Concern about immigration is widespread, but what are Britons willing to sacrifice to take control?
Immigration is a major political issue, more so than many affluent, London-based politicians and commentators understood ahead of the EU referendum.
However, while we know that large swathes of the British population are concerned about immigration, we have limited data on how concerned they are, what policy options they most support, and what they are willing to sacrifice in order to reduce immigrant numbers.
For example, a poll published this morning by Demos and Comres suggests that huge divides remain on immigration from the EU, with greater support for freedom of movement than many believe.
Respondents were asked to choose between three reciprocal options for Britain’s immigration relationship with the EU.
Just 20 per cent supported the current freedom of movement arrangements, while 41 per cent accepted the principle of freedom of movement but want greater restrictions on criminals and limitations on the benefits available to EU citizens in the UK.
A significant minority of 39 per cent supported a points-based system or similar, as enthusiastically endorsed by Leave campaigners.
The results are interesting, and many have interpreted them as showing greater support for freedom of movement than common political narratives suggest. However — as is inevitable with polling — the figures generate more questions than answers.
Most significantly, it does not tell us how many of those who are dissatisfied with freedom of movement are so frustrated that they believe restricting immigration is worth an economic downturn.
Research published earlier this year suggests that, while a majority support restrictions of EU migration, that support drops below 50 per cent if the restrictions result in penalties on trade and business
This is the key question the British people need to answer since, however vehemently British politicians deny it, restricting freedom of movement will mean restricted UK access to the European single market, with all the economic costs that entails.
Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin is editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow her on Twitter.
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8 Responses to “We still don’t know what the British public thinks about immigration”
Imran Khan
Well, Niamh. Do you actually have an opinion. We would like to know. You are increasingly, like this site, becoming ridiculous.
Anon
It’s the hypocrisy that bugs me.
John Reid told us, when he was part of a Labour government, that Labour increased immigration to bring down the cost of labour. And yet we have Labour campaigning on low wages.
We also had Andrew Neather telling us that Blair intended to rub the right’s nose in diversity. And yet Labour continually lecture us all on cohesive communities.
Give it up LFF, the public rumbled you long ago; for the working class (more fashionably described as ‘blue collar’ now) it has become obvious that this was an exercise in social engineering.
If the liberal left in this country believe that whole swathes of people can be sacrificed for their glorious new world order experiment, then they can’t expect those same people to turn up and vote for the people who ditched them.
The young people in this country are now radicalised to despise the previous generations – if the inhabitants of that particular demographic are white, Christian, and heterosexual they are guilty of the most heinous of crimes.
And that is another of the hypocrisies at work here – it isn’t the old and white that hate, but the radicalised students in our universities, who are being taught to hate the UK and its people by people who have their own selfish and bitter agendas.
Craig Mackay
Labour really needs to develop a coherent Brexit package that they can campaign for enthusiastically. The Tories are badly divided and it is not at all clear that Teresa May’s hard right-wing version of Brexit will get through Parliament particularly through the Lords. Most pressingly we need a specific Labour package for immigration. For example, we could allow any EU citizen who has a written job offer from a UK employer to be permitted to work here provided the job was previously advertised in the UK for UK applicants. The same conditions would apply in reverse for UK citizens wishing to work in the EU. This is actually very similar to the present situation with non-EU workers except that they are subject to arbitrary quotas. It gives us the control we wanted and only people from the EU that British employers wished to take on could work here. It wouldn’t be the government in control of our borders but rather British businesses and industry. We then need a consistent view of the single market. We would have to serve all the legislative and technical requirements of operating within the single market. We could agree to pay a membership fee such as 1% of all exports into the EU single market.
If Labour does nothing, says nothing and apparently thinks nothing then we can only expect it will have no influence whatever on Brexit. Such an approach will make it easy for a Tory government to undo all that has been achieved for social progress in the last 40 years. Labour cannot and must not let that happen.