Reform UK’s right-wing leader, Nigel Farage, has called for some ‘very, very big cultural changes’ to persuade Britons to have children, adding: ‘Of course we need higher birth rates.’
It seems Farage has pivoted 180 degrees from his usual dire warnings of a ‘population explosion’ to urge us to have more children.
It is deeply ironic that it is the anti-migrant politics that Farage and his hard-right fellows across Europe espouse that are risking the viability of future birth rates and population levels across Europe.
Eurostat data released this week shows a bright red population catastrophe unfurling across the continent if immigration were to be reduced to ‘net zero’ as Farage campaigns to achieve.
The right, as ever, relies on simple soundbites with flawed logic; this time that fewer people would mean more resources to go around.
What the population statistics lay bare, is that people are the resource. We do not consume resources equally, and it is older native Europeans who will be using more and more, not foreigners.
So it’s time for some honesty: Politicians ramping up anti-migrant politics have underplayed the ageing population crisis. And the upshot is, western welfare states will collapse without immigration.
Alongside the Eurostat predictions, there was uproar in January when the ONS published projections showing the UK population increasing by nearly 5 million over the next 10 years, fuelled by immigration. The headlines and politicians squawking about the country being ‘full up’ were immediate.
In the noise, the important figures were lost: while the overall population is set to increase by 7.3%, the population of people of pensionable age will increase almost twice as fast. As the baby boomer generation reaches retirement, our dependency ratio is swinging wildly out of kilter, with an unsustainable elderly population supported by the labour of too few of working age.
We have known this problem was coming for decades, as life expectancy increased and birth rates fell across the West. But politicians have utterly failed to bring home what an ageing population means.
Age UK estimates 2 million elderly people are already without the social care support needed to complete daily tasks like getting out of bed, washing and getting dressed. As this figure grows year on year, alarm bells over how to maintain health and social care services and meet skills shortages as the average age soars have been irresponsibly ignored.
The truth too unpalatable for politicians like Farage to lay out is that if you cannot get a GP appointment, the likelihood is that it isn’t an immigrant – who is on average younger and healthier than you – ahead in the queue, but one of the growing number of older people. The fact is as we age, we require more doctor and hospital visits, are more likely to get sick and require care.
Older people deserve that care, but as the country gets so much older that’s what puts pressure on public services and local council budgets. And it is the immigrant workers who are wrongly scapegoated that are in fact helping balance that old-age dependency ratio out with younger workers.
The anti-migrant crowd reminds us that immigrants will also grow old, and so their contribution to our working age population can only ever be temporary – and this is true. Of course, longer term it is essential that we develop a sustainable population strategy that goes beyond immigration.
But in the meantime, in the coming decades we are likely to find ourselves competing with our neighbours to attract a dwindling pool of mobile younger workers. This is a reversal of the current picture, where we each attempt to palm off responsibility for refugees to our neighbour – why can’t they all just stay in France, right?
But the likes of Farage’s recent about-turn towards pro-natalism brings its own worries. The racist and sexist undertones we perceive when right-wing politicians talk about the need for bigger families is not baseless.
Politicians from the right have actively engaged in a campaign of questioning the Britishness of ethnic minority Brits, naturalised immigrants, and their children.
Delegitimising and questioning the Britishness of the children of migrants born and bred in the UK is most obvious in the discourse around Welsh murderer Axel Rudakubana. But the recent decision by the Labour Government to remove the possibility for refugees arriving on boats to ever obtain British citizenship is a clear example of pernicious anti-integration policy outcomes fuelled by these toxic narratives.
In this context, it is understandable that Farage’s call for more babies is viewed as a dangerous dog whistle. And given his admiration for Donald Trump, and recent associations with American far-right anti-abortion pressure groups, women also have very good reason to be wary of his intentions.
The recent Eurostat projections are clear: Without migration, the UK population drops by 20 million (from 68m to 48m) by 2100. That is a disaster we must take action to avoid.
People who love this country surely don’t want to see its people wither away, our towns empty out, our infrastructure crumble without workers, and our elderly left to fend for themselves?
No country that has experienced a drop in fertility has successfully turned the trend around, at any rate, and our creaking public services and struggling grandparents simply don’t have time to wait: we need the workers now.
Especially if we are to provide the kind of welfare state that could plausibly encourage larger families in the future without racism or coercion of women.
Affordable housing and childcare would be a start, none of which is remotely possible to achieve without the contribution of immigrant labour now.
The UK needs people desperately, and – as luck would have it – there are people who desperately need to come to the UK too.
Politicians can and must now urgently reject anti-migrant hatred so as to manage this simple reality humanely to all our mutual benefit.
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