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Labour and Tory governments obsess about people arriving illegally in the UK in small boats, but focusing on them – and demonising them – diverts attention away from the more important fact: that the UK economy is crucially reliant on legal mass immigration.

Immigrants arriving legally in the UK far outnumber those in the small boats – 948,000 as against 37,000 in 2024. But exaggerated attention given to the latter allows governments to escape admitting that the UK economy (which saw zero growth in July) and society – thanks largely to self-inflicted weaknesses – cannot do without a huge supply of forei

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