It is quite difficult to lose 300,000 people. Unless, that is, you happen
to be the British government. Last month it announced that since 1997, the
increase in the number of foreign nationals working in Britain has been 1.1
million - not 800,000 as previously claimed. Then the government lost 600,000
jobs. Since 1997, it had to admit, just 2.1 million new jobs have been created,
not 2.7 million as previously claimed. All of which, as critics pointed out,
means that more than 50 per cent of all jobs created since Labour came to
power have gone to foreigners.
The figures inevitably led to a fierce new debate on immigration. And equally
inevitably they led to an auction between Labour and the Conservatives to
see which party could bid for the greatest restrictions. The muddle over immigration
figures certainly reveals gross official incompetence. But that is nothing
new. Just this week the government was forced to admit that it had lost in
the post two CDs containing the personal details of 25 million people - the
latest in a series of scandals to hit this administration. But, paradoxically,
the immigration figures also reveal why Britain does not need new restrictions.
An extra 300,000 immigrants had come to Britain - and nobody had noticed until
the government got its figures in twist. That speaks of how successful recent
immigration has been, not of the problems it has caused.
Indeed the figures reveal the success, not just of immigration, but of an
open door immigration policy. When eight new East European nations joined
the EU in 2004, Britain decided, unlike most other EU nations, not to impose
restrictions on migrants from the accession countries. Critics warned that
millions of East Europeans would overwhelm Britain. In fact, some 600,000
East Europeans, mainly Poles, have arrived since 2004 - far closer to the
critics' estimate than that of the government. And Britain is still standing.
If anything, the new migrants have kept Britain standing by picking crops,
cleaning streets and building houses.
The Polish experience has demolished one of the key arguments for tight immigration
controls: the claim that, with lax controls, the whole world would simply
walk into Britain. Britain is rich, much of the world is desperately poor.
Open the borders, runs the argument, and the hordes would descend upon us.
In reality, people who emigrate tend to work, if they are able to, for a period,
earn money and return home.
Ironically it is not an open border, but tight immigration controls, that
make people move in large numbers and settle. In the 1950s, when Britain had
a virtual open door, many of the initial immigrants were single men who expected
to return home after a short time working here. Once the government imposed
immigration controls they had no choice but to stay here and bring their families
over. Open borders allow people to move in and out according to need. Closed
borders compel people to settle, even if they have no desire to. The figure
of 600,000 East European migrants since 2004 is actually misleading, because
many of them, perhaps most of them, have returned home. Again, we do not know
the exact figures because of official incompetence with statistics.
OK, say the critics, that may be so, but the immigrants who do come deprive
indigenous workers of jobs. Wrong again. Migrants don't take jobs from locals,
they do jobs that locals won't do or can't do. And by so doing, they actually
create jobs by boosting the economy - as a government report published last
month revealed. The report also showed that, far from depressing wages, immigration
has helped raise the wage levels of local workers and that immigrants pay
more in taxes than they take out in benefits.
But what about pressures on resources, such as housing, transport and hospital
services? It is true that there is a crisis in Britain in the provision of
housing, health and transport. But it is a crisis created by underinvestment
not by immigration. You only have to look at who staffs British hospitals,
drives the buses or works on building sites to realise that without immigrants
the crisis in all these areas would be far worse.
But Britain is an overcrowded island. Immigrants boost the British population
by nearly 200,000 a year - that's two million in a decade. How will they all
fit in? Quite easily. Just 8 per cent of Britain is settled. The rest is either
farmland or wilderness. If 60 million Britons can live on 8 per cent of the
land, housing an additional 2 million is hardly going to use up all our green
spaces.
The paradox of immigration is that despite its success, both policy makers
and the public continue to view it as a problem. That is because the debate
about immigration has never really been about immigrants at all. Rather their
presence has helped crystalise already existing social anxieties - and at
different times there have been different anxieties.
In the 1950s, politicians worried that immigrants would settle in this country
and thereby undermine a racialised sense of Britishness. Today many worry
that immigrants won't settle, but will move in and out, and so undermine social
cohesion. They also worry that those that do settle will take up too much
space and leave too big a carbon footprint. In reality, of course, immigrants
are no more responsible for social fragmentation or environmental degradation
now than they were for undermining national identity half a century ago. In
both cases they have simply become symbols for wider social anxieties. Social
fragmentation and the squeeze on resources are both issues that clearly need
addressing. But they will not be addressed by scapegoating immigrants. All
we will do is strangle one of Britain's success stories - and make those other
problems even worse.