Is it the other way round?

You often hear the argument that Europe needs mass immigration to offset its ageing population. The immigrants, it is thought, will work to pay the pensions of the elderly Europeans.

But is that really how it's panning out? One of the wikileaks revelations is that 24% of Muslim men in the UK and 21% of Muslim women are living off disability pensions. At the same time, the UK Government has announced plans to raise the retirement age, over time, to 68 for both men and women.

In many cases, therefore, it will be older Britons who will be working longer in life to fund the pensions paid to younger immigrants. The situation will be the very reverse of that portrayed by the open borders lobby.

There's some other interesting data on this issue presented here. For instance:

• It would take vast levels of immigration to maintain the current age ratio in Europe. The population of the UK, for instance, would have to rise from 59 million in 2005 to 136 million by 2050.
• The problem of funding retirees is not that great anyway. In the UK, it would require a rise in the percentage of GDP devoted to state pensions from 6.2% to 8.5% of GDP.
• This extra cost would be offset by not having to pay the infrastructure costs associated with mass immigration.
• The immigrants themselves would eventually have to have their own pensions funded. Would hundreds of millions of extra migrants then have to be brought in to do this? Are we talking here of a population pyramid scam?