comments, join the debate, get discounts, notice about events, and the knowledge you’re supporting independent writers who are pushing back against the grain. Join us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter/X and Facebook.
Truly staggering, supported by excellent research as usual and, by the way, you’ve got a helluva following on GBNews’ FaceBook group, they like your forthright style and preparedness to take on ill-informed Lefties.
Younger people will probably never vote centre-right in 20yrs but they’re more likely to if they see someone standing up for housing they can’t afford.
Matt please get into politics and join Reform. We need you.