Mass migration means downward pressure on wages, upward pressure on housing costs and massive pressure on infrastructure of every type. Often it strains social cohesion too as newcomers from very different backgrounds struggle to integrate. Illegal migration at scale is even more problematic as it’s a form of peaceful invasion and a threat to national sovereignty as well as living standards.

Reducing the current very high levels of migration from comparatively poor to comparatively rich countries means overcoming the vested interests of those who benefit from it: namely schools and colleges selling an immigration outcome in the guise of “export education”; employers who want cheap and abundant surplus labour; and ethnic activists looking for numbers to boost their political clout.

It also means resisting the policy makers who think all migration is good migration because it helps to dilute an “oppressive” Judaeo-Christian culture or because it supposedly boosts the economy and enriches a previously sterile “Anglo” culture.

This is only true if the newcomers are, on average, at least as skilled and sophisticated as the existing population – a very dubious proposition, given that the temporary cessation of immigration during the pandemic did not lead to a sudden shortage of brain surgeons and rocket scientists but of cleaners, drivers, carers, waiters and pickers.