Sturgeon: ‘Scotland Needs Mass Immigration Because Scots Were Emigrants Once’

Scotland
Robert Perry/Getty Images
Virginia Hale

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has argued that Scotland needs to open its borders because Scottish people in history have moved abroad.

In a column citing figures from a Scottish government report described as “disingenuous” by Britain’s foremost migration policy watchdog, the SNP leader claimed a reduction in migrant numbers post-Brexit would be “catastrophic” for the economy in Scotland.

“Today is designated by the United Nations as ‘World Social Justice Day’,” writes Sturgeon in a piece for the Evening Times, noting that the globalist organisation has dedicated this year’s theme to promoting mass migration under the title of “Workers on the move”.

With studies showing that the majority of Scots surveyed are keen to have tighter restrictions on migrants post-Brexit, the left-wing leader acknowledges her message is unlikely to be too warmly received, but goes on to insist migration is “an issue which must be addressed with urgency and honesty for the sake of Scotland’s economy and our communities”.

“We all know of people who left Scotland to seek new opportunities, making their mark on whatever country they came to call home”, writes Sturgeon, pointing to the existence of seven different settlements named ‘Glasgow’ in the U.S.

But according to the First Minister, Scotland’s history of having been “a country of emigration rather than immigration” has “resulted in distinct challenges for [the] population”.

“To take one as an example, the Tories plans to reduce migration across the whole of the UK to the tens of thousands would be catastrophic to Scotland’s economy,” she writes.

“New modelling has shown it could cost Scotland £10 billion per year by 2040 – that is unacceptable and it is avoidable.”

This claim, which was produced by the Scottish government, has been savaged by Migration Watch UK, with the think tank asserting that “the assumptions on which this calculation has been made are questionable”.

Furthermore, in its response to the government report, Migration Watch noted that “what is categorised as a potential ‘cost’ is not based on a claim lower immigration would lead to an actual shrinkage in the economy, but an estimate that it could lead to a lower rate of future economic growth”.

In her article, Sturgeon points to Scotland’s ageing demographic profile to argue the country “needs more working age people to help our economic growth, generate the tax revenues and support the public services so many of us rely on”.

But “immigration as a solution to a pensions problem has been dismissed by all serious studies”, Migration Watch UK has remarked in previous analysis of Scottish claims that the country needs more migrants, pointing out among other factors that “immigrants too will grow old and draw pensions”.

Migration-driven GDP growth of the sort demanded by the First Minister has been described as a “Ponzi scheme” which boosts corporate profits at the expense of taxpayers’ quality of life and the environment.

The strategy of pursuing such policies, according to former UN Population Division director Dr. Joseph Chamie, is to “privatise the profits and socialise the costs incurred from increased population growth”.

In an article penned in 2010, he highlighted how while mass immigration boosts consumption, demand, borrowing, and profits, it leaves the general public left to pick up the tab for mounting costs for education, healthcare, housing, and crime.

Writing in The Globalist, the demographer said: “Everything seems fantastic for a while — but like all Ponzi schemes, Ponzi demography is unsustainable.

“When the bubble eventually bursts and the economy sours, the scheme spirals downward with higher unemployment, depressed wages, falling incomes, more people sinking into debt, more homeless families — and more men, women and children on public assistance.”

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