Britain needs immigrants. So say ‘hardline’ Home Secretaries, the newspaper of record and even right-wing journalists. We are an aging society with social welfare and healthcare systems constructed as Ponzi schemes. If we don’t accept more immigrants, the working-age share of the population will fall, jeopardising economic growth and the welfare state.
Paul Morland has proposed a demographic trilemma, whereby countries can only choose two of the following three: ethnic homogeneity; fiscal sustainability; or a comfortable lifestyle without the stress of combining an above replacement Total Fertility Rate (TFR) and a modern economy. The West has chosen to jettison its ethnic homogeneity, Japan its fiscal sustainability and Israel the comfortable lifestyle.
Anyone reading this will prefer Israel or Japan’s choices to the West’s. But this trilemma is also based on faulty premises. Non-western immigrants have net negative fiscal effects over the course of their lifetimes1, worsening the problem they’re alleged to solve - a fact denied by most economists but obvious to anyone who has ever visited any major city and observed the types of jobs performed by black and Asian immigrants and their descendants.
And there’s an unspoken assumption that immigrants always change the ethnic composition of a state, which needn’t be the case. Israel has strengthened its Jewish majority by granting automatic citizenship to all Jews worldwide - whether they’re fleeing persecution or migrants of volition. Britain also has a diaspora population larger than the population of its homeland. It could be harnessed in solving Morland’s demographic trilemma through a policy of Anglo Aliyah.
Right of Return
Citizenship should be available to anyone of British descent in North America who:
is under the age of 40
is in good health
does not have a history of criminality or unemployment
People of British descent in Southern Africa should be awarded citizenship unconditionally and treated as refugees.
North America is becoming increasingly oppressive to white people. South Africa is even more dangerous for its European minority, who are more than ten times as likely to be victims of murder as people in Europe, and need to employ private security companies to prevent home invasions. The country has more than twice as many private security officers than policemen and soldiers combined. Australia and New Zealand have large British diasporas, but are excluded from this policy because they are no less tolerable than the British homeland.
Anglo-America: A Survey
Britain has a deep population pool to draw from in the United States. By one estimate from DNA testing service Ancestry there are 72 million people of majority British descent in the United States. The American Community Survey (ACS) records 25.2 million English Americans, 5.3 million Scottish Americans, 2.9 million “Scotch-Irish” Americans (i.e. Ulster Protestants of either English or Scottish ancestry) , and 1.9 million Welsh Americans. 1.9 million Americans claim generic British ancestry and there are a further 19.3 million “Americans” and 0.64 million “Canadians”, who are predominantly of British descent (in the 1980 census, where “American” was not an available category, 49.6 million Americans claimed to be of English descent). Adding these numbers together gives a British diaspora population of 57.2 million.
This figure double counts anyone who reported two British ancestries (the ACS allows respondents to report up to two national or ethnic origins). But it may not be an overestimate. Half of the above figure reported only one ancestry, and many of the half who reported two will have listed a non-British ancestry (e.g. English and Irish). There are also many Americans who did not report any British ancestry at all but nevertheless will be predominantly British. For historical and cultural reasons, Americans are reluctant to identify with their mother country.
There are also another 65 million people who declined to report any ancestry, and if they are British in the same proportion there are an additional 7.1 million single-ancestry Britons and 14.2 million Britons (including those of dual-ancestry). Approximately 60 million Americans, or 30% of the white American population, being predominantly British is a reasonable estimate. Canada has a further 15 million British Americans (55% of white Canadians) based on my estimate from the Canadian census2. The British North American population is therefore approximately 75 million.
Conditions of Entry
The median age of the United Kingdom is 40, so requiring returnees to be under 40 will ensure they lower the median age of the country, making the economy more dynamic and improving fiscal sustainability. An exception could be made for married couples with children who want to move to Britain.
Barring Americans with a criminal record or persistent history of unemployment will raise the average IQ of returnees, and in particular exclude those with very low IQs or who are otherwise highly dysfunctional from availing of citizenship.
Requiring returnees to be in good health - not having a chronic illness or unhealthy BMI or waist measurement - will ensure they will not become a burden on the NHS or welfare state. If a person is unhealthy in their 20s or 30s, they will be legally disabled and dependent on the state by the time they are 50. Given the correlation between IQ, obesity and disability, this will have the side effect of shifting the bell curve of the returnees to the right. Excluding the fat will also improve Britain’s quality of life, as argued persuasively in an article in J’accuse.
Each of these stipulations will shrink the population pool on which we can draw. But the age bar will not decrease the long-run British population at all, since childless over 40s will die without leaving descendants. And the latter requirements are low bars for motivated emigrés. I estimate that the three preconditions will reduce the eligible pool to 30 million.
If 0.1 - 0.2% of eligible North Americans repatriated each year, we could add between 30,000 and 60,000 high quality, ethnically similar immigrants to our population each year. There are another 1.6 million Anglo South Africans who could be repatriated in a ‘one-time’ extraction more similar to the flight of Jews to Israel from Arab countries after 1948.
Challenges
Identification
The first question one might ask is how are eligible people to be identified? There is no motivation to lie on the ACS or Canadian census, but if British citizenship was on offer anyone could claim they were eligible. There are a number of tools we can use to prevent ancestry fraud.
DNA tests could be used to ensure the applicant is European and predominantly British. However, these are not entirely accurate and often don’t distinguish between British and Irish. They could be paired with requests for genealogy records to prove ancestry by surname, though anglicisation makes this less effective. Church records could be used to prove membership of denominations which skew English - for example, an English “Miller” might be Southern Baptists while a German “Miller” might be Lutheran. Geography could also be used to estimate ancestry. If someone’s family is from a county with a high proportion of “English” or “American” results on the census, this could increase their chances of qualification.
There is a trade-off between accuracy and eligibility. And the multitude of tests which could be applied makes the process seem complex. But the vast majority of cases should be clear cut. Discretion could be given to immigration officials to trust their judgement in more challenging cases or an algorithm could be developed to give a probabilistic estimate of British ancestry based on the factors listed above.
Attractiveness
Britain’s appeal to Americans is the other major problem. There is a large salary gap between Britain and the United States, particularly at the top end of the income distribution - the people we most want to chase. Law and Investment Banking are the only industries where salaries in the UK are competitive with the US. British technology workers often report that Americans in the same role in the same company earn up to twice as much. And it’s not just professionals, the median salary for full-time workers in the United States is £47,201 ($54,132) compared to just £33,000 (approximately) in Britain.
If you believe the smart fraction theory of economic growth, which says the IQ distribution of a country’s cognitive elite (and not the average IQ of its general population) are what drive economic growth, this is even more damaging for the policy. America has an average IQ of 97 but is richer than almost every country in Europe because its cognitive elite are more intelligent. If Britain can only attract mediocre Americans then the economic benefits may be limited.
But the policy is as much about engineering the ethnic composition of the country as it is about economics. And given the restrictions on the sick, old, workshy and delinquent it is unlikely that the policy will have negative effects, even if the gains are modest. However, we can do more to attract talented Americans by growing the economy. If we were as rich as the rest of Northern Europe, Britain could use its natural advantages to entice American emigrés: lower crime; longer holidays; healthier lifestyles; shorter working weeks3; and visa free access to Europe on our doorstep.
Integration
Britain should offer more than just a passport if it wants a high volume of repatriates. The Israeli Law of Return offers many benefits to Olim to make the transition to Israeli life as smooth as possible.
The primary obstacle one encounters when moving to Britain is needing a bank account to sign a lease, while needing a fixed address to open a bank account. The government could guarantee bank accounts with no overdraft facility and also find temporary rental accommodation for arrivees.
Unlike Israel, no language immersion is required, so new Britons could immediately enter the labour market. The government could give tax breaks on foreign income for a number of years, as dividends and capital gains will be an important source of income for our new countrymen.
There are also a number of smaller measures which we could offer:
A free chartered British Airways flight to the UK
Children waving union jacks on the tarmac as part of a “Welcome Home” ceremony
A citizenship ceremony in a room in Heathrow airport
A UK sim card
Food parcels and household items
Children’s clothes
Social events with other repatriates or natives
There should also be an attempt at acculturation. Israel pays olim a basic income to attend Hebrew classes in their first year in the country. We could have a shorter programme to teach arrivals Our Island Story. This would be a propoganda class aimed at cultural transmission, not an academic seminar. The subject matter would be British political and constitutional history, military history, culture and the Great Men. There would be a final exam with prizes for high scorers.
Reconquista
Immigrants could be planted to reclaim strategic areas, particularly in Greater London. EuroMaidan showed the importance of your supporters being concentrated in the capital city rather than the provinces. In America, Democrats have been concentrated in urban areas for generations, facilitating protest movements and riots which Republicans cannot equal. Cities’ populations also provide the backdrop in which politics, the media and cultural industries operate. It’s important that the demographics of London do not distort representation in our national media, or the collective imaginations of our politicians.
Anglofuturism
Demographic change in European countries will be the defining political issue of the 21st century. The process is a world historical event on par with the colonisation of the Americas, and more transformative than the fall of Rome or the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its economic justifications are flimsy alibis which reveal its architects’ true motivations. Anglo Aliyah would force their hand: Regathering the Cockney Lands couldn’t be objected to on economic grounds.
Paired with a general immigration moratorium, Britain would become the only European nation state - charting a course for other countries to follow. And our way of life and national identity would be protected by the Exiles returning to England’s green and pleasant land.
Panel (b)(2) on page 26 shows recent non-EEA migrants are fiscally positive in the first ten or fewer years after arrival but panel (a)(2) shows the reverse for all non-EEA migrants over a given fifteen year period. Given the age effect supporting migrants’ contributions in a given year, the expected fiscal effect of a non-EEA migrant over their lifetime will be even lower than in panel (b). The ONS link shows that all ethnic minorities, migrants and non-migrants combined, have a negative fiscal impact, which suggests that the negative fiscal impact of second generation migrants is even larger, given we are providing for their education as well as old age healthcare and pension.
The Canadian census has a similar two ancestry reporting system as the American Community Survey (with the same double counting problems). There are 8.2 million single-ancestry Britons, 15.6 million double-ancestry Britons and 23.8 million Britons in total. The white population of Canada is only 26.7 million, so the 23.8 million figure is an upper bound with a lot of double counting. 15 million seems like a reasonable estimate which assumes half of the double-ancestry Britons report two British ancestries.
The average hours of British full-time workers are about the same as for all American workers, including those who only work part-time.
While I love this idea, I definitely think there is so much good in it. I have seen this in action while living in Brazil, with the Japanese diaspora there.
How could you ask smart young Americans with a clear path to success in America, to take lower pay, higher cost of living, and live in seedier neighborhoods? High value people, do not want a immigrant experience for your benefit. We see a fleeing of cities in America from these types of people now.
The reason it works for Japan is for two main reasons. First, Japanese Brazilians still a identify themselves as Japanese. Secondly, the living standards are significantly higher in Japan than Brazil.
In America, few people see themselves as British as primary identification, or French outside a few unique communities throughout Americas. Compared with other Europeans, German, Italian, Slavs, or Irish.
Finding a more disconnected middle class young male population would be more likely to embrace a heritage they feel has been lost in America’s current suburban existence. Young men who join the military, that have technical degrees, and or just those with good employment history could be a catalyst an idea like this needs to gain momentum.
Thank you
If we are being frank the best option is to become a U.S. State.