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.
44 Responses to “Tough talk but no real change on immigration shows the Tories are still the nasty party”
Keith M
Always has been the nasty party and the new incarnation is even nastier.
stevep
Yes, I sympathise with a good deal of your reply, I know past and recent history, in particular, social and economic history. I know that a good deal of migrants became ghettoised, that`s unfortunate, but understandable. A similar situation exists in Spain on the Costas with an estimated half a million migrant Brits living in the sun. A lot of Spanish people grumble about it too. and substantial populations of Brits live in Florida, France and Italy, not to mention Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
I have worked with many migrants : Italian, Australian, Lithuanian, Ukranian, Egyptian, Greek Cypriot, Estonian, Byelorussian, Irish, and many more. Barring the language barrier ( a good deal of them spoke better English than most English people), they were just like you or me. Good `uns, Bad `uns and indifferent `uns. They shared a common goal, to work and provide. A few I met were highly qualified, working as teachers or accountants back home.
I have had one Irish and two Polish dentists in the last five years, all giving excellent service. In an NHS hospital I received diagnosis from an Anglo-Indian consultant and was operated on by an Anglo-Italian surgeon. They were great.
I`ve lost count of how many Indian and Chinese takeaways I`ve had in my lifetime, there are two establishments near me, both excellent.
So I speak from experience and honesty about my dealings with migrants. I respect you for your honesty.
It`s just a shame that a lot of people don`t speak from honesty but fear, mostly generated by right wing interests ( it`s a story that stretches back a long time) and parroted by the right wing press. I know the left aren`t blameless, far from it, but as this is supposed to be a left wing forum encouraging progressive left-wing thinking and debating, let us not be hijacked and distracted by the more far-right among us who have infiltrated this forum and this website to spread, shall we say, a more SunMail view of the world. They are legion and are easily spotted. Let us have a proper, wide debate on the subject.
damon
Interesting what you say about the British in Spain. Yes they can be a bit of an embarrassment when you see them. And those bars and restaurants they frequent and even own. I was in the Canaries for a couple of months recently and was genuinely ashamed to be a Brit at times. Cafes with names like ”Belly Busters” with signs saying how great their all day breakfasts were etc. Or ”Lineker’s” bar with all the football blokes watching football.
But they are a bit different as immigrants to some of ours in England.
They mostly take their own money with them and largely pay for themselves.
While immigrants in general just about do perhaps (the figures show a small surplus for the government overall) there are many variations on that with the various forms of immigrants and some are particularly needy and (as yet) are still a drain on the public purse.
And I wish people on the left would just admit that, but they always try to deny it and muck up any possible discussion about it. Asylum seeker migrants from Africa are still probably in the negative column when it comes to paying their way. Whilst the dentists you referee to would be very much paying in more than they took out.
I can’t remember the details right now, but I’ve read how much a person on low wages pays in and takes in benefits over particular periods.
The young EU migrants who come and work for low wages for a few years and then go home are net payers in to the system because they take so little out.
When they have children, the little tax they pay is quickly equaled or overtaken by the costs of their children. They then get tax credits etc – something that I’ve never got btw as I don’t qualify, even though on low wages myself.
The older the people get and as the family grows, if it’s just one person working in the family they will be big net recipients. And will be even more if they stay here to retire. If their children do well, then of course the costs will be offset by them as they start to work and pay tax, but if they are from struggling communities, like the Afro-Caribbean population with very high rates of youth unemployment and involvement with the criminal justice system, then you could say that the economic good that was achieved by the initial working lives of the Windrush generation has been mostly overtaken by an economic burden on the economy.
CGR
Britain is full up !!!!!!
We need to take account of the cultural costs of uncontrolled immigration into our major cities.
JoeDM
When the canals and railways were built Ireland was part of the UK so the Irish were not immigrants. No different from a Yorkshire man looking for work in Kent etc.