Mass migration was the overwhelming driver of near record high population growth in England and Wales last year, sparking warnings that Britain is fighting for its very “survival”.
The three top years for population growth in modern history were 2022, 2023, and 2024 says the Office for National Statistics, revealing the population of England and Wales rose by 706,881 people in the year up to mid-2024 to a total of 61.8 million people.
The official statistician noted that 98 per cent of the population growth was due to the net migration of 690,147 during the time period, the BBC states.
In comparison, natural population growth, or the number of births compared to deaths, only accounted for an addition of 29,982 people to the population.
The population growth was the second-highest recorded since 1949, when official records began.
However, last year’s numbers only trailed those from the prior year, when the population rose by 821,210 in large part as a result of the post-Brexit immigration reforms instituted by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
This came as a result of the Johnson government opening up migration paths for non-EU nations and refusing to institute a hard annual cap on migration, despite having vowed to the public that he would cut immigration, as successive previous Tory governments also failed to deliver.
Commenting on the data, the ONS’s Nigel Henretty said: “Net international migration continues to be the main driver of this growth, continuing the long-term trend seen since the turn of the century.”
Professor Matt Goodwin said that the figures represented a “disaster” for Britain and said that the government must halt mass migration and begin to enact pro-family policies as a matter of urgency, as is done in nations such as Hungary, Israel, and Poland.
Appearing on GB News on Wednesday evening, Prof Goodwin said: “This is about the survival of the country… The West and Western nations now need to start talking about family policy in terms of survival.”
Goodwin suggested that the government could create generous tax incentives for families, but stressed that they should only be limited to British citizens and not be accessible to foreign nationals, as are many state benefits in modern Britain.
The professor also highlighted the issue of housing as a crucial factor in family formation, attributing the supply crunch and soaring prices to mass migration. Notably, only around 124,000 houses were built in Britain last year, significantly fewer than the number of migrants admitted into the country.
“You can have affordable, available housing in this country, or you can have mass, uncontrolled immigration. You cannot have both. And we need a political leader that has the guts to stand up and say that to the British people,” he said.
Professor Goodwin has recently sounded the alarm about the demographic effects of the mass migration agenda imposed on the country by both Westminster establishment parties, producing a report last month which found that if current trends continue, the white British population will become a minority in their own country by 2063 and would fall to just 22.7 per cent by 2100.
