The Immigration Debate: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

This week the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee unveiled its report on the effects of immigration into the UK, concluding that the "economic benefits to the resident population of net immigration (immigration minus emigration) are small, especially in the long run." Yet immigration remains a highly charged and divisive issue in the UK.

This is because 21st Century Britons find it increasingly difficult to reconcile their anxiety over increased immigration with their committment to racial equality. And this is because no clear solution to the problems associated with immigration has been presented that isn't intrinsically linked to race. This may seem unavoidable - after all, people who travel here from abroad are by definition foreign and, as native Brits living in British Overseas Territories already enjoy the same rights as us mainlanders, the likelihood is that immigrants will therefore be of a different nationality, religion, culture or race. However, things get more complicated when we consider migrants who have successfully settled here: Should they be forced to learn English; Are they a burden on public services; Are they planning to bring their families over? Suddenly we find ourselves in the sticky situation of addressing the rights of ethnic minorities in this country and the continuing influx of more and more of them into the country as one and the same question.

In 1968, however, when Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech, Britain was a very different place. Even if you ignore the debate over whether he was quoting a constituent or simply paraphrasing Far Right propaganda to support his argument, his position remained one which would be considered anathema to most people today. When he made his speech, he was arguing against anti-discrimination laws in housing and employment. He was arguing to protect an era where pubs commonly displayed signs reading: "No blacks, No dogs, No Irish". He was defending an old woman's (his alleged constituent) right to refuse to house black lodgers simply because they were black, depicting them as violent thugs for good measure. The result of Powell's speech was to energise the National Front and stoke fears amongst the white working class that the black man would one day have the whip hand over the white man. We still see similar sorts of racism today especially in tabloid newspapers. A poll of The Sun readers last year showed that on average they believed immigrants accounted for 25% of the population. Actually its just 8%.

My view is that the problems associated with immigration: housing shortages, strained public services, fierce competition for jobs etc are more examples of market failure than anything else. At the end of the day it is economics, and the British financial regulatory system to boot, that are screwing over the white working classes who claim to suffer most from the fallout of increased immigration. The CBI says businesses choose immigrants over domestic residents because they work harder and longer for less money. Housing shortages occur not because there are too many people, but because there aren't enough houses. When social housing is sold off by ruling parties for political gain and the super rich are invited to buy up as many houses as they want, thereby also driving up the price of housing, a squeeze on the most vulnerable -domestic and immigrant alike- is inevitable. When the government solicits ultra-rich foreign businessmen by allowing them to claim non-dom status and pay less tax on the same earnings than everybody else, people naturally begin to feel alienated.

Furthermore, with social mobility lower now than it was in the 1960s, and the difference between skilled and non-skilled, in our almost entirely service sector oriented economy, means choosing between selling shares and cleaning toilets, opportunities become limited and discontent rife. Also a lack of any real interest in foreign cultures or languages amongst the native population is restricting their ability to adapt and seek new lives and fortunes abroad in neighbouring European countries, just as their French, German and Spanish counterparts are learning English and bringing their skills to the city.

Indeed, if the last 40 years of immigration legislation have taught us anything it is that the more you tighten the law surrounding immigration, the more immigrants you will attract. This was the case in 1962 when immigration surged following the ratification of a new Act, restricting immigration, as settled immigrants who might one day have returned home felt they had no choice but to bring their families over pemanently for fear they may never be able to return to Britain again should they ever leave.

To blame, therefore, housing shortages, job shortages and a failing public service on anything but economics is ludicrous and to blame it on immigrants themselves is nothing more than thinly veiled racism.