Tim Newark
to shame the Government into loosening its grip on immigration in anticipation of tighter border controls thanks to Brexit.
Theresa May needs to rebuff this impression by making sure that her Chequers plan swapping freedom of movement for a “mobility framework”, which allows easy movement for work or study by EU citizens, is not a fudge allowing businesses to carry on paying less money to low-skilled foreign workers. She is well aware that this is not what Leavers voted for.
We all know that an expanding, successful economy needs skilled workers from abroad to fill gaps in employment. But let’s make it clear that this is what our immigration policy should be about. I do not believe that all the 282,000 extra people who came to this country last year were highly trained technicians walking straight into vital jobs.
We must not be afraid to be more discerning about the economic migrants who come to the UK. We must not shy away from insisting that immigrants who do come from cultures with completely different values to our own should be more active in integrating themselves into our society. We cannot allow intolerant foreign communities to cut themselves off from the broader values of our country. If we do not assert ourselves more strongly we risk the very cohesion we so value in our land.
Legal and illegal mass migration from mainly Muslim countries into mainland Europe has undoubtedly triggered a rise in more extreme politics within the EU. Openly anti-immigrant governments are now in charge in Italy, Austria, Hungary and Poland. Even in Chancellor Merkel’s Germany, which encouraged an open-door policy to refugees that was exploited by hundreds of thousands of economic migrants, the main opposition is now a stridently Right-wing nationalist party. And we thought we’d seen the back of all that after the Second World War.
The message is plain that if normally moderate voters feel their concerns are being ignored by mainstream parties they will turn to fringe politicians who articulate their concerns more strongly.
Millions of Ukip voters lent their support to Theresa May following the referendum vote believing her promise that Brexit means taking back control of our borders.
The unfortunately ambivalent Chequers statement has seen grassroots support already seeping away from the Conservative Party. The latest immigration figures must not be allowed to fuel a belief that May’s declared determination to reduce mass immigration is not actually being followed through.
MOREOVER, if we can’t control the one form of immigration we have some authority over, what chance have we got of enforcing a reduction in EU migration? Because let’s remember that these latest figures are an estimate of the number of people coming to our country.
The Home Office has proved itself hopeless at identifying and removing thousands of illegal migrants who have simply dropped out of the system.
The lesson is clear that if the Government does not get a grip on mass migration it will pay a heavy price at the next election – and the political alternative might not be very agreeable at all.
‘It is the one issue that we can control’