LAST week the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published its 2024-based National Population Projections, a 100-year modelling forecast covering the UK.
While of course any projections for such an extended period are highly speculative, the immediate projection for the next ten to 30 years is instructive: should migration continue on the trajectory of recent years, Britain’s population will expand to 70million by 2033.
This is a possibility about which Migration Watch has warned since the late 2000s. Indeed, in 2008, we pointed out that ‘It is quite clear that the [Points-Based System] in its present form will not, of itself, be remotely enough to keep the population of the UK below 70 million.’ Likewise, in 2010, we argued that ‘currently projected levels of immigration will cause the population of the UK to reach 70million shortly after 2031 and then go on growing’.
You can read the full Migration Watch report here. It analyses the key findings, with particular attention to what the data reveals about the role of migration in future population change, and what the headline figures conceal.
The ONS report presents three migration variants: High, Principal (230,000 net per year from mid-2027), and Low/Zero.
Key Findings
i) The UK’s natural population is already in decline;
ii) The ‘High’ migration scenario is conservative relative to recent reality;
iii) Net zero migration produces accelerating population loss;
iv) The term ‘net migration’ underplays the true scale of population churn because it does not take into account the difficulty of integrating new arrivals, or the children born to migrants.
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