Divisive rhetoric will not improve practices that put migrants' lives at risk
The day after George Osborne announces massive public spending cuts that will impact on the working poor, decimate councils and reduce police numbers, David Cameron plays the populist card with a speech on immigration.
Portrayed as a ‘one nation’ speech, it is a clear attempt to divert attention from the cuts and today’s immigration statistics.
Although details will not be set out until the Immigration Bill is published after next week’s Queen’s Speech, the highlights we have been shown are, at best, meaningless rhetoric. They also reproduce Labour’s mistakes of tough talking and over-promising – and can only act to reduce the public’s trust in the ability of politicians to deliver on immigration policy.
The prime minister’s proposals include:
- New powers for councils to crackdown on unscrupulous landlords and evict illegal workers/migrants more quickly. Councils already have a legal framework to regulate the private rental sector and tackle bad landlords. But housing regulation has been cut and this proposal will be meaningless without funding.
- Creating a new offence of illegal working and enabling the police to seize wages as proceeds of crime. Employers face civil penalties and since 2006 it has been a criminal offence to knowingly employ on irregular migrant. Most irregular migrants work below the radar in a low-waged cash economy and send money home at the soonest opportunity. Giving the police powers to confiscate wages is pure dog-whistling.
- Creating a new labour market enforcement agency to crack down on the worst cases of labour market exploitation. What is wrong with extending the powers of the Gangmasters Licencing Authority and increasing the numbers of National Minimum Wage inspectors?
Worryingly, Cameron’s proposals also included extending the ‘deport first, appeal later’ measures to all immigration appeals and judicial reviews. This already happens in immigration appeals that are not asylum and human rights cases. It seems that the government proposes to remove refused asylum-seekers to their home countries, where they can then appeal.
In the three months to 31 March 2015, 2,242 asylum appeals were handled by judges, of which 29 per cent were upheld in that the appellant was granted asylum or leave to remain in the UK.
Nearly one in three of the Home Office’s initial decisions are wrong, a figure that is higher for Afghan nationals (40 per cent of appeals upheld) and Eritreans (45 per cent of appeals upheld).
Sending someone back home when a wrong judgement has been made puts lives at risk.
Unsurprisingly, the Cameron speech made little reference to today’s migration statistics, which comprise administrative data from the Home Office on asylum and visas, as well as demographic estimates on net migration from the Office for National Statistics (ONS). The Home Office statistics show that visas for family and student migration are steady, but a 9 per cent increase in work visas in the year to March 2015, compared with the previous year.
Asylum applications are also steady, with 25,020 applications in the year to March 2015, of which the largest numbers came from Eritrea, Pakistan and Syria.
Work, student, family and student immigration from outside the EU make up under half of immigration to the UK. The ONS migration estimates suggest that in the year to December 2014, 42 per cent of immigration to the UK was from other EU countries.
Continued immigration from the EU has meant that the target to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands has been missed yet again. In the year to December 2014, it is estimated that 318,000 more people came to the UK than left as emigrants. Unsurprisingly, announcements from Downing Street and the Home Office did not mention the missed target.
Overall, there was little positive in today’s announcements. There were no proposals to promote integration which might help us live together better. Rather, today’s proposals are distracting rhetoric which create a vicious circle of ‘tough talk’ that reinforce negative public attitudes.
These, in turn, prompt ever more uncompromising statements. So, no change from the nasty party.
Jill Rutter is a contributing editor to Left Foot Forward.
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44 Responses to “Tough talk but no real change on immigration shows the Tories are still the nasty party”
stevep
Immigration has been one of the main political footballs kicked around by all parties for decades now. it is not a new phenomenon.
Britain`s Empire was largely built on forced and induced migration (the slave trade), no-one mentions that now.
Britain`s canal and railway systems utilised large numbers of Irish migrant labourers to help construct them.
A colossal amount of temporary migrants fought on Britain`s side during the wars.
As Norman Tebbit notes, himself an aviator, in our finest hour 1 in 8 battle of Britain pilots were Polish. Not to mention the French, Canadians, Americans, South Africans, Australians etc. who offered to serve for Britain.
The British invited it`s citizens from all over the Empire to come and help rebuild Britain after the war and replace the fallen and injured in workplaces all over the country.
the 1960`s saw as many as half a million Irish labourers in The UK helping to build houses and roads.
And so it goes. The current migrants fill a gap in the birth rate now that the baby boomers are reaching pensionable age. They pay taxes which enable those pensions to be paid.
When we talk about migrants we only denigrate the poor migrant. weallthy migrants such as company bosses, media barons, footballers, actors etc. are ignored.
In the end it`s just the mainstream media once again diverting peoples attention away from the real issues and playing divide and rule on behalf of the establishment
damon
”no-one mentions that now”
I think we hear about it all the time actually. You are aware of Black History Month I presume.
”And so it goes”
So what goes? That the population of Britain is bound to rise by millions every decade? It probably will, but it will be a squeeze and life may well be a bit less pleasant when we are fuller.
We’ll need more Cross-rail type projects all the time. And new motorways and new towns. Also remember what happened because of the American internal ”Great Migration” form the south to the north.
Cities like Detroit became hellish places in parts – because of the racism in American society. We in Britain are always being told that we are a racist society too, so things can go wrong here as well..
This Youtube shows the kind of country Britain was in the 1970s, and it still struggles to get over its legacy today. Many people from black and minority ethnic communities insist that nothing’s changed. So having on going large scale immigration can keep us in a place that we might like to have left in the past.
It’s about ”The Mangrove 9” and racist police and landlords etc back then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQQLLtfNhcY
Cole
I see the Tories have been doing a great job on getting those immigration figures down. Remember all those promises in 2010? I guess it was just rhetoric anyway.
Gerschwin
Seems so. Very disappointing.
Cole
boring