‘Immigration is a fact of life – it’s time for a sensible policy that works’

HARD BORDER: A stand-off between border control officers and migrants who would like to cross. Picture by Humberto Chavez

The Accidental Diplomat, a column by Paul Knott

Can we talk about immigration?

I have heard it mentioned occasionally that “we are not allowed to talk about immigration”. Usually by people who have talked about little else for the last twenty years. So, I hope they will not mind my breaking the imaginary silence.

The first mistake on immigration is treating it as a problem to be solved. It is not. It is a fact of life to be managed in accordance with the interests of the people and countries concerned. People have always moved around for one reason or another and we always will (full disclosure: I write this as an economic migrant from Hull to Switzerland, with a string of previous offences of living in other countries to be taken into consideration).

Framing the issue correctly in the first place matters a lot to our chances of success. Because treating immigration as a problem to be prevented is like King Canute trying to command the tides of the sea to stop. Whereas treating it as a force of nature to be managed means erecting tidal barriers where necessary, whilst also building channels to create an orderly and useful inflow.

This irrigation through immigration is essential to maintain, let alone improve, the economies and standard of living of developed countries like Britain. Our birthrate of 1.5 children per woman is well below the average of over two children per woman required to maintain the population at its present level. In practical terms, this means immigrants are essential to save us from running even shorter than we already are of people to provide the healthcare in hospitals and care homes that our ageing population requires.

No amount of training available members of our existing population can completely fill that gap and many others. The numbers simply do not add up. Even if we had a competent government that was capable of organising this essential training task, it is estimated that the UK will still be short of 250,000 skilled workers by 2030.

ICON: The Mini was designed by a Greek asylum-seeker, Sir Alec Issigonis. Picture by Kishan Modi

Managed and productive immigration is about much more than hiring help too. Contrary to much propaganda, the facts repeatedly show that immigrants over time contribute far more in taxes to their new countries than they ever take out in costs.

Nevertheless, it is true that some recent immigrants to the UK do receive social security support. This, in the vast majority of cases, is because our ridiculous rules refuse them permission to work, which they are desperate to do. Very few people travel many miles from home, braving burning deserts, treacherous seas and ruthless people traffickers, just because they want to pick up a dole cheque that is barely enough to survive on. Anyone so inclined is unlikely to rouse themselves to make the immense effort required to get here in the first place.

Instead, most immigrants are people who are driven to work hard and overcome the most extraordinary challenges in order to seek an opportunity to succeed. As former US President George W. Bush once remarked when told how some migrants were travelling across a notoriously deadly desert region to get from Mexico to the US, “Hell, if they are willing to walk across Big Bend to get here, then we want ‘em”.

Few would credit Bush with being the smartest American President of all time but even he could see the obvious benefits to the US of two centuries of being a nation of immigrants (until it recently – and, I hope, temporarily – lost its mind). The US is a country that rose from nothing to becoming the most prosperous and powerful nation the world has ever seen. This success was largely thanks to the efforts of many millions of honest toilers who arrived as immigrants and built that success, along with more heralded folks who created companies such as Google. Other countries such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore can tell a similar story too.

The UK has also had its fair share of such successes, including the founder of Marks & Spencer, Belarus-born Michael Marks and the creator of the Mini, Greek asylum-seeker Sir Alec Issigonis. Many British entertainers from Freddie Mercury to Rita Ora and sports people from Mo Farrah to roughly half of the current England football team, including captain Harry Kane (whose dad is Irish), are from immigrant families.

’FRUIT AND VEG WOULD NOT BE ROTTING IN THE FIELDS IF THERE WAS SOMEONE TO PICK IT’. Picture by Tim Mossholder

More importantly than these famous examples, in terms of the wider impact on the country, over 50 per cent of the UK’s fastest growing businesses have at least one foreign-born founder. This is because many people who move to another country do so because they are seeking a place to pursue their ideas that has a functioning rule of law and is freer and less corrupt than their home country.

As well as all of these doctors, nurses, job creators and higher than average taxpayers, let’s not forget that we often need some regular, hands-on grafters too. Look at all that fruit and veg rotting in the fields for want of someone to pick it, whilst, at the same time, food prices rocket due to supply shortages.

I realise that some people have legitimate fears that immigration pushes down wages in certain occupations. But there is a better way to handle this risk than impossible-to-achieve blanket bans on people arriving. These include higher minimum wages for employees and properly enforced standards and permit systems for self-employed operators and tradespeople. This risk is also reduced by the fact that people generally do not come if the demand for their services does not exist.

“Cultural differences” are also often cited as reasons for preventing immigration. These can indeed occasionally occur. For example, research shows that recent immigrants from the Middle East are, on average, more likely to be homophobic and anti-Semitic than long-term resident Britons (although, sadly, there are, of course, elements in British society with whom these attitudes would fit right in). Time and education tend to take care of these issues, as people and the subsequent generations they produce settle into their surroundings, adopting its characteristics as they go.

This process can easily and cheaply be sped up too by copying the proactive social integration, language teaching and job skills alignment policies used by countries like Canada. There, many new arrivals are given a local resident “buddy” to help them adapt quickly to the local culture and practices. More controversially, Switzerland has a system of sharing newly arrived refugees out equally amongst communities around the country, in proportion to the current local population. The benefit of this approach is that it prompts more rapid integration, rather than allowing people to congregate with their countryfolk in certain towns and areas like Brits in Benidorm.

None of this is to suggest that there should not be controls on immigration. But there are better ways of doing it than standing on the cliffs of Dover yelling empty slogans at the sea, like “Stop the Boats” or “Take Back Control”. As people have since time began, some of us will always move around for reasons of climate, conflict, family and opportunity. And most of us prefer to do things safely and legitimately. By opening up better managed and simpler ways to migrate, we can enable people to move countries without risking their lives. This in turn allows us to reduce the difficulties caused by having to deal with uncontrolled arrivals whilst also reaping the benefits of the skills migrants provide, the jobs they create and the taxes they pay.