What Happened to the Britain of 1996?

MIGRATION WATCH UK

The Prime Minister’s conference keynote speech last week was a veritable cornucopia of cliché. Sir Keir churned out one after the other, accusing opposition parties of hating Britain, bizarrely, insisting that real patriotism can only mean loving equality and diversity.

There was one revealing, if contrived, recollection from our PM – a memory of the mid-1990s: the semi-final of the European Championship, which England lost to Germany:

….something was stirring in England, that night. An England that belonged to our grandparents and our history… But also to our children and our future. North and south… Black and white… Old and young… An England – united… By a flag that stood for all.

What changed? Where has the confident, future-facing country gone?

Well, today’s Britain is very different. The policies of Sir Keir Starmer and some of his predecessors are to blame, in particular, the inability (and unwillingness) to tackle immigration.

We have warned time and again that unless immigration is tightly controlled, the resulting changes to our society will lead to:

· A collapse in social trust.

· Tensions and division.

· Increased competition for work driving down wages.

· Demand for housing spiralling out of control.

· And crushing pressures on the NHS and all services.

The 2021 census showed England and Wales to be less than 75% White British: the ethnic minority proportion had quintupled in just 30 years.

A White British baby born in 1996 has seen their country transformed before they turn 30, thanks to immigration. On our current trajectory, that White British baby will be a minority in this country before they turn 67. It could well be sooner.

We must avert this scenario at all costs by drastically reducing both legal and illegal immigration. In the coming weeks and months, we will be saying how this can be achieved.

NB: The term ‘White British’ is how the Office of National Statistics refers to the majority proportion of the population. Reference is also made to ‘Black British’, ‘Black African’, ‘White Irish’, ‘Black Caribbean’, ‘Asian British’ and others.

Our suggested email to your MP

This week, we suggest you contact your MP about proposed changes to Indefinite Leave to Remain applications. You can write anything you like, but we have provided a template below for your convenience.

You can verify your local MP here: https://members.parliament.uk/FindYourMP.

“Dear [NAME OF MP],

I am one of your constituents, living at [YOUR ADDRESS HERE].

While I welcome the commitments made by the Labour Party at its conference this week to tighten up the requirements for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) to be granted, these measures will be nowhere near strong enough, and in fact only tinker with the edges. To be clear:

· The requirement to be “paying national insurance” is irrelevant given that the current salary requirement is £38,700 anyway.

· Asking migrants to “speak English to a high standard” is all well and good but most visas presume migrants can speak English to GCSE standard already.

· Finally, needing migrants to have “a clean criminal record” will do nothing if the current guidelines make it a discretionary choice to allow ILR for any sentences below 12 months in remand.

I noticed as well that the White Paper suggestion of extending ILR requirements from five years to ten were not mentioned.

We need a firm commitment from the Home Secretary that the ILR changes will be stronger and more stringent than those we currently have. Even better would be making these changes retroactive to apply to migrants already here.

Please ask the Home Secretary and the Home Office to make such a commitment.

Kind regards,

[YOUR NAME HERE]

If you receive a response from your MP and are comfortable sharing it, please forward it on to us – we are always interested!

Channel Crossings

Small boat crossings soared by 2213 this week – bringing the total this year over 34,000.

Social media of the week

We tweeted an interesting fact – the White British population of major English cities like London, Birmingham and Manchester has fallen by up to -42% since 1981. The last time there was such a severe and rapid sustained collapse in the White British urban population was the Black Death of the 14th century. Credit to @juice8882 for the graphic.

Although the population of England and Wales has grown by +23% since 1981, mass demographic change in urban centres has seen the White British population collapse by up to -42%.

The last time demographics in England changed so quickly and severely was the Black Death (1348).… pic.twitter.com/B1oJFg7xNC

— Migration Watch (@MigrationWatch) October 1, 2025

Labour MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, Jonathan Hinder, points out that Labour must resolve the migration crisis if they want any hope of winning the next General Election:

What would Reform have to offer if illegal immigration was stopped?

Nothing. There is nothing else.

Sort that, and then we can focus on national reconstruction – industrial policy, skilling up British workers, investing to tackle huge regional inequality.

It can be done 🌹 https://t.co/awaU5Dcm3q

— Jonathan Hinder MP (@Jonathan_Hinder) October 1, 2025

Conservative councillor Tom Jones points out that pro-diversity ideology has led to ethnic strife – which pro-diversity advocates seek to blame on the right:

I agree with Shabana Mahmood that strong border security is essential for positive race relations. That was once the mainstream Labour view – think Roy Hattersley or James Callaghan in the 1960s. But I part company with Mahmood on her insistence that nationalism is somehow ‘far… pic.twitter.com/jaO5QU62j2

— Mike Jones (@technopopulist) September 24, 2025

Migration Watch in the media

A bumper week for media outings:

We were quoted in Breitbart, the Sun, the Times, the Conservative Woman, and the Sunday Times following our research showing that UK population grew by the equivalent of a city the size of Leeds in just 12 months; 98% of this growth was due to migration.

Alp was also quoted twice in the Telegraph, first on Rachel Reeve’s EU youth migration deal, and secondly in an article by James Crispy on the failure of Germany’s migration plan (which Labour is using as a model):

Alp Mehmet, chairman of Migration Watch UK, told The Telegraph that the Labour plan would have “no impact at all”.
“There are millions of people around the world who want a better life, and that’s why they come here. And nothing that this does will dissuade them,” he said.
He added: “Let’s bear in mind that this is a party conference. My thinking is that this has much more to do with placating the activist audience, and trying to send a message out to disgruntled Labour voters that the government is serious about dealing with immigration.”

Another GB News interview with Alp and Patrick Christy on the shocking offer of asylum to the cousin of a Talbian chief and seven relatives aired on September 30th

There were also two articles in the Express quoting us on Shabana Mahmood’s mooted “emergency plans” to tackle migration, which you can read here and here.

And to wrap up, Alp was quoted in Breitbart again, the Independent, the Daily Express and Vaultz News.

Phew

SOURCE: Migration Watch UK newsletter

 

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