by Rhoda Wilson, Expose News:
In 2018, long-time environmental campaigner Stanley Johnson said on BBC Newsnight that he had called for limiting population growth to become government policy in the past. But historically, has he only called for “limiting” population growth or has he called for depopulation?
On BBC Newsnight in 2018, Johnson was challenged that the UK Conservative Party would always choose economic growth over the environment. He responded that the number of people in the UK was the real problem.
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“One of the problems in this whole area, one of the reasons were forcing ourselves down the economic growth route, is, of course, the constantly expanding population of this country and you can’t ignore that,” he said.
In 2015, Johnson published an article on the Conservative Home website arguing why Britain needs a population policy. He concluded his article:
The harsh truth is that, in vast areas of the globe, birth rates remain much too high and per capita incomes ridiculously low. The ‘push’ factor (escaping poverty, disease, unemployment) may be as important as the ‘pull’ factor (seizing better opportunities abroad). Distinctions between refugees and migrants are in such circumstances largely theoretical. You’d need to be blind to fail to see the connection between high rates of population growth, mass poverty, environmental degradation, and political instability.
Tackling the population problem – whether at home or abroad – is not easy. Some politicians, such as Mrs Gandhi, who courageously sought to bring family planning to the over 300,000 villages of India, ended up unexpectedly on the funeral pyre. But at least she tried.
Stanley Johnson: Why Britain needs a population policy, Conservative Home, 9 September 2015
In 2012, Johnson spoke to the Guardian‘s environment editor John Vidal about his fifty years as an environmental campaigner. In an article that included some comments from this interview, Vidal noted that Johnson, who in the 1970s drafted the first EU legislation on nature protection, called on the government to introduce a population policy. During the interview, Johnson said:
“If you have a declining population, which is what I would aim for, then of course even a stable economic growth situation will give you an increase in per capita income. So that’s where I stand on that.”
Johnson was then asked if he had a sense of what the carrying capacity of Britain would be or for the world as a whole. He responded:
“Well, Britain I put it at 10 or 15 million. I think that’d be absolutely fine. I mean that would do us really splendidly. At a limit of 20/25 [million].”
Further resources:
- Boris Johnson’s Father on The Depopulation of Millions By 2025, Penny Butler, 15 July 2022
- Stanley Johnson – UK Population Must Decrease to 25 million max (video), Muse, 29 May 2021
- Stanley Johson: We have to reduce UK population to 10 – 15 million (13 June 2012). Boris Johnson: How the hell can we witter on about tackling global warming, and reducing consumption, when we are continuing to add so relentlessly to the number of consumers? (25 October 2007), Free Dragon, 9 November 2021
Who is Stanley Johnson?
Stanley Johnson is a British author and former Conservative Party politician who was a Member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1984. A former employee of the World Bank and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, he has written books on environmental and (de-)population issues. His six children include former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
According to his biography on Knight Ayton Management, which represents the “cream of television and radio broadcasters,” Johnson is a former Conservative Member of the European Parliament (“MEP”) where he served (1979-1984) as Vice Chairman of the Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection. He has also worked in the European Commission (1973-1979) as Head of the Prevention of Pollution division and (1984-1994) as Senior Adviser to DG Environment and as Director of Energy Policy. Before joining the Commission, Johnson served on the staff of the World Bank and the International Planned Parenthood Federation.
Johnson has been an adviser to Price Waterhouse Coopers, a director of ERM, an environmental consultancy, a trustee of the Earthwatch Institute and Plantlife International and an environmental adviser to Jupiter Asset Management. According to Knight Ayton, he is currently the Honorary President of the Gorilla Organisation and an ambassador for the United Nations Convention on Migratory Species (CMS). However, his biography could be a little outdated as the Gorilla Organisation website shows Johnson as a patron, not president, and CMS’ website shows him as a former ambassador.
