Over the last two weeks in Eastleigh, UKIP forced home the message that uncontrolled immigration is an inevitable consequence of the UK’s membership of the EU. It's time for progressives to leave the bunker, stop sounding weak, introspective and contrite and get out there and argue the case for migration.
Over the last two weeks in Eastleigh, UKIP forced home the message that uncontrolled immigration is an inevitable consequence of the UK’s membership of the EU.
This populist tactic was a decisive factor in UKIP’s increased vote. The Conservatives, beaten to third place, have responded by heralding the latest immigration statistics, published yesterday.
These show net migration – the balance between immigration and emigration – has fallen by a third since 2010.
It is now down to an annual 163,000, mostly as a consequence of a reduction in student migration.
Today’s Sun praised the government for finally gaining control of immigration. Over the next months we can also expect the Conservatives to stress that that they have fulfilled their manifesto commitment on net migration.
In contrast, Labour’s position looks weak. Over the last year Miliband and others have started to talk about immigration, most recently in a December speech in south London. But a constant throughout has been apologies from Labour about its past immigration policy.
Next week Yvette Cooper will make a keynote speech on immigration in which she promises to “set out Labour’s thinking on past mistakes.”
A narrative has emerged that the previous government disastrously under-estimated the numbers of Poles and other eastern Europeans who would arrive in the UK after the accession of the ten new member states in 2004. This mistake resulted in the UK deciding to open its labour market, with catastrophic consequences for the white working class.
This is a narrative that is being continually reinforced by Labour in its endless apologies for decisions made in 2004. The Conservatives also hammer home this message, relentlessly, and can now point to their success in cutting net migration.
Another act of contrition by Cooper will only reinforce this version of history and further serve to make Labour seem hopelessly weak.
Maybe it is time for Labour to review its strategy.
After May 2004, EU migrants moved here because, in boom years, there were many unfilled vacancies. As can be seen from the graph below, those sectors of the economy that employed the greatest proportion of migrants were those with the highest vacancy rates.
Without these workers, many businesses would have gone under, with disastrous local consequences. At this time it was not possible to recruit UK workers in sufficient numbers to fill empty jobs.
Should Labour be so defensive about a stark economic reality?
Vacancies as a % of sector’s workforce vis-à-vis % of foreign born workers arrived in the last 10 years, 2007
Source: Author calculations from Labour Force Survey, 2007
Today vacancies have shrunk and migration from eastern Europe has slowed. Yesterday’s migration statistics show that net migration from eastern Europe fell to 62,000, the lowest level since the expansion of the EU in 2004.
Labour commentators have stressed that if a future Labour government commits to job training and to upholding the employment rights of UK workers, then UK employers will not face recruitment difficulties and the demand for migrant labour will be scaled back.
This was a view articulated by Miliband in his December speech.
Of course, work-related training and employment rights are important policy objectives in themselves, but evidence suggesting that their extension will reduce immigration is slim. Migrant workers now work right across the economy, with the latest Workplace Employment Relations Survey showing that 26 per cent of workplaces are employing non-UK workers.
Data from the same survey shows that non-UK workers are no more likely that those from the UK to work for ‘bad’ employers who rely on agency staff, do not undertake training or recognise trade unions.
The presence of migrants right across the UK’s workplaces is just one aspect of a globalisation, as is the emigration of UK nationals to take employment in other EU member states and beyond.
Over five million UK nationals live abroad, the vast majority of them of working age. The activities of the British diaspora extend the UK’s economic and political influence overseas, conditions which benefit everyone in the UK.
In today’s world, both immigration and emigration are normal, inevitable and key to the UK’s relative economic success. Britain’s wealth, in part, has been generated by the contribution of generations of immigrants and emigrants.
It’s time to celebrate this, and face up to the reality of globalisation.
It is time for progressives to leave the bunker, stop sounding weak, introspective and contrite and get out there and argue the case for migration.
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109 Responses to “After Eastleigh: It’s time for progressives to argue the case for migration”
Charlie_Mansell
Mick what is your full name, or do you want to hide behind a single word and be thus less accountable to everyone else for your views? My surname is Mansell and is real?. Good to see you use balanced sources of information such as the Daily Mail?:) Every single individual changes every other persons behaviour every day. Humans are social animals who respond to all sorts of cues from friends, relatives and neighbours, work colleagues etc. Our parents are pretty influential too on how we turn out! Everyone applies ‘mind control’ if that what you want to call it. Let me guess Mick you have never manipulated a social situation – for example in a pub – in your life? I don’t believe you! Its just that some study how humans operate and describe how it works. You should be grateful to know more about this ‘allegedly ‘magical mind control’! It is certainly not looking down on people. I grew up on a Council estate and never went to uni, but I have a good general knowledge and read more than the Daily Mail! Perhaps Mick prefers public bodies lecturing ordinary people in a tone of voice that comes across like any teachers he might not have liked at school. I think we as a society can do a lot better than that in how we engage with people and was being honest and open about it can be done. If I were Mick I would start to worry when the immigration dries up, because that is the time all those ‘poor countries’ are getting richer than us. Then it won’t just be a few of Mick’s school friends probably living in Spain (aren’t they immigrants too?:), they will be migrating to East Asia looking for the jobs middle class Indians and Chinese won’t do in the
Auf Wiedersehen, Pet of the 21c. What we are seeing is a massive global wealth redistribution between countries, whilst within countries inequality is increasing. That was always going to unsettle a lot of people, especially those who perceive themselves as losing out to the global changes. If those people think they can stop processes affecting 7 billion people rising to 9 billion by 2050, then I would be very impressed, but I just don’t see it at present.
Newsbot9
The Tories have slashed student numbers. This is a temporary drop in the figures, because in three years, this feeds through into fewer people leaving – given very few students stay on. Meanwhile, this is damaging Universities. That’s what is happening.
Moreover, you are using the chart to trot out an old lie, that domestic workers wages suffer due to immigration. They do not, as a study after study shows – for example, in Miami. The actual issue is that the collapsing economy is leading to high-skill workers *leaving* the country, which also “helps” the figures.
And yes, oddly enough when your far right discriminates against people, it causes social issues. Your far right also have very high unemployment, criminal and jail rates. Of course the Sun only focuses on one of those.
Keep on calling for lower employment, by shutting off UK trade. Your “slip” -“It’s madness when employment is so high” shows your real agenda, cutting wages for the majority.
Newsbot9
Yes, propaganda in the daily fail. Reallocating some local funding would fix some issues, as would cracking down on your far right and making people feel safe enough that they didn’t have to live in tight little hubs for self-defence.
Newsbot9
We had full employment. You do NOT, in fact, want unemployment to fall below 3.5-4%, as this reprisents an immobile labour market and causes all sorts of issue. There were *very* few long-term (6+ plus, even) JSA claimants in those years – people claimed for a short time between jobs.
Your language of inevitability amounts to shilling. Keep calling for blind bigotry as the only policy, when Britain still has remarkably few foreign-born workers for a first world country. The right approach is to condemn your view, not justify them.
Newsbot9
Nope, it’s just not blindly bigoted, unlike yours.
You ignore the trade benefits of being in the EU, remove migrants, and that comes to an end. Of course you feel a working economy for the 99% is optional. And of course you only want the migrants who are far right.