![]() The lack of imagination, vision and ideas of how we might do things differently is part of the problem. But mass immigration grows our GDP, if not GDP per capita, and reduces debt as a percentage of our economy without us having to do much. Productivity is poor, growth low, and pay stagnant. This is partly down to the failing economic model upon which Britain has relied for decades. MPs grow hysterical when ministers confirm that not every unfortunate individual from every unfortunate country can come here via a “safe and legal route”. Dependence on their ready supply kills the incentive to invest in labour-saving, productivity-improving tech, and the skills of people already here. Partly as a result we have skills shortages that cause demand for migrant workers to grow. We have created a higher education model entirely dependent on income from foreign students, whatever their quality, at the expense of British kids who are displaced from our best institutions and courses, and that fails to offer technical and vocational alternatives. Yet this seems an impossibility for our politicians. Third, the policies pursued to get inflation down now – steep interest rate rises and attempts to drive down pay – may end up making our difficulties worse next year when, as seems likely, we and other countries slide into recession.īut most obvious is that the demand from politicians – whatever the problem, whatever the context, regardless of our ability to cope – is for more immigration overall, when if there is a need for a particular kind of immigration, common sense should lead us to change the balance and profile of migration while remaining true to the need to reduce, drastically, the numbers overall. Second, the rise in inflation started with an international supply shock, and has been exacerbated by the failures of monetary policy over the past 15 years or so. And this follows years of pay stagnation, which leaves us no better off than we were in 2005. ![]() Overall, the country is having its real-terms pay cut. But even this does not mean immigration – which zealous liberals forget brings with it serious economic and social challenges of its own – should automatically rise.įirst, the tight labour market is not leading to inflation-busting pay rises. Migrant workers, then, might fill gaps caused by older people not returning to the workforce and the rise in numbers of people not working due to illness. Of course it is possible to argue that while economic demand rebounded to its expected path following Covid, the labour force has not. Inflation, according to Chris Patten, is high in part because Brexit has made it “more difficult for us to import … labour”. They have done so despite academic studies and evidence from the Government’s own Migration Advisory Committee saying the opposite. For years they have insisted that immigration does not cause job displacement or hold down wages. When companies can recruit from anywhere in the world without trying to do so from within Britain first, and at salaries that are often no higher than the minimum wage, what controls would Hammond relax? We already have the most generous immigration system in the Western world.īut the inflation crisis – and the solution proffered by Hammond – has revealed a truth long denied by ministers and officials. To respond to rising housing costs amid a housing shortage by creating more demand for limited stock may seem eccentric. Philip Hammond, the former chancellor, has said relaxing immigration controls will create more competition for jobs and help to reduce inflation – and therefore interest rates – by reducing the power of workers to seek increases in pay. And some former ministers are starting to say the quiet part out loud. Ministers brief the newspapers that the labour market is too tight, and companies need more workers. In the past year, net migration stood at 606,000 – a number that was unthinkable even 12 months ago. And yet many politicians are clamouring for even more. We have had more immigration in this time than in the past 2,000 years combined. Every manifesto of every party to win an election in the past quarter century has promised immigration control, yet every government has failed to deliver it. The lies, most recently, have come thickest and fastest about the single issue that has done most to destroy trust in the British political system: immigration. Alastair Campbell – who has seemingly forgotten about weapons of mass destruction, Iraq, Dr David Kelly, Bernie Ecclestone, cash for honours, tax rises, tuition fees and top-up fees – now says Johnson must be “accountable” for the “lies” he supposedly told to persuade people to vote for Brexit.īut Campbell is far from alone. ![]() Since the demise of Boris Johnson, the need for politicians to tell the truth has become en vogue among those who consider themselves of a nobler spirit.
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