SIR ANDREW GREEN KCMG Sir Andrew Green was a professional diplomat for 35 years. He is the Chairman of MigrationWatch UK. Asked how he came to be involved in migration issues, Sir Andrews said that he first became aware of the problem when he was the Foreign Secretary’s principal adviser on the Middle East in the mid-90s. At that time he spent two years trying, on the Prime Minister instructions, to remove from Britain Islamic extremists who were claiming asylum but was frustrated by the British courts. (Disclaimer: Views and opinions presented here are for informational and educational purposes only and may not necessarily be those of the makers of this video) MigrationWatch UK was founded in 2001 by Sir Andrew after he decided that immigration was a matter which should be brought to the attention of the public. MigrationWatch UK is an independent organisation; who believe that the public are entitled to know the facts about the numbers coming into Britain. RICHARD SHEPHERD MP Richard Shepherd is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Aldridge Brownhills. He has been a champion for more open and transparent government and is known and respected for the long campaign he fought for freedom of information. Richard Shepherd is also a campaigner against compulsory metrication. He has had a distinguished Parliamentary career. Previously he has been a winner of both the Spectator's Award as Backbencher of the Year and Parliamentarian of the Year. Richard Shepherd was also a Maastricht Rebel and fought for a referendum on that Treaty. He lost the Whip in November 1994 after voting against the European Communities (Finance) Bill, but had it returned four months later. Speech by Sir Andrew Green My subject tonight is immigration and the impact of the EU. Now both these topics, both immigration and the EU are matters of very considerable concern to the electorate and yet strangely they are very seldom discussed on their merits. Indeed immigration is seldom discussed at all for fear I think of being branded as either a xenophobe or a racist or both. Well as the Chairman said, having spent my career in the Foreign Service I am not in the least bit concerned about either of those charges. I’m going to speak for about 20 minutes and then take questions to cover the points of most interest to you. I suggest that if we are to carry conviction on European matters and immigration matters then we must be clear where they overlap and reinforce and where they don’t, so I will try to disentangle those two subjects a little. I’m going to start by sketching out the scale and nature of the immigration problem that our country now faces, then I’ll go on to outline the European aspects and I’ll conclude by suggesting a constructive way forward. But first of all the problem. We are not opposed to immigration and still less to immigrants, but we do think the number has got out of hand, we do think that the Government have lost control of the borders; I would have thought that that was obvious. Immigration on a modest scale is a natural part of an open economy and we favour that. We don’t favour what is going on now but it is a surprisingly new problem. As you can see from this, this is the net immigration into England and actually there was no immigration until the early 80s, it was emigration, a net outflow of people. But it wasn’t until 1997 that the numbers started to rise very sharply indeed and they rose as a result of action and inaction by the Government. So talk of a nation of immigrants is frankly claptrap. The foreign immigration is now running at about a third of a million a year or 900 a day, that’s net. So in total there have been roughly three million net immigration into Britain in the last ten years, that’s the ones we know about, there are also of course illegal immigrants of the order of maybe three quarters of a million. So perhaps it’s not surprising that public concern has mounted over that time. Quite intriguing, a lot of concern in 79/80, when I think Mrs Thatcher raised it as an election issue, when during the years of Conservative Government as it happens, virtually no interest and people felt that it was a matter that was being dealt with satisfactorily and surprise surprise from 1997 it started to shoot up. And of course that point is the financial crisis of last autumn and now immigration is second equal with crime. I think something like economy is top with 65%, immigration and crime about 30% and then you get down to trivial matters like health and education which are 15%. So what’s the impact of all this? Well the impact on the population is frankly enormous. This shows you the impact on England, almost all immigration is to England by the way, about 95% of foreign immigration and on the Government’s own figures our population will increase by ten million in the next 20 years and 70% of that will be a result of immigration. These are their numbers not mine