Interestingly, there was a time when parties of the far left and in particular ‘Green’ parties in the West used to campaign for precisely such an outcome in order to reduce population explosion. They argued for instance – and despite the unsavoury connotations after China’s enforcement of a similar policy – that in order to attain an ‘optimum population’ for the world, every couple should restrict themselves to having one child. It was expected that developed countries might lead the way. It is a point of minor interest that as third-world migration to Europe has swelled, the Green movements have ceased to argue for population caps or to campaign for restrictions on reproduction. While happy to tell white Europeans to stop breeding, they became somewhat more reticent about making the same request of darker-skinned migrants. Nevertheless, the idea that Europeans have simply stopped having enough children and must as a result ensure that the next generation is comprised of immigrants is a disastrous fallacy for several reasons.

The first is because of the mistaken assumption that a country’s population should always remain the same or indeed continue rising. The nation states of Europe include some of the most densely populated countries on the planet. It is not at all obvious that the quality of life in these countries will improve if the population continues growing. What is more, when migrants arrive in these countries they move to the big cities, not to the remaining sparsely populated areas. So although among European states Britain, along with Belgium and the Netherlands, is one of the most densely populated countries, England taken on its own would be the second most densely populated country in Europe.⁸ Migrants tend not to head to the Highlands of Scotland or the wilds of Dartmoor. And so a constantly increasing population causes population problems in areas that are already suffering housing supply problems and where infrastructure like public transport struggles to keep up with swiftly expanding populations. Anybody concerned about quality of life for Europeans would wonder about how to lessen their populations, not substantially increase them.

But let us say that immigration is needed simply in order to keep the population levels static, if that were the case. If it is agreed that a particular country wishes to maintain a stable or slowly growing population, then before importing people from other states it would surely be more sensible to determine whether there are reasons why people in your own country are not at present having enough children. Is it because they do not want them, or because they do want them but cannot have them? If it is the latter then the question should be whether there is anything that government can do to create a situation in which people can have the children they want.

The evidence from most countries, including the United Kingdom, is that although the native population is below replacement levels, this is not because people do not want to have children. Indeed the figures show the opposite. For instance in 2002, at a central point of the Labour government’s immigration explosion, a population study from the ONS showed that only 8 per cent of British women did not want to have babies. And only 4 per cent wanted one baby. The most popular desire of British women – the aim of a clear 55 per cent – was to have two children. A further 14 per cent wanted three children, another 14 per cent wanted four, and 5 per cent wanted five or more children, which if you were seeking a stable or slowly growing population would more than cover for the 8 per cent of women who wanted no children at all.⁹