Long grass helps hide government's immigration problems

There’s a crucial line in the government’s immigration white paper which admits its preferred options – a minimum salary threshold and high skill demands – would hit the economy. 

On page 111, in a rare passage that exposes the benefits of freedom of movement, the document says that by imposing a ‘salary threshold and skills threshold…. that GDP is likely to be lower than it would have been under free movement’. The government is pursuing a policy which it knows is likely to make all UK inhabitants financially worse off.

Apparently, despite this cost and the criticism coming from all sides, freedom of movement is still worth dumping.

The government sees immigration as one of its trump cards. It believes that taking a tough stance on the matter wins it votes. They have made the judgement that it is worth all the negative headlines, the repeated and very vocal concerns from business especially over the salary threshold just to appear robust.

Throughout her time in government Theresa May has stubbornly resisted any attempt to soften the policy. That it has failed year after year is of no consequence to her.

But, what actually has been promised?

The current cap on the number of skilled workers such as doctors or engineers will be scrapped. 

Low skilled workers will continue to be allowed in for a year until 2025, in an attempt to soften the blow for industries that rely on cheap labour.

The government says it wants its new system phased in from 2021. Surely this is highly improbable; I cannot remember the last time a major and complicated logistical project, which will undoubtedly require new IT and data provisions was delivered either on time or on budget.

Bizarrely, the government also cannot decide whether or not Mrs May’s never achieved target of reducing net migration annually to the tens of thousands is still in place. The Prime Minister insists it is but the Home Secretary has repeatedly refused to endorse it preferring instead to say net migration will come down to sustainable levels. It may well prove that sustainable levels are not too dissimilar from current levels.

The key aspect here is the government is clearly severely divided over a minimum salary threshold of £30,000. Several ministers, reportedly led by chancellor Philip Hammond, are opposed to the cap, thinking it far too high and they have the backing of business. The home secretary likes to frame the policy around being skill based, but an awful lot of people with skills earn under £30,000.

Rather than resolve the matter, it has been punted into the long grass, by promising a consultation. Doesn’t the long grass hide a lot of things these days?

It is this division that has delayed the White Paper so drastically; it was supposed to be published in the summer of 2017. Clearly, ministers were keen to get it published as soon as possible, partly to come before the meaningful vote takes place on Theresa May’s Brexit deal, but with the Brexit clock ticking, demands for it were deafening.

Even as late as yesterday, it was unclear if it would emerge today. It was only confirmed by an email from the Home Office at 7.33pm last night and the trail, with embargoed comments from Sajid Javid didn’t arrive until in my inbox until 7.51pm.

When I interviewed the home secretary a few months ago, Mr Javid described leaving the European Union as a ‘unique, once in a generation opportunity, to completely redesign our immigration system’. He added: ‘I’m in a privileged position to be able to do that.’

What has been produced so far, however, is little more than a wish list. With the fate of Brexit, and all its variables and implications, still unknown, this has the benefit of inbuilt pragmatism and flexibility – ‘sustainable levels’ can mean almost anything after all. The promise of stricter – and lower – immigration remains a political ploy to please Conservative voters; in reality, it may prove to be a mirage.

Details of the government's white paper on immigration can be found here

Trump's views would get surprising support over here

We can all agree Donald Trump is an idiot, or as Conservative Scottish leader Ruth Davidson MSP said, quoting Prince Hal addressing Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV, a 'clay-brained guts, knotty-pated fool, whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch'. But sadly, that doesn't mean his poisonous gibberish isn't gleefully welcomed by a certain, disaffected community.

So, while more than 100,000 people and counting have signed a parliamentary petition calling for Trump to be banned from entering the UK, echoing calls from MPs like Sarah Wollaston and Tulip Siddiq:

... but a substantial number of people have also signed a petition which could easily be a part of Donald Trump's policy platform:

Sadly, it seems, small-minded, impractical, illogical, racist idiocy is not reserved for absurdly coiffed, perma-tanned, fascist bullies wanting to become US president.

Calais situation shouldn't be a surprise; it's a symptom

There has been no attempt by the government to tackle the on going migration crisis we are witnessing on our screens on a nightly basis. Meetings are held, pitifully small amounts of money are proffered with embarrassing amounts of pride, unpleasant fences grow higher and the situation continues without being disturbed.

The current chaos in Calais is a symptom of the British government, and its European counterparts, failing to cooperate and formulate a coherent policy to deal with the world's greatest migrant crisis since the Second World War.

We are not witnessing clamouring masses desperate to access the UK - or, in more significant numbers, Germany and Sweden - because of our generous benefits system, the promise of a house, or jobs, or vague security; the primary reason behind this mass movement of people is war.

And European governments hope we just won't notice.

For vast numbers of these migrants are refugees fleeing violence in Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia; Theresa May may talk of returning people to their home countries, but to those mentioned above we simply can't. The British government are trying to avoid their international responsibilities and ignore the refugee situation; taking responsibility, it seems, is too much of political cost.

There is no legal means for these refugees to access any possible host country in Europe currently. Trying to storm the Eurotunnel is little of a challenge when compared with the horrors so many have endured.

Greece, Spain and Italy are bearing the greatest burden. And is it any surprise that France might be dealing with the situation in Calais so ineptly in the vague hope that the British government might share some of the burden.

And it's not as though several British governments do not bear some responsibility for the anarchy we are currently seeing in the Middle East and North Africa.

I'm aware I am sounding like a stuck record; I've said the same before about the government's shameful, pathetic, cowardly, inept and short-term politicking on this issue  This abject derogation of duty, however, makes me continually furious so it can't be said enough.

We should all be ashamed by their actions.

Dave's immigration woes are of his own making

A more cunning prime minister would have been able to boast about today’s immigration figures. ‘Look’, he would say, ‘our economy is on the up, more people are in work than ever before and more of those jobs are going to hardworking Britons.

‘With careful handling of our finances, we have begun the task of tackling the economic disaster we inherited, saved it from the abyss and now we are focusing on securing the economy.

‘On top of all of this, people from across Europe are now flocking to our shores, seeing us as a place of security, of resilience, of vitality, coming here eager to work and build our economy, helping to secure the prosperity that we all want.’

But whatever he is, David Cameron is not a cunning prime minister. Playing the anti-immigration card is an easy election ploy, especially in the midst of the deepest recession for a century. It pleases his backbenchers and taps into the public’s unease; providing voters with a more realistic immigration policy was never really on the cards.

So, instead, as more net migration hits more than 212,000, David Cameron’s pledge to reduce this to below 100,000 looks completely unachievable and it will be for others, UKIP and his increasingly restless backbenchers, to take the spoils.

It was ever going to be thus. The largest number of migrants coming to this country come from the European Union and the government has practically no power to restrict this movement (the restrictions that did limit Romanian and Bulgarian migration lifted at the start of this year). The prime minister can talk as much as he wants about renegotiating our relationship with Europe but this isn’t going to make any significant progress before the next election.

The government know this is happening. In an interview published this week in Total Politics magazine, David Willetts, minister for universities and science, while claiming there was a surge of students from China, admitted the curbs had ‘played disappointingly badly’ in India with numbers falling by 38 per cent between 2011 and 2012.

So it leaves the government vulnerable from all sides on immigration. Those who believe in the free movement of people and think immigration has and continues to enrich Britain attack the government for harming universities with their restrictions and deterring people who could contribute. While anti-immigration voices and those on the right, from MigrationWatch and UKIP, shout louder about leaving the EU and call for stricter controls to be introduced.

And everyone, in unison, can accuse the government of losing control of their own policy.

Immigration van an unpleasant waste of time

The latest edition of the government’s ‘Bash an immigrant’ policy has been unleashed this week and could be coming to a London borough near you.

For the coalition government, in its wisdom, thinks dispatching a van emblazoned with the messages ‘In the UK illegally?’, ‘GO HOME OR FACE ARREST’ along with the warning ‘106 arrests last week in your area’. And in comparatively tiny type, at the bottom, there is a line saying ‘we can help you…’. It’s a line few people will notice when the van cruises on its merry way through the boroughs of Hounslow, Barking & Dagenham, Ealing, Barnet, Brent and Redbridge.

Unsurprisingly, when this pilot, an initiative by the brains at the Home Office, was unveiled yesterday it provoked consternation and anger. Quickly, a campaign started on Twitter with the term #racistvan trending and local government leaders – who evidently were not consulted about this thoughtless campaign – called for it to be suspended.

While I don’t think it is actually racist – though its ‘GO HOME’ message has horrible echoes of anti-immigration campaigns in the past – it is self-evidently designed to frighten people, to upset and intimidate them. The size of type, the dark forbidding colours, an image of a pair of handcuffs were hardly chosen by accident.

Yet, despite all evidence to the contrary, communities and local government minister Baroness Hanham happily arose in the House of Lords today and had the gall to say the posters were not meant to be intimidating at all.

‘I don’t think it is meant to be intimidating. I think it is meant to address the reality of the situation that there are people coming here without jobs and without accommodation.’

The vans were merely trying to suggest it ‘would be more helpful’ if illegal immigrants decided to return home of their own accord, she suggested.

Not only is this campaign hateful, it is also a complete waste of time, money and effort. By their very nature, illegal immigrants are illegal; they know it and thus inevitably spend much of their time trying to avoid the authorities. An aggressive government poster is hardly likely to convince them otherwise.

And much like the poster campaign which urged neighbours to alert the authorities if they suspected someone was cheating benefit, these are tactics which have chilling echoes of tyrannical Cold War regimes.

And then there’s the UK Border Agency, the country’s most incompetent and unpleasant state body. In regards to the 106 arrest figure mentioned above - if indeed it is an accurate number and not simply dreamed up - judging by the lamentable record of the UKBA, many of those will have been held in error and be perfectly legally entitled to be here, while the rest are probably trying to negotiate their way through the labyrinthine immigration process.

And all the time, the government loudly ignores its own Office for Budget Responsibility which advised last week we will need more immigration in order to deal with the impacts of an ageing population.

There’s clear disquiet amongst the Liberal Democrats. Former minister Sarah Teather thinks it’s unpleasant and president Tim Farron told me this afternoon he wants to see the van ‘removed from the streets asap and the banners shredded’.

I can only hope he has success in persuading colleagues in government, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Update: It seems the billboard's actual target agrees with me. UKIP leader Nigel Farage has today described the campaign as 'nasty, unpleasant' and 'Big Brother'. 

He added: 'What the billboards should say is please don't vote UKIP, we're doing something. That's what it's all about, of course it is.'

Struggling for policies? Blame an immigrant

Today has been the coalition’s ‘Bash an Immigrant’ day. Every government has them though this administration indulges more than most. They occur when ministers run out of ideas, are listless, searching for a purpose, fail to find one and resort to easy, headbanging, tabloid pleasing measures which might be good short-term politics but are completely pointless and prime examples of bad government. And the coalition has excelled itself, presenting the country with two useless policies before breakfast.

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