The British National Party wants an immediate halt to all further immigration and voluntary resettlement of immigrants already here with generous financial incentives. The BNP also wants to clamp down on the flood of asylum seekers, all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries. This is no more than you would expect from a racist, fascist party.
The UK Independence Party is also against immigration. It has linked Europe and the immigration and asylum issues together in a bid to shake off its image as a single-issue party and gain popular support on an issue that it has identified as a vote winner. In September Robert Kilroy-Silk, then a UKIPMEP, made a hardline speech promising that the UKIP would set a quota of no more than 100,000 immigrants a year allowed into Britain.
The quota no longer features in UKIP policy. The party now wants stricter embarkation controls, a points system for immigrants and a withdrawal from the EUs Common Asylum Policy, Roger Knapman, the UKIP leader, said in February. However he accepts that immigration is necessary, and that Britain has a long tradition of accepting genuine refugees, which we would continue. The party would aim to approach zero net immigration but UKIP does NOT favour the application of quotas either for legal immigrants or for refugees (their emphasis).
Nor does the quota appear in the immigration policy of Veritas, Kilroy-Silks new party wants to admit only those that are needed because of their skills. They will be expected to speak English, pass health tests, have no criminal convictions and integrate into the British way of life. The party would only take our fair share of refugees.
In fact to its shame only the Conservative Party now wants a specific quota on immigrants and asylum seekers. Trailing badly in the polls, the Tories know that immigration is the only issue on which they have a significant lead over Labour and intend to milk it for all it is worth. A Conservative government would limit immigration to 100,000 a year, the same limit that Kilroy-Silk proposed. The Tories are no doubt mindful of their support on this key issue haemorrhaging to their anti-Europe rivals.
The Tories also proposed a points system for determining who should be allowed to enter Britain. Not to be outdone, the Labour government responded with its own very similar proposal to award points for work skills, knowledge of the English language, and other desirable attributes. Then the Conservatives came back with proposals for health checks on would-be immigrants, whereupon Labour quickly pointed out that this was already Labour policy.
All this vying for the support of what Labour and the Tories see as widespread public sentiment against immigration and asylum is quite simply destructive. It exploits and builds up baseless fears. And it plays into the hands of the far right, who oppose immigration and asylum, not because Britain is full up or they take our jobs or they are all spongers on welfare (spot the contradiction here), but because they are racists.
The issues that really interest people are their economic wellbeing, the health service, crime, pensions and education. The various problems under these headings are difficult to solve and the issues are often complex. How much easier it is to divert attention from parties lack of answers on these matters to immigration and asylum, and even to blame immigrants for the problems. Crime is rising, blame it on immigrants. Council tax too high? The money is going on housing asylum seekers and paying them benefits.
But the truth is that immigrants benefit Britain immensely. Home Office research shows that immigrants and refugees are a net benefit to the community to the tune of £2.5 billion. A record 340,000 legal migrants travelled to Britain to fill job vacancies according to government figures published in February. More than 130,000 of these came from the eight East European countries that joined the EU last May. A further 181,400 work permits were issued to people from outside the EU. These are people who come to work and are needed because the British economy is enjoying the longest sustained expansion in its modern history.
Indeed increased immigration might not only be the result of Britains prosperity, it might also have made a significant contribution to it. Unemployment is low. In the past low unemployment and a high level of new job creation have resulted in inflation, as wage pressures have caused price rises in an upward spiral. This is not currently happening. There are several reasons for this, but one is that an influx of energetic young people with skills and the will to work has helped the two million new jobs created since May 1997 to be filled without triggering wage inflation.
Some economists believe that new restrictions on immigration could push up interest rates. The resultant labour shortage, they argue, would result in higher wages and greater inflation, which the Bank of England might counter with interest rate rises. Treasury figures suggest that economic growth would fall by 0.5% over two years if immigration to Britain ceased.
Sceptics and the far right might respond that immigrants are preventing British workers from being better off by undercutting their wages. Mostly that is not the case. All that is prevented is inflation: wage increases that are rapidly eaten up by increased prices. That benefits no one. Legal migrants do not have to work for a pittance. Many have skills that are in demand, that employers will pay for. They have to pay British prices for accommodation, food, etc and quickly realise what they need to earn. And enforcement of the minimum wage is helping to prevent the worst cases of exploitation. Unemployment has not increased, proof that immigrants are not taking jobs from British workers.
There are problem areas, such as agriculture, where gang masters pay legal migrants no more than the minimum wage and keep illegal immigrants on starvation pay and in slave conditions. Stopping immigration is not the answer. Agriculture needs workers and agricultural employers must be forced to pay their workers properly. The trade unions should recruit these workers and fight for decent wages and conditions for all, and against a system that encourages farmers to employ illegal immigrants because they cannot obtain work permits for unskilled workers. And the public must accept that if agricultural workers are not to be exploited, both in Britain and the rest of the world, we have to pay higher prices for food.
The governments new points system, which will give the highest points to skilled workers, is hardly designed to help the economy. It seems that the highly skilled will be allowed to enter Britain regardless of whether they have a job offer. Conversely unskilled but willing workers may be unable to obtain work permits despite a demand. A points system may also drain skills away from poorer countries that really need them and have invested large sums into educating and training their people.
The economy is not the only aspect of British life that benefits from immigration. Searchlight has pointed out many times that the health service would collapse without its huge numbers of immigrant and minority ethnic staff. The growing demand for medical services in Britain has outstripped the supply of indigenous doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff and the only way this demand has been met is through immigration.
Schools also benefit from immigrant teachers and support staff, although this has perhaps been less apparent because many are white from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Nearly one quarter of staff working in higher education come from overseas.
Immigrants can also make an important contribution to alleviating Britains pensions crisis. Britains postwar baby-boomers are hitting retirement and people are living far longer than before. A period of poor investment returns and a tax change in 1997 that reduced the income of pension schemes have left private pension plans unable to provide the pensions that workers were promised. The stark choice facing Britain is later retirement, lower pensions or higher taxes. It may need a combination of these and the situation may get worse. Today there is one person over 60 for every two of working age. By 2050 it is expected that this will increase to two over 60s for every three of working age.
Immigrants are more likely to be young. They are people with the energy and determination to leave their own country and make a new home in a strange and unfamiliar land. Older people with their own children or aging parents needing care are less likely to do this. Immigrants contribution to Britains economy can stave off the worst of the pensions crisis. Their taxes can help pay for state pensions, and the continuation of economic prosperity can help everyones savings grow. The BNPs response is that immigrants will themselves get old and draw pensions one day so it only puts off the evil day. Perhaps, but putting off a crisis allows more time for other measures to take effect, and not all todays immigrants will stay in Britain for their whole lives. Immigrants from eastern Europe, for example, may well return home after a few years and invest their savings in new businesses opportunities opening up in their own countries.
Despite the undoubted benefits of immigration, it would be wrong for Britain to have no controls, as some people have argued. There are vast differences throughout the world in income, wealth, freedom and social security. There are many countries that suffer from civil conflict or oppress part of their population. Britain is a very attractive place to live. If there were no controls, we would have to give up the principle that no one in Britain should be left destitute. We would have to discriminate between those deserving of benefits and those who are neither genuine refugees from oppression nor have any prospect of looking after themselves. Such discrimination would conflict with human rights principles and more people would be forced to live rough and beg.
Many people express concern about immigration and asylum but this concern has been greatly whipped up by the tabloid press and the right. Instead of trying to fight the far right on their own ground, the democratic parties should highlight how immigration benefits Britain and join in an open and rational debate on what controls because there must be some controls are fairest, most effective and most helpful to Britain and the potential migrants themselves. The only major political party that has had the guts to point these things out is the Liberal Democrats. How immigrants can best be integrated into British society should form part of the debate, as should those problems that arise from conflicts between some cultures and the important British concepts of freedom, equality and democracy. We must also recognise that asylum is an entirely different issue to immigration, a humanitarian rather than an economic issue, for which any sort of quotas are unsuited. And we must prevent exploitation of all migrants by ensuring that they are paid decent wages for their work.
The British National Party wants an immediate halt to all further immigration and voluntary resettlement of immigrants already here with generous financial incentives. The BNP also wants to clamp down on the flood of asylum seekers, all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries. This is no more than you would expect from a racist, fascist party.
The UK Independence Party is also against immigration. It has linked Europe and the immigration and asylum issues together in a bid to shake off its image as a single-issue party and gain popular support on an issue that it has identified as a vote winner. In September Robert Kilroy-Silk, then a UKIP MEP, made a hardline speech promising that the UKIP would set a quota of no more than 100,000 immigrants a year allowed into Britain.
The quota no longer features in UKIP policy. The party now wants stricter embarkation controls, a points system for immigrants and a withdrawal from the EUs Common Asylum Policy, Roger Knapman, the UKIP leader, said in February. However he accepts that immigration is necessary, and that Britain has a long tradition of accepting genuine refugees, which we would continue. The party would aim to approach zero net immigration but UKIP does NOT favour the application of quotas either for legal immigrants or for refugees (their emphasis).
Nor does the quota appear in the immigration policy of Veritas, Kilroy-Silks new party wants to admit only those that are needed because of their skills. They will be expected to speak English, pass health tests, have no criminal convictions and integrate into the British way of life. The party would only take our fair share of refugees.
In fact to its shame only the Conservative Party now wants a specific quota on immigrants and asylum seekers. Trailing badly in the polls, the Tories know that immigration is the only issue on which they have a significant lead over Labour and intend to milk it for all it is worth. A Conservative government would limit immigration to 100,000 a year, the same limit that Kilroy-Silk proposed. The Tories are no doubt mindful of their support on this key issue haemorrhaging to their anti-Europe rivals.
The Tories also proposed a points system for determining who should be allowed to enter Britain. Not to be outdone, the Labour government responded with its own very similar proposal to award points for work skills, knowledge of the English language, and other desirable attributes. Then the Conservatives came back with proposals for health checks on would-be immigrants, whereupon Labour quickly pointed out that this was already Labour policy.
All this vying for the support of what Labour and the Tories see as widespread public sentiment against immigration and asylum is quite simply destructive. It exploits and builds up baseless fears. And it plays into the hands of the far right, who oppose immigration and asylum, not because Britain is full up or they take our jobs or they are all spongers on welfare (spot the contradiction here), but because they are racists.
The issues that really interest people are their economic wellbeing, the health service, crime, pensions and education. The various problems under these headings are difficult to solve and the issues are often complex. How much easier it is to divert attention from parties lack of answers on these matters to immigration and asylum, and even to blame immigrants for the problems. Crime is rising, blame it on immigrants. Council tax too high? The money is going on housing asylum seekers and paying them benefits.
But the truth is that immigrants benefit Britain immensely. Home Office research shows that immigrants and refugees are a net benefit to the community to the tune of £2.5 billion. A record 340,000 legal migrants travelled to Britain to fill job vacancies according to government figures published in February. More than 130,000 of these came from the eight East European countries that joined the EU last May. A further 181,400 work permits were issued to people from outside the EU. These are people who come to work and are needed because the British economy is enjoying the longest sustained expansion in its modern history.
Indeed increased immigration might not only be the result of Britains prosperity, it might also have made a significant contribution to it. Unemployment is low. In the past low unemployment and a high level of new job creation have resulted in inflation, as wage pressures have caused price rises in an upward spiral. This is not currently happening. There are several reasons for this, but one is that an influx of energetic young people with skills and the will to work has helped the two million new jobs created since May 1997 to be filled without triggering wage inflation.
Some economists believe that new restrictions on immigration could push up interest rates. The resultant labour shortage, they argue, would result in higher wages and greater inflation, which the Bank of England might counter with interest rate rises. Treasury figures suggest that economic growth would fall by 0.5% over two years if immigration to Britain ceased.
Sceptics and the far right might respond that immigrants are preventing British workers from being better off by undercutting their wages. Mostly that is not the case. All that is prevented is inflation: wage increases that are rapidly eaten up by increased prices. That benefits no one. Legal migrants do not have to work for a pittance. Many have skills that are in demand, that employers will pay for. They have to pay British prices for accommodation, food, etc and quickly realise what they need to earn. And enforcement of the minimum wage is helping to prevent the worst cases of exploitation. Unemployment has not increased, proof that immigrants are not taking jobs from British workers.
There are problem areas, such as agriculture, where gang masters pay legal migrants no more than the minimum wage and keep illegal immigrants on starvation pay and in slave conditions. Stopping immigration is not the answer. Agriculture needs workers and agricultural employers must be forced to pay their workers properly. The trade unions should recruit these workers and fight for decent wages and conditions for all, and against a system that encourages farmers to employ illegal immigrants because they cannot obtain work permits for unskilled workers. And the public must accept that if agricultural workers are not to be exploited, both in Britain and the rest of the world, we have to pay higher prices for food.
The governments new points system, which will give the highest points to skilled workers, is hardly designed to help the economy. It seems that the highly skilled will be allowed to enter Britain regardless of whether they have a job offer. Conversely unskilled but willing workers may be unable to obtain work permits despite a demand. A points system may also drain skills away from poorer countries that really need them and have invested large sums into educating and training their people.
The economy is not the only aspect of British life that benefits from immigration. Searchlight has pointed out many times that the health service would collapse without its huge numbers of immigrant and minority ethnic staff. The growing demand for medical services in Britain has outstripped the supply of indigenous doctors, nurses and auxiliary staff and the only way this demand has been met is through immigration.
Schools also benefit from immigrant teachers and support staff, although this has perhaps been less apparent because many are white from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Nearly one quarter of staff working in higher education come from overseas.
Immigrants can also make an important contribution to alleviating Britains pensions crisis. Britains postwar baby-boomers are hitting retirement and people are living far longer than before. A period of poor investment returns and a tax change in 1997 that reduced the income of pension schemes have left private pension plans unable to provide the pensions that workers were promised. The stark choice facing Britain is later retirement, lower pensions or higher taxes. It may need a combination of these and the situation may get worse. Today there is one person over 60 for every two of working age. By 2050 it is expected that this will increase to two over 60s for every three of working age.
Immigrants are more likely to be young. They are people with the energy and determination to leave their own country and make a new home in a strange and unfamiliar land. Older people with their own children or aging parents needing care are less likely to do this. Immigrants contribution to Britains economy can stave off the worst of the pensions crisis. Their taxes can help pay for state pensions, and the continuation of economic prosperity can help everyones savings grow. The BNPs response is that immigrants will themselves get old and draw pensions one day so it only puts off the evil day. Perhaps, but putting off a crisis allows more time for other measures to take effect, and not all todays immigrants will stay in Britain for their whole lives. Immigrants from eastern Europe, for example, may well return home after a few years and invest their savings in new businesses opportunities opening up in their own countries.
Despite the undoubted benefits of immigration, it would be wrong for Britain to have no controls, as some people have argued. There are vast differences throughout the world in income, wealth, freedom and social security. There are many countries that suffer from civil conflict or oppress part of their population. Britain is a very attractive place to live. If there were no controls, we would have to give up the principle that no one in Britain should be left destitute. We would have to discriminate between those deserving of benefits and those who are neither genuine refugees from oppression nor have any prospect of looking after themselves. Such discrimination would conflict with human rights principles and more people would be forced to live rough and beg.
Many people express concern about immigration and asylum but this concern has been greatly whipped up by the tabloid press and the right. Instead of trying to fight the far right on their own ground, the democratic parties should highlight how immigration benefits Britain and join in an open and rational debate on what controls because there must be some controls are fairest, most effective and most helpful to Britain and the potential migrants themselves. The only major political party that has had the guts to point these things out is the Liberal Democrats. How immigrants can best be integrated into British society should form part of the debate, as should those problems that arise from conflicts between some cultures and the important British concepts of freedom, equality and democracy. We must also recognise that asylum is an entirely different issue to immigration, a humanitarian rather than an economic issue, for which any sort of quotas are unsuited. And we must prevent exploitation of all migrants by ensuring that they are paid decent wages for their work.