Former UKIP chief Douglas Carswell has claimed mass immigration and multiculturalism is Britain’s biggest policy failure.
Speaking to Steve Edginton on GB News, Carswell said: “You can fix a broken economy. You can cut taxes and sort out public finance. You can remove regulation and you can even remove yourself from the European Union.”
“Once you allow mass demographic change, you change the human capital and the underlying essence of what it means to be British.”
He described this as a “catastrophic failure” of all governments since 1997.
Douglas Carswell spoke to Steve Edginton on GBN Originals
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Carswell highlighted dramatic demographic shifts, claiming: “Today in Britain, one in every 27 people has arrived in the past 24 months.”
He pointed to London’s transformation, claiming: “The demography of London, the city of my birth, has transformed since 1991. There are now only seven boroughs in London where white British people are not a minority.”
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The former MP argued that Britain’s success stems from “a distinctly Anglo Celtic culture” and that “importing people who don’t show those values has actually diminished and undermined our great virtues.”
Carswell rejected the notion that mass immigration benefits the economy, stating: “There is nothing good about importing people with low cognitive ability, low aptitude, low skill levels and a high propensity to live on welfare and commit criminal offences.”
He claimed governments have operated under a “mistaken fantasy belief” about immigration’s economic benefits.
“They’ve made a big mistake in believing that mass immigration was good for the economy when it’s not. It’s actually lowered Britain’s per capita income,” Carswell told GB News.
Carswell said mass immigration is Britain’s biggest policy failure
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He also dismissed multiculturalism as neither “stable or desirable or sustainable.”
Recent data shows UK visa applications have dropped by 37 per cent in the year to March 2025, with 772,200 applications compared to nearly 1.24 million in the previous year.
This decline likely reflects strict immigration rule changes introduced in early 2024 by the previous Conservative government.
Meanwhile, illegal Channel crossings reached a new daily high for the year on Saturday, with 623 migrants reaching British shores.
The total for 2025 has now reached approximately 8,000, despite Labour’s pledge to “smash the gangs” of people smugglers.
Carswell concluded his remarks by placing blame across the political spectrum: “This is a massive transformation and all major parties are culpable and guilty of this catastrophic failure.”
His comments come as the Institute for Government recently called for an annual migration plan to end decades of “incoherent, disconnected and unpredictable” policies.
The think tank criticised successive governments for implementing “reactive, kneejerk policies” formulated when politicians face questions about net migration figures.
Net migration hit a record high of 906,000 in June 2023 during the premierships of Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.