Europe can’t take half a billion migrants from Africa, warns Zahawi

Millions of people south of Libya are mobile and ready to travel north – posing a huge threat to the Western world, the former Tory MP says

Nadhim Zahawi has warned that Europe cannot take “half a billion” migrants from Africa.
The former Tory MP said that migration will become the biggest threat to the Western world, and believes millions of people “south of Libya” are now mobile and motivated to migrate northward into Europe.
In a talk with his former ministerial colleague Michael Gove at the Cliveden Literary Festival on Saturday, Mr Zahawi said: “I genuinely believe that in the next decade or two, the greatest challenge to Western democracy, Europe, the US, is going to be migration.
“Take Libya. Anything south of Libya, there are half a billion people who are now much more mobile and are going to come under huge pressure; economic, social, political, environmental. Clearly Europe cannot absorb half a billion people.”
He warned that a vast influx would leave nations and their public services “overwhelmed”.
Inward migration to the UK in 2023 was 1.2 million, with most arriving to work. A recent report by the Office of Budget Responsibility found that, over their lifetimes, unskilled migrants are a net burden to the Exchequer.
Mr Zahawi has supported calls for a Parliamentary debate on the value and extent to the UK, and decried the “polarisation” of the issue, warning about the reductive view of some that “if you speak about illegal [Channel] crossings, you are a racist”.
The Baghdad-born former minister said that illegal migration “offends every Brit” because “it goes against the sense of fairness which I think is a value that is inherent to our country”.
He has also set out concern about the societal impact of migration, saying that the majority of British people now routinely witness “people are being intolerant” but are nevertheless “tolerated” by the establishment.
He said: “We need to be intolerant of intolerance, otherwise the social fabric will begin to be ripped apart.”
A successful business and founder of the polling company YouGov, Mr Zahawi believes that Donald Trump will win the upcoming US election, and that Sir Keir Starmer would be a one-term Prime Minister.