Almost all the
work which has been done on the subject of the economic consequences of
immigration suggests a net economic benefit rather than disbenefit (quite apart
from the fact that parts of the NHS would collapse without the input of migrant
workers). Yet still people believe (or
claim to believe) that immigration is a huge economic threat, and politicians
vie with each other to pander to that view.
It would be easy to blame the hysteria of some of the tabloids, or even
the spinelessness of politicians who know the truth but are afraid of losing
votes by articulating it. Whilst I’m
sure that both of those are factors, I suspect that they are only reinforcing a
deeper mistrust and wariness of ‘otherness’ rather than actually causing it.
The ‘rules’
surrounding debate of the subject are complex and usually implicit rather than
openly stated, which makes it harder to discuss sensibly whether, and to what
extent, free movement of people is a problem or not. All ‘internal’ migration within a state (for
instance from England to Wales, or from London to the Lake District) is a no-go
area when it comes to discussion, despite the fact that the only real difference
between ‘internal migration’ and ‘immigration’ is the constitutional status of
the artificial lines on a map which people cross. And all discussion seems to start from an
assumption that movement of people across some lines is something which needs
to be ‘controlled’; the only question for debate is how, and at what level.
One of the
approaches to control suggested recently was the idea of ‘targetted’
recruitment of immigrants; i.e. identifying what skills are needed and then
going out to specifically target people in other countries who have those
skills. It’s a neat answer for
politicians to give to those who rail against immigration on the doorstep. Active encouragement of
selective migration (with the implicit suggestion that ‘non-targetted’
immigration would be controlled) is a way of controlling the free movement of
people without saying so. But it leaves
me more than a little uneasy.
If those skills
are needed here, are they not also needed in the ‘home’ countries of those
possessing them? Indeed, in many cases
they may well be in even more short supply there than they are here. Whilst attracting people from elsewhere to
fill the gaps left by our own inadequate training and education might appear to
‘solve’ our problems (as well as achieving its other intended objective of
convincing voters that those advocating such a policy are being ‘tough’ on
other immigration), is there not at least a danger that we merely move the
skills shortage elsewhere?
Insofar as
there are economic disadvantages to human migration, they’re more lilkely to be
suffered by the country from which people are emigrating than the one to which
they are immigrating. One of my themes on this blog has been the idea of Wales
as a good world citizen; is deliberately planning to take highly skilled and
educated people away from where they are even more needed really compatible
with that?
Most migration
– to use the wider term – is economic in one way or another, and it happens
because people see that they can enjoy a better life elsewhere. And the cause of that is economic inequality
between the richer parts of the world and the poorer ones. Rather than concentrating on preventing or
limiting the movement of people – which is little more than a symptom of
economic inequality – might it not be better to turn our attention to how we address
that inequality instead of perpetuating it?
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3 comments:
The difference between well brought up and less well brought up kids is simple. The well brought up ones offer the last piece of cake around before accepting it for themselves, the less well brought up simply grab and gobble.
Life runs upon these lines too. The wealthy pay an absurd amount of tax to look after the less well off. The less well off grab everything with both hands and then go back and demand more, more, more.
Interestingly, the well educated worry less over immigration that the less well educated. And yet immigrants take jobs from both wealthy (doctors, dentists, accountants & solicitors), and less wealthy (low level politicians, unskilled or manual workers).
Perhaps the solution is just to improve education. Not something Plaid Cymru or the Welsh speaking Welsh would be keen on, I know, because such groupings rely upon 'otherness' for mainstream support, but surely something the sensible amongst us would welcome.
The thing about the debate on immigration is that as well as highlighting a fair amount of bigotry and intolerance that UK politicians of all parties and some commentators would rather not acknowledge, it’s become a catch all topic for wider social problems, lack of jobs, stagnant wages, crime, welfare reforms, poor housing and poor education standards to name a few and in that context UKIP’s popularity is entirely understandable, but I doubt the ruling classes will change anything and UKIP will keep on winning.
In a purely welsh political context immigration is largely ignored except for refugee or exportation stories, whereas if Wales was a more mature country the immigration debate would be in the Senedd and the pubs about thing like the rights and wrongs of Indian GP’s or nurses from the Philippines in the Welsh NHS, the EU’s freedom of movement laws and also discussing the large scale English migration to Wales and to welsh speaking areas which is weakening welsh identity, something everyone is afraid of doing because you’re be labelled a racist.
I think Anonymous 1of 2 ,has some very interesting comments.
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