Immigration
to UK may fall before Brexit
Former
Downing Street adviser predicts migrants will be put off by drop in
sterling.
By CHARLIE COOPER
10/12/16, 2:10 PM CET Updated 10/13/16, 5:53 AM CET
LONDON — The
plummeting value of the pound and the “psychological impact” of
the Brexit vote will mean that immigration from the EU to the U.K.
will fall sharply well before Brexit actually happens, a former
Downing Street economic adviser has predicted.
Jonathan Portes, now
a research fellow at the National Institute of Economic and Social
Research, said the falling pound meant that the value of a British
wage was now between 15 and 20 percent lower against the Polish
złoty.
Combined with a
post-Brexit economic slowdown in Britain and a broad recovery in the
eurozone labor market, Portes said he anticipated EU migration to
Britain to fall away from current levels over the next 18 months.
“People coming
from Eastern Europe especially take into account not just wages as
expressed in sterling but wages as expressed in home currency,”
Portes said during a briefing at King’s College in London. “Since
we’ve devalued the pound by 15 to 20 percent against the złoty,
for example, you might expect some future impact on migration flows
as Poles and others realize that the pound is not what it used to
be.”
He said that the
“psychological impact” of the Brexit vote could also push down
numbers as potential migrants felt “less welcome here,” although
this factor was difficult to quantify, he added.
Official figures in
August showed that there were 2.23 million EU workers in Britain,
with around 270,000 EU citizens migrating to the U.K. in the year to
March 2016.
Prime Minister
Theresa May has made clear that regaining full control over
immigration will be her priority in Brexit talks with the EU, which
will commence after March 2017.
Any fall in EU
migration is likely to be politically useful to May. But Portes said
it would exacerbate the potential economic damage caused by
uncertainty in the wake of the Brexit vote, by reducing Britain’s
labor supply.
Ending freedom of
movement of people from the EU to the U.K., as May has indicated she
would like to do, would also increase regulatory burdens on British
business and increase the size of the state, Portes added.
“This is not a
value judgment – this is baked in to the choices that we are making
by ending free movement,” he said. “Free movement is, from the
point of view of the people in the Home Office, great. It means you
don’t have to worry about the Europeans — in the future they will
be a problem, there will have to be a bureaucracy to deal with them.”
However, May has
left herself some “flexibility” on precisely what immigration
system for Europeans she introduces post-Brexit, Portes said after
the briefing.
“She has not
painted herself into a corner by, for example, saying that Europeans
will be treated exactly the same as non-Europeans which is what some
people on the Leave campaign, including some who are now in
government, explicitly committed to,” he said.
“She has left
herself quite a lot wriggle room to give quite preferential treatment
to Europeans. On the other hand, she has made clear that we [in
Britain] have to decide who should be able to come here to work —
not the ECJ, not a treaty with the Europeans.”
Authors:
Charlie Cooper
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