OBR is waking up to fact mass migration is NOT good for Western economies – Matt Goodwin analysis

The Office of Budget Responsibility is waking up to the fact mass migration is not necessarily good for Britain, Matt Goodwin has said.

The University professor and data analyst was giving his analysis after the OBR released a new report on fiscal risks facing the country.

The OBR report revealed how there is a degree of uncertainly around long term projections for the country and that it would need to ‘consider migration scenarios which illustrate how different characteristics of migrants affect the public finances in the long run’.

It read: “With the birth rate of 1.6 per woman well below the replacement rate of 2.1, migration is the sole source of population growth from 2035 onwards.

“There has been a significant change since Brexit in both migration policy and the composition of migration, the long-term consequences of which remain uncertain. We therefore look at how varying these economic characteristics could change the long-run fiscal impact of net migration.

Assessing the fiscal benefits of migration – focusing on low wage migrants.

The report read: “An illustrative low wage migrant worker arriving at 25 and earning half the UK average becomes less fiscally beneficial (yellow line) than the average UK resident in their early 40s.”

Goodwin analysed the findings on his substack, he said: “What is interesting about this report is that, unlike what usually happens, it did not point to mass immigration as the answer to problems. Why?

“Because even the technocrats at the OBR have finally realised that the current model of mass immigration that we are pursuing in the UK is weakening, not strengthening, the economy.

“In short, the very kind of immigration that our hapless political elites on both the Left and the Right have been encouraging since Brexit—low skill, low wage, non-selective immigration from outside Europe— is the most economically damaging.”

Reform MP Lee Anderson said in reaction: “Mass Immigration. Parliament keeps ignoring the British people. They just don’t get it.”