MIGRANT RULES NEED TO BE EVEN TOUGHER
THE intellectual dishonesty of the liberal elite would be laughable were it not so damaging to our country. In their mix of preening superiority and ideological delusion these self-appointed champions of progress continually prattle about the need for mass immigration yet they blindly refuse to face up to the disastrous consequences of the revolution that they so eagerly support.
Yesterday there was a classic example of this deceit when the Institute for Public Policy Research, which styles itself “the UK’s leading progressive think tank”, launched its economic blueprint for post-Brexit Britain.
The plan was the work of the Institute’s “Commission on Economic Justice”, whose membership features establishment worthies such as Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Frances O’Grady, the head of the TUC.
Despite some cheerleading from Left-wing parts of the media, the IPPR Commission’s effort was an exercise in hollowness. On one hand the document wailed that Britain’s economic model is “broken”, resulting in low pay, inequality, job insecurity and an overstretched public sector.
On the other hand the report utterly failed to address the question of immigration, which is undoubtedly the prime cause of these problems. Amid 122 pages of dreary verbiage the subject was given just three brief mentions, two of them anodyne and one, incredibly, calling for an even greater foreign influx “to bolster the labour force”.
BY coincidence, just as the IPPR Commission was issuing its woolly report yesterday, a far more sensible document had been made public.
This was a leaked copy of a draft strategy paper from the Home Office which set out a potential approach to post-Brexit immigration controls.
Robust in its vision, practical in its measures, the document had the clear central theme of giving priority to the needs of the British people. That is real democracy and justice as opposed to the fatuous outpourings of the commission.
Inevitably the progressive lobby expressed outrage with Labour’s Alison McGovern leading the way with her gripe about a “mean and cynical” strategy. Yet there should be nothing controversial about this scheme. All the draft rules are perfectly fair and workable.
Once free movement ends in March 2019 the Home Office proposes new restrictions which will deter low-skilled workers and benefit claimants. There will, for instance, be no residence permits for jobseekers, nor will EU nationals be allowed to bring in members of their extended families.
Additionally low-skilled arrivals will only be permitted residency for a maximum of two years. To strengthen the preference for British workers, firms that want to hire from Europe will have to pass a tough “economic needs test”. In future there could be a cap on the number of migrants.
The Home Office plan is exactly what the majority of the country wants. It is also what our economy needs if prosperity is to accelerate and spread more widely. As Theresa May said in Parliament yesterday, mass immigration from the EU has had the effect of “depressing wages”. But because our welfare system provides top-ups for low pay through tax credits and other benefits the public in practice has to subsidise the import of cheap foreign labour.
It is a huge racket that is costing Britain a fortune in falling living standards and soaring benefit bills. Indeed in 2016 David Cameron said that around 40 per cent of all EU migrants are dependent on British welfare.
The social security embrace extends far beyond those in work. There are estimated to be about 400,000 unemployed EU migrants here, while one study in 2012 claimed that one third of Big Issue sellers in Britain are Romanian.
The chief concern is that the scheme will be drastically watered down by the soft political establishment.
In reality the Government should move in precisely the opposite direction by applying these provisions to the entire immigration process, including those from beyond Europe. After all, out of the 588,000 migrants who arrived in Britain last year the majority were from outside the EU.
This is the pattern that has been followed for years, storing up enormous difficulties for the economy and social fabric of our nation.
For a start the overall welfare costs are phenomenal, since 22 per cent of all the unemployed in Britain are migrants and just 46 per cent of new arrivals come here looking for work.
IN their politically correct cowardice the progressives avoid such facts. They like to pretend that the unceasing tidal wave represents an unalloyed gain for our society.
Their enthusiasm for free movement has been twisted into a form of loathing for the British people, as typified by a disgraceful remark from the diplomat Lord Kerr when he said last November that “immigration is the thing that keeps this country running. We native Brits are so bloody stupid that we need an injection of intelligent people”.
That is the same snobbish and contemptuous attitude towards Britain that has infused the hysterically negative response to the Home Office plan.
For the sake of our country the progressives must not prevail.
‘Progressives trying to avoid the facts’