Visegrad24 founder Stefan Tompson sat down in London with Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, a British historian, broadcaster, and social commentator known for his outspoken critiques of mass immigration, institutional capture by the far-left, and the erosion of British identity.
In their conversation, Heydel-Mankoo argued that while the public focuses on small boats crossing the Channel, legal immigration is quietly reshaping Britain’s economy, society, and identity.
The Great Deflection
Governments have long directed public anger toward illegal migration because it is visible, simple to condemn, and numerically small. In reality, the population shift occurring through legal channels is far larger. Britain now issues over 1.2 million visas a year, exceeding the total number of legal migrants arriving during the 1980s and 1990s combined. Over the past twenty-five years, more people have come to Britain than in the previous two thousand years of its history.
This demographic change has been deliberate. Successive governments have relied on mass legal migration to fill labor gaps and stimulate short-term economic growth. It has been presented as both an economic necessity and a moral achievement, even as public attention remains focused on sensationalized images of small boats.
Economic Strain and Labor Realities
Contrary to claims that most newcomers are doctors, scientists, and engineers, the majority of new arrivals work in lower-paid sectors that rely heavily on cheap labor. This has economic consequences: wages are suppressed, productivity growth slows, and public services bear a heavier burden because low-earning migrants contribute less in taxes than they consume in support. Economists see this as a predictable outcome of an economy structured around low-paid, easily replaceable labor.
Heydel-Mankoo highlights that decades of low-skilled migration have slowed modernisation. When labor is cheap and plentiful, businesses invest less in technology, training, and domestic talent. Britain’s well-known productivity problem, he notes, is a direct consequence of this economic model.
Integration Under Pressure
Assimilation, which historically worked in Britain, is increasingly failing under current migration patterns. Post-war immigrant generations became fully integrated within a single generation, but the pace and scale of modern migration make this difficult. Communities often remain culturally and linguistically separate, with their own schools, media, and shops. In some areas of northern England, children see so little diversity that they genuinely assume Britain is majority Asian. The result is fragmentation, erosion of trust, and weakening social cohesion, consequences of policy choices rather than malice.
Cultural Confidence and National Identity
Britain faces a broader cultural crisis. Institutions such as schools, universities, and the media now frame patriotism as guilt, teaching young people to view the country as a moral debt to repay rather than a civilization to uphold. Surveys consistently rank Britain among the least racist nations in the world, yet open debate on immigration is silenced by social and political pressures. Discussing limits or defending national identity invites accusation and ostracism, allowing demographic transformation to continue largely unchecked.
Heydel-Mankoo argues that Britain’s situation is not a refugee crisis but the result of deliberate policies prioritizing population growth over national stability. The remedy, he believes, lies in restoring limits, balancing the types of migrants admitted, prioritizing skilled, high-earning entrants, publishing transparent figures, and insisting that all newcomers fully integrate into British society. Without such measures, Britain risks losing the cohesion, identity, and liberty that have long defined it.
Heike Claudia Petzer
Content Writer
