Britain is full

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U.K. Politics

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"Britain is full!" is the cry of the average pig-ignorant morons that Great Britain is plagued with. It is a phrase that calmly and eloquently explains why Britain can't possibly take on one more immigrant, otherwise the island will sink, or something. For some reason, the people who use this argument seem to have no problem with other forms of population growth, just with immigration.

Contents

[edit] Oh, it is, is it?

The fact that Britain is not full can be simply demonstrated by reference to these handy statistics:

[edit] Housing

In 2006 there were 75,000 empty homes in London,[1] 11,000 in the Bristol area,[2] and 87,000 in Scotland.[3] In 2013 there were an estimated 845,000 empty homes throughout England.[4]

[edit] Population density

The UK is only ranked in the 50s worldwide; if you count states with at least 9 million people they miss the top 10[5] (beaten by both Belgium and the Netherlands). This poor showing is largely due to Scotland and Wales letting the side down. England particularly beats out Belgium although the Netherlands remains ahead.

[edit] Immigrants are scary and dangerous

Front page of the self-proclaimed "World's Greatest Newspaper," 23rd September 2009. If Posh gets any thinner we might have room for one more.

Please bear in mind that contrary to popular belief, not every single British person is a mindless xenophobic moron. Likewise, please bear in mind that questioning immigration does not automatically make one a mindless xenophobic moron...though you'll find many that are:

We're just doing what we've always done, which is to say that Britain is full, it's the most overcrowded country in Europe, it's time to shut the doors, to persuade and get to leave, all the illegals, the bogus asylum seekers - the foreign criminals. And for the people who are legally here, legitimately here, they would have all the rights that everyone else has in this British society.
—British racist patriot Nick Griffin, on his party's new manifesto[6]
Jill Matheson, the National Statistician, predicts that within less than 20 years, the population will rise from 61 million to 70 million. Nearly three quarters of that increase will be made up of immigrants. Already one in 10 of those living in Britain was born abroad. These are all whacking great numbers, which tell us that if one strips out the momentary effects of the downturn, immigration continues to outpace our capacity to cope.
—Benedict Brogan, The Telegraph[7]
While some reports said the French would use British taxpayers' cash to offer the migrants financial incentives to go home, most experts believe they will simply disperse to smaller makeshift camps around the Calais docks and continue their attempt to enter Britain illegally.
—"Keep out, Britain is full up", The Office for National Statistics Daily Express article[8]

[edit] Footnotes

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