From the data
available, it’s not at all clear that migration is as salient an issue in the
election as some politicians seem to believe. On the other hand, if they bang
on about it long enough and often enough, its salience is likely to increase –
that’s just one of the many ways in which Labour seem to be determined to
validate, rather than challenge, the Tory agenda. Starmer told us yesterday
that net immigration is ‘too high’ and that Labour will slash the numbers. One
might think that someone who believed that a number was ‘too high’ might have
at least a rough idea of what number would not fit that description, but it is
another of those details on which he seems to be clueless. And even if he feels
unable to be precise about a number, it would surely be reasonable to expect
that he would at least be able to set out, in rough terms, what criteria he
would use to determine an answer to the question.
Sunak says much the same
thing, and is thrashing around for policies which will reverse current trends –
my, will he be angry when he finds out who’s been in government for the last 14
years. Whilst he can offer potential ways of cutting the numbers, in public he’s
remarkably sanguine about the effect of those ‘solutions’ on the finances of UK
universities, to say nothing of the sustainability of the entire health and
social care sector. Perhaps he really does believe that most older people – his
only remaining target group of voters, apparently – really would prefer to die
for lack of care than receive care from some foreigner. Farage’s suggestion
that the answer is to reduce net migration to zero is even further detached
from reality, but then, so is the probability that he’ll ever have to implement
anything he says.
It's worth noting
that some of those most keen on eliminating immigration are also arguing
for UK families to have more children. Well, well-off families at least – they don’t
really want
the poorer to have any children at all. Traditionally, the argument against
immigration has been that we don’t have the homes, hospitals, schools etc to
support the extra people, but it should be obvious that an increase in
population caused by an increased birth rate leads to exactly the same
pressures on services in the long run. And if the Tory-Labour antipathy towards
immigrants isn’t rationally based on that sort of argument, then on what is it
based? It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the underlying basis owes more to
vote-seeking than anything else. It means that the ‘right answer’ for net
migration is whatever number they think will prevent them losing racist and xenophobic
votes to the other party. And it’s why they can’t ever put a number on it,
because their opponent will simply outbid (or should that be underbid?) them. It’s
ultimately a race to the bottom, and a pretty shameful one at that, given that
they both understand the economic and social impact of drastically cutting numbers but are
too afraid to spell it out.
There is, though,
another solution open to them. Since the debate is largely about ‘net’
migration (a numbers game which rather ignores the fact that much of their
target audience is more concerned about characteristics such as skin colour and
religion than numbers), they could simply introduce a scheme under which large
numbers of UK citizens are persuaded to leave. It would need both a carrot and
a stick, but they are largely implementing the stick part already – poor services
and declining standards of living (one might even add a rejection of action to
reduce the climate change which is leading to semi-permanent rain). Given a big
enough carrot, I’m sure that there are millions who might be open to an offer
to live a better life elsewhere. Compulsory French, Spanish and Italian in schools
might turn out to be rather more useful than Sunak’s weird obsession with Maths.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment