Nicholas Soames: more chaff for Tory voters

As perennial as the weeds that blight our gardens is the news story about the latest Tory MP to make concerned noises about mass immigration, whilst not actually intending, or proposing, to do anything about it. Today, it was the turn of Nicholas Soames to riff upon this familiar theme, with The Daily Mail honouring him with a piece entitled 'Heads must come out of the sand': Tory MP warns about scale of immigration as he predicts population will hit 70 million by 2027. Unfortunately, the heads in question would appear to be firmly wedged elsewhere, into something far less pleasant than sand, although seemingly perversely agreeable to the head wedgers.

Citing last year's petition against mass immigration initiated by Migration Watch, the Mail quoted Soames as stating:

This is a clear indicator of the very great public concern about the scale of immigration to this country.

Yes, indeed it is; but just what does he propose to do about it? Having made this attention grabbing soundbite, what said he next? As in any statement about this depressingly familiar problem, Soames immediately followed this up with the rider that immigration constituted a 'natural and essential part of an open economy', thereby rendering his initial words about this theme largely irrelevant. Does he, or do any of his Westminster colleagues, believe that members of the public any longer believe in this elaborate charade of mock concern over this issue? Perhaps so, for the Mail is certainly complicit in revving up the public mood into an impotent fury over such matters.

It is time that voters realised, that people such as Soames, or any of the other Westminster MPs, with perhaps a handful of exceptions, are not willing to do anything concrete to genuinely limit mass immigration; moreover, none of them are advocating the sustainable demographic policy that our country so desperately needs. We require a party that will put in place realistic, workable and firm measures that will bring the demographic situation under control. This is what most members of the public desire; it is what we need, and what, ultimately, we must have.

Do you recall Cameron's Munich speech about multiculturalism, and how it was made out that he was against it? How, since then, have his actions tallied with his words? Has there not been a glaring discrepancy between what was said, and that which has subsequently been done? Treat Soames's words on immigration with the same scepticism, for it is not a question of needing to remove heads from the sand, but of advocating, implementing, resourcing and maintaining the policies that will stop mass immigration permanently, and ensure that our population is eventually brought down to a sustainable level. This will ensure a better future for all of us, and for our countryside. Cameron may consider that it is worth sacrificing our greenbelt for the sake of millions of unbidden incomers by removing planning regulations which inhibit its destruction, but it is not the so-called "dithering" over housing that should be a matter for concern, but his "dithering" over mass immigration. Do not be fooled. Do not vote Conservative. 

The BBC and Overpopulation: Stupid, Ignorant or Deliberately Misleading?

This week, Sir David Attenborough, a man of great integrity who has done so much to bring natural history to the British public through his enduring love and knowledge of the subject, announced that he was joining the Optimum Population Trust (OPT). Rightly concerned about the unsustainable rate of global population growth he told the Times: “I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more. Population is reaching its optimum and the world cannot hold an infinite number of people.” [1]

Sir David’s patronage of the OPT, which promotes a voluntary maximum of two children per family, is very much welcome. As Edward Wilson has noted, we are currently experiencing one of the most, if not the most, rapid mass extinction event in the history of life on Earth [2]. Its root cause: the explosion of global human population which entered its current phase circa 1750 and, as Sir David notes, has trebled within his professional lifetime.

Thomas Malthus, in his Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), long ago predicted that without checks and balances on human population growth (either voluntary or involuntary) we would as a species eventually outstrip the land’s capacity to support our pullulating species. Critics of Malthusianism have stated that his predictions have been repeatedly falsified, as to date food production has always stayed one step ahead of demand. Mass starvation has thus been averted. It must be conceded that thanks to a number of developments such as the eighteenth-century agricultural revolution, the mechanisation of agriculture, the introduction of new methods of food preservation (canning and freezing) and the later Green Revolution, we have indeed as a species managed, with a few localised famines here and there, to feed ourselves. To suppose that this can be maintained indefinitely, or that this is even desirable, is folly.

Before moving on to explaining why Malthus will ultimately be proven correct, I will deal with a frankly irresponsible article written for the BBC website by Michael Blastland entitled “How can a graph be so very wrong?” [3]. Seemingly prompted by Sir David’s patronage of the OPT, Blastland’s article seeks to demonstrate that the OPT’s concerns are essentially baseless, using past projections of the UK’s population growth to demonstrate that population prediction is not an exact science. True. This is undeniable. He then goes on to state that the average number of children born to families in Bangladesh has reduced from circa 7 in the 1970s to 3 today, noting that this “changed in a way that took the rich world 200 years.” He also mentions a potential UK population of 78 million. This prospect does not seem to bother Blastland, despite the fact that the OPT notes that the carrying capacity of the UK is circa 20-25 million.

Our current global, and indeed national, population levels have only been able to reach their existing scale thanks to energy-intensive agriculture, i.e. oil-based fertilizers, mechanised systems of production, processing, and transit. Without relatively cheap oil, the entire system collapses. Our civilisation is predicated upon the availability of this vital commodity. Last year, a few bad grain harvests in different parts of the world such as Australia, coupled with rocketing oil prices and increasing consumer demand in China and other developing economies, led to the current spike in food price inflation. For all the talk of potential “deflation”, the price of food in the UK continues to track upwards, and as global demand grows and our currency depreciates (thanks to the devaluation of Sterling euphemistically termed “quantitative easing”), it will continue to do so.

With current population levels the UK cannot feed itself sustainably. With the mass immigration promoted by our mainstream political parties we could be confronting the very real prospect of national starvation at some point in the future as the global economy realigns and our economic purchasing power declines relative to that of other nations. This is why Blastland’s article, presumably endorsed by the BBC, is reckless. We should be aiming for a balanced demographic policy, with the goal of reducing our national population to circa 20-25 million over the next century or so. This is readily achievable without any draconian or inhuman measures. For this to succeed, mass immigration needs to be halted and reversed.

We should seek to take a less anthropocentric perspective, and acknowledge that there is intrinsic worth in the rich biodiversity of our Earth. With the loss of each species, our own lives become more impoverished.

Globally, it will be the business of other states to deal with their internal demographic issues, but we should not provide a safety valve for their domestic pressures. Either states and individuals can choose to regulate their populations voluntarily, or the age old checks and balances which, as Jared Diamond noted, brought about the collapse of the Maya, the Easter Islanders, the Greenland Norse and others, will engulf us all [4].

Sources:
[1] 'David Attenborough to be patron of Optimum Population Trust', http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6087833.ece

[2] Edward O. Wilson, 'The Diversity of Life', Penguin, 2001.

[3] 'How can a graph be so very wrong?', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8000402.stm

[4] Jared Diamond, 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive', Penguin, 2006.