Bloody Immigrants

The Tories went into the election promising to reduce immigration. They state that "The Government believes that immigration has enriched our culture and strengthened our economy, but that it must be controlled so that people have confidence in the system. We also recognise that to ensure cohesion and protect our public services, we need to introduce a cap on immigration and reduce the number of nonEU immigrants."

Let's examine that carefully. Firstly, immigration is a good thing by virtue of cultural and economic strengthening. But it needs to be controlled to ensure confidence in the system. I don't disagree that it needs to be controlled. But controlling isn't necessarily reducing. Indeed, given that it is apparently a good thing, one might argue that increases are desirable, if one can control things such as who immigrates, when and where etc. Furthermore, there are various ways in which one might try to bolster confidence in the system.  As an immigrant I can assure you that the system is farcical and is perversely complex, expensive and eratic. Ask almost anyone on a Tier 1 or Tier 2 visa and they'll have a horror story or know someone who does. Errors, delays, unecessary court proceedings and an utterly opaque system are the norm. So some more confidence in the system is not a bad thing, and if the system can't produce a way of managing who comes in and out then it clearly needs to be fixed.

We then find that, despite being culturally enriching and economically strengthening (at a time when our economy could do with some stregthening), we need to cap immigration and reduce the nonEU immigrants in order to ensure cohesion and protect our public services.

I'm unclear quite how nonEU immigrants threaten public services. NonEU immigrants are usually students or those on work permits of various kinds. They have no recourse to public funds of any kind: so they don't get benefits. They have to prove that they are finanically self-sufficient in order to obtain their visa. They can, however, utilise health and education services. The majority of students though are within the education system and are paying exorbitant fees to be there. The majority don't have children. Tier 1 and Tier 2 visa holders are generally highly-skilled, earn high salaries and pay high taxes. One could argue, therefore, that the pay their way. I don't think it is self-evident that these immigrant threaten the UK's public services.

Cohesion is another matter and a more slippery beast. But let's look at these populations: students and highly-skilled migrants. Most students will have to speak english or are here to help learn it. Highly-skilled migrants will generally need to speak it to obtain high-paying jobs. There is also a requirement to pass an english test or come from an english-speaking country to obtain such visas. So language isn't really an issue here. The real issue is, I suspect, the formation of large homogenous communities of non-UK residents in particular places. But given the naturally transigent nature of students whose courses tend not to last more than three or four years they're clearly not the "problem". I'm not sure about highly-skilled migrants in this case, but given their numbers are low (30k p/a) and that they tend to be affluent my suspicion is that they're not at the heart of what's driving Tory policy either.

It appears that business lobbying has reduced the cuts to skilled migrant visas. To reduce highly-skilled migrants who help create innovation and lead growth in high-tech business and research was surely folly in a world where increasingly it is intellectual property that is crucial. But that means the target must shift to students. Vince Cable appears to have prevented the axe falling on university students, but the univerities are still very worried (who contribute £2.2bn of funding to the UK's univerisites and supply over 10% of their teaching staff). Again, to have reduced these at a time when university funding for teaching and research is being decimated would have been an act of perversity. So it will be FE students, in the main who are refused visas. Yet, figures show that many of these students then go on to university in the UK.

By all means immigration needs to be controlled and its impact monitored both socially and economically. But the coaliton's arbitrary cap, which lands on exactly the kind of immigrant that a country might want and need, is politically driven attempt to win votes and to be seen a being "in control" despite potentially unlimited EU immigration which is both far greater in number than nonEU immigration and also qualitatively different. The truth is that the government can't control this immigration but in order to be seen to act it is acting. What worries me most is that this reflect such a lack of strategic thought that the mind boggles. Just when innovation is needed, just when funds from overseas students are needed, just when taxes from affluent workers are needed, we're looking to reduce them. These changes won't appease those against immigration for xenophobic reasons. They will, however, pile straws onto the back of the camel of the UK economy.