There’s only one way to control immigration

Australia’s points system is more liberal than many suppose, but at least they can decide how it works

Immigration: higher or lower? Brexiteers have pinned their colours to the mast by declaring that if Britain leaves the EU, they would introduce a tough, Australian-style points-based immigration system. Or have they?

The deployment of “the Australian system” has long been seen as a proxy for sounding tough and uncompromising on immigration. It’s one of Nigel Farage’s favourite lines. After all, the Aussies don’t mess about. They don’t look to a bunch of sunstarved, miserable bureaucrats to decide what to do. They send out gunships to stop refugees arriving and then pack them off to horrible detention centres on tropical islands. And then they have a barbecue.

Of course, this isn’t actually what anyone is proposing. Australia’s tough approach to the illegal arrival of people (an effective, but also cruel, system) is separate from its immigration policy. And the awkward truth about its immigration system is that it delivers one of the highest immigration rates in the developed world.

Australia’s net migration rate between 2000 and 2015 was just over eight per thousand – that is, on average each year, eight new people arrived in the country per thousand people already there, according to UN data collated by the think tank Open Europe. The UK’s net migration rate over the same period was just under four per thousand.

The points-based system is just one route into Australia – and is actually one of its most liberal features. It enables workers who do not yet have a job offer to join the country’s labour market purely on the basis of their skills and qualifications, provided they can pass tests of their health and English-speaking ability. Many of Australia’s migrant workers actually don’t use its points system and arrive using employer-sponsored work permits. Most of its other immigrants arrive on family visas to join relatives.

Britain already has a points-based system for would-be immigrants from outside the EU. You might remember that it was introduced by Labour in 2008 after years of refusal to discuss immigration. It was toughened up by the Coalition after that. It isn’t actually much like Australia’s points-based system, but one feature it does have in common is that it lets in quite a large number of migrants. The UK issued under 100,000 visas to non-Europeans in 2000 and now issues around double that. The system is also very bureaucratic.

You might wonder, then, what it is that Brexiteers want to emulate about the Australian system. A statement released by the Brexit campaign suggested repeatedly that immigration would be lower if we left the EU and adopted such a system, reducing the strain on hospitals, schools and workers who face intense competition for jobs from migrants. There is no guarantee of that.

The Aussie system does have some points in its favour for immigration hawks. First, it has more effective border checks, so that authorities can actually count who comes in and out. Getting hold of precise Australian immigration data is unbelievably straightforward compared with parsing our muddled numbers. Secondly, it targets skilled workers, whereas Britain has to accept an unlimited number of unskilled workers from Europe. And Australia’s favoured countries of origin for its immigrants are remarkably similar to ours outside the EU, including India, China and Pakistan.

But more important than any of these features is the principle at the centre of Australia’s system: they decide how it works. And for all the details of the policy, which the Brexiteers did not include in their statement, it boils down to one thing: our immigration policy would be decided here and not abroad. So if the British public wants a more restrictive immigration policy, it will be able to vote for a Government that can deliver one. That is not possible at the moment.

This goes to the heart of the debate about the EU not because those who seek to ditch Brussels are frothing, xenophobic maniacs who want to keep the nation pure, but because they want the right for our elected Government to decide when and whether to let in more people. This is a basic tenet of democracy.

Unfortunately, it clashes with a basic tenet of the EU. For the European Commission and its allies, freedom of movement is one of the four fundamental dogmas of the EU. They see the free movement of goods, capital, services and workers as inseparable. As for bananas, so for people.

Across Europe, democratic systems are delivering the message that voters don’t agree with all of these dogmas any more, if they ever did. The EU’s problem is that it is too clunky and remote to adapt to the public’s changing priorities. The EU’s elites can execute policies without voters’ consent. They have demonstrated that repeatedly. Doing so without even getting popular acceptance, however, leads to dysfunctional government.

Australia shows that it is possible for a developed country to respond to globalisation positively with a liberal immigration policy. Its policy emerged from an established democratic system. The EU’s four freedoms, on the other hand, are not rooted in the political traditions of its peoples. They are a lovely idea, but that is not enough on its own. Liberals have to win the argument rather than rig the system.