Fraser
Nelson
Migration nation: Brexit has meant more
immigration than ever
From
magazine issue:
20 May 2023
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/migration-nation-brexit-has-meant-more-immigration-than-ever/
What’s
strange about this is the fact that though all these jobs are on offer,
unemployed Mancunians don’t seem to want them. Figures published last week show
that 18 per cent of Manchester’s adults are claiming out-of-work benefits. Some
120,000 have reported as long-term sick. Welfare dysfunction has created a huge
hole in the workforce.
The net
migration figure released next week is expected to come in at above 700,000 a
year
It’s the
same story in city after city. Somehow, the UK has managed to combine mass
joblessness with a worker shortage. Almost one in five working-age people in
Birmingham are on out-of-work benefits, and it’s the same story in Glasgow and
Liverpool. In Blackpool, the number is closer to one in four. This is a huge
waste of lives, leaving aside the issue of taxpayers’ money.
Though
Rishi Sunak promises welfare reform, it’s not clear how he intends to deal with
a problem of this size. His officials have warned him that things are set to
get much worse. There are 5,000 claims per day for sickness benefits, many on
the grounds of poor mental health – almost twice the
pre-pandemic
rate. No one expects that rate to start slowing. Internal government forecasts
now envisage the welfare caseload rising for five years, with the number on
disability benefits surging by a third to 3.7 million. The Prime Minister’s
officials are admitting that we won’t escape this trap any time soon.
So who will
fill the million-plus vacancies? How can we grow the economy? The answer to
this question will become clear next week, when figures are released showing
that mass immigration is back on a scale that would have been unimaginable not
so long ago. And rather than treating it as a problem, Sunak’s government seems
to regard it as a solution to Britain’s missing workers.
During the
Brexit campaign, much fuss was made of the news that immigration had hit
323,000 a year, making a mockery of David Cameron’s promise to reduce it to the
‘tens of thousands’. Brexiteers and Remainers alike assumed the whole point of
leaving the EU and ending ‘free movement’ was to reduce arrivals. The consensus
was that about 130,000 a year was right. We now take that amount of people
roughly every ten weeks. The net migration figure released next week is
expected to come in at above 700,000 a year: by far the largest in the history
of our islands.
While it’s
true that next week’s numbers will be inflated by refugees from Ukraine and
Hong Kong, and by students (many of whom arrive with dependants in tow), the
underlying trend is clear. The Office for Budget Responsibility has abandoned
any idea that Brexit meant cutting back immigration, because there is no
evidence that anyone in government is remotely serious about doing so. It now
forecasts, long-term, around 250,000 arrivals a year – almost twice the
post-Brexit projections. A second great wave of migration has begun.
How to
address the problems that mass migration brings, without seeming to have
betrayed Brexit?
While the
first wave of mass immigration in recent decades was an unforeseen consequence
of expanding the European Union, this one is planned. The Tories have taken
back control and used it to ramp up immigration to a level that New Labour
would never have dared attempt.
It’s often
said that the United Kingdom is an immigrant country. This is not quite true.
Until the mid-1980s, we were a net exporter of human beings. In 1948,
parliament passed a law giving all 800 million citizens of the Commonwealth the
right to live and work in Britain, the assumption being that hardly anyone
would want to come to these rain-battered islands. Waves of migration made the
news, but they barely dented the demographics. When more people started to
arrive in the 1990s, the numbers were modest. So the EU’s borderless future was
designed at a time when no one imagined the level of mass migration to come,
because it had never happened before. Tony Blair had no idea that he was about
to preside over a new economic model. He didn’t plan for it, because he just
didn’t see it coming.
The
problems are becoming obvious. The mass movement of migrants meant that
employers preferred cheaper, foreign-born workers over investing in training
locals. The consequent increased pressure on housing, schools and hospitals are
what led, in part, to the Brexit vote. People wanted their politicians to make
a better job of managing globalisation.
Boris
Johnson talked about controlling migration to force companies to pay decent
salaries: if that meant higher prices, so be it. He saw the national shortage
of truck drivers as a wake-up call: such people should be valued and paid
properly. This wasn’t just Brexiteer bravado. Sir Stuart Rose, the ex-M&S
chairman and a Remain campaign chief, argued the same: the end of free movement
would push up wages for low-skilled workers, he said – though he thought this
was ‘not necessarily a good thing’. Both sides agreed Brexit would mean lower
migration and higher salaries. Not many would make that case now. Rather than
rising, real-term incomes are midway through their sharpest fall since postwar
records began.
A milestone
was passed this week when it emerged that 20 per cent of the UK workforce is
foreign-born – making us more of an immigrant country than even the United
States. Brexit has brought in a different mix of migrants. India has supplanted
Poland as the biggest source country for new workers: followed by the
Philippines, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Australia and the United States. Interestingly,
post-Covid sickness and mental health issues haven’t seemed to afflict
Britain’s immigrant community in the same way as they have its natives.
But while
the US regards itself proudly as an immigration nation, our Prime Minister’s
strategy is to act as if nothing is happening. There is no Statue of Liberty at
Victoria Coach Station in London, though a quarter of all UK schoolchildren
have an immigrant mother. In London it’s just over half.
Brexit
Britain can claim to be one of the most welcoming countries in the world with a
work visa approval rate of about 96 per cent. It’s almost 100 per cent for
Americans (12,382 applied and just 47 were refused). Non-EU citizens are no
longer treated as second class: in fact someone from Kyrgyzstan is more likely
to get a work visa than someone from Germany. Before Brexit, just seven people
from Tajikistan were granted visas a year. Now, it’s about seven a day. Visas
for people from India have doubled since the Brexit vote. Zimbabwe is up
20-fold, Uzbekistan 100-fold.
Britain is
now the country where workers of the world unite. So far, all this is being
done with success and harmony that would astonish the rest of the world. There
is virtually no anti-migrant backlash: indeed, a recent poll showed Britain to
be one of the most pro-immigrant countries in the world. We’re also about the
only country in Europe not to have a serious anti-immigrant populist party in
parliament or with any significant showing in the opinion polls. Concern about
migration is far lower than it was pre-Brexit, even if the numbers are higher,
which is in part because the government has taken control of who arrives.
To enter
Britain there is a list of conditions: you need to be an English speaker with a
sponsor, a job offer and a minimum salary, and in an approved profession.
Perhaps this has made the influx less controversial – it’s immigration but with
greater democratic consent. But it’s also easy to see how this could begin to
sour. We still need many more workers and they will all keep coming. There will
be ever more pressure on hospitals and schools. This is the problem Sunak faces
now. How to address the problems that mass migration brings, without seeming to
have betrayed Brexit?
Perhaps
every new worker is vital to the economy but the fact remains that the
government is issuing visas equivalent to a city the size of Southampton every
year – and there are certainly no plans to build a new Southampton every year.
He needs to ask: where will the newcomers live? Who will build their houses,
teach their children, tend to their sick? To dodge these questions, to pretend
it’s not all happening, guarantees big problems in the future.
Being
honest about mass migration also means being honest about the trajectory of
British welfare. Yes, Sunak would like reform. But if his own officials are
predicting a massive increase in mental health caseloads, on the assumption
that the problem is going to get far worse, then it’s time to talk about this
too. Why do we think a million more people are going to end up on disability
benefits? Why in Britain, not anywhere else? The reason this question is so
difficult to discuss is that tough-love welfare reform is fraught with
political danger. No politician wants to be accused of being heartless.
Politically,
it’s easier to write the cheque and forget about the long-term sick. It’s
astonishingly easy to do so. When figures were released this week showing 5.3
million on out-of-work benefits, up from 5.2 million – already a staggering
figure – it was given no coverage at all. It’s amazing how recategorisation of
benefits can make millions disappear: politically, at least.
Sunak
embodies the quiet success of British integration, but there’s a risk in
getting too carried away. The industrious Zimbabwean and Australian immigrants
can hardly be blamed for welfare dysfunction. But if they are being used to
cover it up, then it’s worth discussing.
Is it
possible to give up on welfare reform and use mass immigration to build
post-Brexit Britain? Absolutely. Is it desirable? That’s another question. And
it’s one the Prime Minister should really get around to answering before too
long.
Fraser
Nelson
WRITTEN BY
Fraser
Nelson
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