This is one of the most boring and factually incorrect arguments of LW pinhead on this or any other site so let's take an impromptu look at That Immigration In Full:
It's ridiculous to call Roman settlement in Britain "immigration" when it was actually, bluntly, a military invasion and occupation. Most of the Romans who came to Britain were soldiers operating as part of the military garrison.
In the 4th century at the height of the Roman presence, Britain had a total population of around 3.6 million, including a garrison of around 125,000 roman soldiers and their dependents. This would amount to just over 3% of the population, and most were gone by the mid 400s.
The local population of Britain was of extensively Romanised. This was not a case of peaceful cultural transmission, it was the case of a dominant culture imposing its own culture on a subdued native population to make it easier to administer, as is common in imperial settings.
Next up we have the infamous Anglo-Saxon conquests, which depending on the direction of the conversation people like Marcus will probably claim "never happened" or were a "peaceful cultural diffusion" or (etc).
It's difficult to get a good number on this for obvious reasons, but we do know that between the 5th and 6th centuries, the population of Britain dropped considerably, and that the Anglo-Saxons contributed on average between 25 and 50% of modern British ancestry.
In some locales this is obviously much higher, and the Anglo-Saxon contribution to modern British Y-DNA is even higher. This, again, was not "immigration", it was a partial to complete replacement of the native population by armed invaders followed by waves of settlers.
It's also the first and only large-scale population change to have occurred in Britain since the Bronze Age.
"But what about muh Norman conquest?!"
The population of England in 1066 was roughly 2-2.5 million. Following William's victory, an estimated 8,000 Normans and other associated European continentals settled in England. That's about 0.3-0.4% of the total population.
The population of England in 1066 was roughly 2-2.5 million. Following William's victory, an estimated 8,000 Normans and other associated European continentals settled in England. That's about 0.3-0.4% of the total population.
It's possible that more French settlers did make their way to Britain in the centuries after the conquest: modern British DNA has a substantial southwest European input but it's unclear if this is a result of Norman-descended nobility outbreeding the natives or not.
Other notable immigrations after this have been small scale and largely confined to Northwest Europe until the tail end of the 19th century. The largest in this period would be the Huguenots who fled to England from France in the 16th and 17th centuries.
This is described as one of the largest waves of immigration to Britain from a single ethnic group in its pre-20th century history. It amounted to around 50,000 people, around half of whom would eventually move on to the British colonies. Many of them later returned to France.
Immigration β in particular from outside of Europe βΒ remained relatively low until the middle of the 20th century. The foreign born population in the UK likely only amounted to one or two percent of the total until this time, even accounting for more waves of European refugees.
As late as the 1991 census, the portion of the population identifying as "White British" stood at around 95%. It's difficult to get accurate figures before this point but in 1951 this figure was probably closer to 98 or 99% (with "visible minorities" amounting to around 0.2%.)
The idea that "Britain is an immigrant island" is simply nonsense. The basic composition of the population remained largely unchanged from the 6th century AD until the early 2000s. To claim anything else is to engage in the height of either ignorance or mendacity.
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