It's interesting how in the U.K. the intellectual tide has shifted so that the downsides of immigration can increasingly be talked about in a sophisticated fashion just as the American establishment is battening down the hatches and crushing dissent. For example, David Goodhart getting banned from the Hay Festival for being an immigration skeptic has gotten him good publicity in Britain, while Jason Richwine getting fired has been widely treated as proof that he had it coming.
From This Is Lincolnshire in the U.K.:
Grantham MP Nick Boles blames rising house prices on immigration
Grantham and Stamford MP Nick Boles says immigration is helping push up house prices, preventing young people from owning their own home.
The Planning Minister said he has changed his mind about immigration after seeing how the arrival of 2 million new immigrants over the last decade has left Britain short of houses.
He warned that failure to build enough homes would mean only the professional classes would be able to buy a house.
Mr Boles told a national newspaper: “I have become much more critical of immigration. A very substantial contribution to housing need comes from the level of immigration in the past two decades.
“‘I had the classic metropolitan view about immigration that it was broadly good for me because it made life more varied and interesting and there were lots of people bringing different skills into the economy.
“I wasn’t really aware of the effect on people who were competing for relatively low skilled jobs and competing for public services.” ...
Mr Boles said young people are being priced out of the property market, citing figures which show that the number of first time buyers who get a mortgage without help from their parents has halved from 69 per cent in 2005 to just 35 per cent now.
“The biggest block on home ownership now is affordability,” he said.
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