Immigration has gripped Britain like no other topic in the past year.
It sparked riots and protests across the country following the brutal murder of three girls in Southport; it led to the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party and doomed the Conservatives to their greatest defeat in history.
A woman walks down Leicester high street. Just 41% of people in Leicester are white
Undoubtedly Britain has been transformed by migration.
Until the Second World War, Britain was a largely ethnically homogeneous country with a strong national identity and proud culture.
In recent decades, the country’s borders were opened to the world and millions have come. Some were doctors and came from other skilled professions; many came from complete poverty and brought their extended families.
Leicester, a city where I asked if people were proud to be British, is now the least white city in Britain (just 41% of people identified as such in the latest census).
The documentary explores growing immigration levels across BritainGB NewsMany did not want to be interviewed on camera by GB News.
One man told me to f*** off and raised his middle finger at me when I politely asked if he’d like to be interviewed.
However, those who did talk to me said they were proud to be British and vehemently made the case for diversity and increased immigration.
A homeless man in Great Yarmouth describes his anger at migrants being given hotel rooms paid for by the taxpayer
They said, and many British-born people agreed, that Leicester is a great place to live with a diverse choice of restaurants and there is a real harmony between communities.
Other locals pointed to the race riots in the midlands city in 2022, and the fact it voted for a pro-Gaza independent MP, alleging the supposed harmony was a facade.
In Great Yarmouth, a town with a thousand years of history in the East of England, the feeling was far less in favour of migration than in Leicester.
In the recent general election the town voted for Rupert Lowe, a member of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party.
I investigated why Reform won, and interviewed locals again on the High Street.
Great Yarmouth is a poor place with a proud community spirit. Not one person who spoke to me during our day filming there spoke in favour of immigration.
I was told immigration made people feel unsafe, that immigrants were overwhelming public services like the NHS and that they were destroying British culture.
After successive promises from governments to cut migration numbers, Britain's borders have never been more wide.
A woman in Great Yarmouth says she thinks migration has made Britain a worse place
Record numbers of legal and illegal migrants have entered the country in recent years, and this former Conservative town switched to Reform after a sense of betrayal from the Tories.
Since 2018, more than 130,000 illegal migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats. In response ministers housed many of them in hotels, including some luxury hotels.
Speaking with a local who became homeless in 2018 when the small boats crisis began was an emotional experience.
He spoke of being let down by society and introduced me to other homeless people in similar positions, including veterans from the Falklands war.
They told me they were on the street, refused housing by the authorities, while illegal migrants are put up in hotels.
I heard many legitimate concerns about the sudden and rapid cultural transformation that immigration has caused, all without democratic consent.
Immigration may have ended the Tory Party’s 14-year rule, and if Keir Starmer thought he wouldn’t face a similar backlash he was soon taught a lesson by the anti-immigration protests.
Whether through the Reform Party or the issue of Gaza, migration is changing the British political calculation, and both left and right are having to adapt to these new veins of emotion across different communities.
Dr David Starkey spoke to Steven Edginton about what Britain was like before immigration
One thing is certain. With recent numbers showing more than a million people were given long-term visas in the twelve months to June 2024, the nation that Britain waswill never be the same again.
