Bigger does not mean better

There's speculation that by the year 2050 Britain will be the biggest country in the EU.

Telegraph.

Britain will be the biggest country in Europe by 2050, overtaking both France and Germany, according to official projections. 

Britain will see its population swell from today's 62.2 million to 77 million, an increase of 24 per cent.This will make it bigger than France, projected to be 70 million and Germany, which is predicted to have 71.5 million citizens. 

The forecasts come form the Population Reference Bureau, a US body which supplies data to governments and institutions around the world.

The predictions suggest that Britain will see its population increase over the next 40 years at a far faster rate than nearly every other European country. The extra 15 million equates to the combined populations of Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool being added to the total national population over the next two generations.

Britain's population has started to climb sharply in recent years. Last year the Office for National Statistics indicated that mothers had more children than at any time since 1973.

Immigrant mothers accounted for more than half of the increase in births, but the fertility rate among British-born women also rose sharply.

The Population Reference Bureau predicts that France's population, in contrast, will increase at half the rate, adding 7 million to its 63 million. While Germany will actually see its population fall sharply from 81.6 million to 71.5 million because of a lack of immigration, and a far lower birth rate than that in Britain. It already has the second oldest population in the world after Japan, with one in five of all Germans over the age of 65.

Europe, in total, will see its population dip from 739 million to 720 million, because of its low birth rate.

 Ok it's a crowded island and going to get fuller too, but will it still be a Britain we recognise? Or rather knowing where the increases are coming, will it be an England we recognise as the vast majority of the increase will be in England. Will we have jobs for them (I hope so, my pension depends on it) or will it be a case of an ever decreasing private sector paying out more and more to support an army of welfare junkies and an aged population? Of course the EU might not want us by then or we may have escaped before Cameron's army of Turks comes swarming across Europe looking for the pot of gold at the end of the Channel Tunnel. Or it could be the ultimate dystopia and nightmare of a failed state, not enough power (thanks Huhne) badly educated population, no industry to speak of, religious extremism, starvation Africa style and pariah status from the rest of the world who want to keep us out, or at bay.
Just about the only good news is that it doesn't look like the Moslem's will outbreed our home grown girls, at least not in the short term. But it probably wont be an England we'd care to live in, at least not as we see things now.
2050 is still a long way off. A lot can happen between now and then, but we do need to get some of our politicians to start thinking long term, not just up to the next general election. We need to decide what kind of society we want to have by 2050 and put measures into effect to see we get it. First and foremost, that will mean leaving the EU, second means restoring our manufacturing and trading ability, third get rid of environmentalists in the power generation and faux climate industry, fourth devolve power in the UK to a federation and devolve the federated states down to county levels for most decisions.
Easy enough I'd say.