How Many Britons Should There Be?

The politics of UK population optimization since 1945

 

Jack Parsons

2005, 57pp.

ISBN: 1-904791-00-X

This monograph gives an overview of the views and activities of the main UK political parties regarding population policy between 1950 and 1993, especially focusing on pointers to appropriate size, rates of change, and suitable policies. With a new tailpiece on developments since 1993.

"When the late David Willey – then new to population studies – set up the Optimum Population Trust in 1991, he invited my help and I was very happy to oblige. He and his wife, Yvette, visited me to browse through my books and other materials and generally familiarise themselves with the broader background of the population problem. Not long afterwards he invited me to become an OPT patron – an honour which I readily accepted – and to write an article for the house-journal, Better World.

The object was to set out some of the highlights of my research and personal experiences in dealing with population in political thought and action within the UK over the last three of four decades, and this monograph starts off with that original text. However, preparing it for republication in this new format made it obvious that the story – then ending in 1993 – needed to be brought up to date, hence the new Afterword. One of the main objects of both the original article and the complete document as now presented, is to show that over the period examined there has always been at least some reluctance – very strong in some quarters – to accept the population problem even as a topic of discussion, let alone as a suitable subject for public policy.

As I argue right at the end, there has been a great double volte-face, reversing the two original levels of acceptability of open discussion of sexual matters and of population matters: as the first has risen, so the second has crashed. The present near-universal refusal to face the latter is now widely referred to by those in the know as the Hardinian Taboo, after the late Professor Garrett Hardin. Garrett did not invent the basic idea of this taboo, quite a few individuals – including some of the few independent-minded journalists – have lamented the fact that there are serious blockages in this sphere of discourse, but in his usual clear and forthright manner he presented it in such a striking way that it subsequently became widely known – at least among the cognoscenti – as ‘the Hardinian Taboo’, possibly under the influence of one of his earlier books (1973), Stalking the Wild Taboo.

Sadly, the almost universally overpowering taboo on the population question means that in general – apart from the agitated and eccentric to-ings and fro-ings in the one population sector in which a small measure of discussion is permitted, migration-control – there have been almost no relevant developments except in the UK Green Party. In the light of the latter I have added an addendum setting out their new population policy. The rationale underlying this is not that either the Green Party or its population policy has my full support (I am not a member and like some aspects, but not all) but that a modern political party can work out and adopt a radical population policy without the heavens falling. If this item interests you, please read the introductory note setting it in the appropriate context.

It also seems clear that a systematic survey of the population policies/ attitudes/values of our political parties at this time would be very useful and we hope it may prove possible to tackle this task and follow-up with an updated report on UK population politics in the not too distant future. Meanwhile we trust, first, that the largely historical material in the original article will show that a lot of useful work was done before the rigid taboo took hold, and, second, that it – reinforced by the urgency of the Afterword – will help to stimulate quite a bit more." JP.

 

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