European migration: wanted – an argument

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/27/european-migration-editorial

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There is a dangerous silence at the heart of the migration debate: the sound of someone making a different case. What emerges is less an exchange of views, more a wall of noise which makes voters more anxious, not less. Politicians feel driven to make ever-bolder promises. The end result is not voter satisfaction but voter scepticism about the limits of political action.

It is easy to see why politicians are so worried. Each new poll shows a growing hostility to more migration. With the rapid approach of the new year, the day that the interim measures restricting Romanian and Bulgarian immigration are lifted, public opinion has been stoked to fever pitch. In the past week, polls in two right-leaning newspapers, the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times, have reported huge majorities in favour of maintaining the measures. Nearly 50 backbench Tory MPs have signed a motion saying the same thing. Renegotiating EU treaties to return control of national borders to national governments is now top of the wishlist for EU reform. And a poll in the Tory-held constituency of Thanet reveals backbenchers' worst nightmare: a surge in Ukip support that splits the vote and lets Labour in. Meanwhile, the former Labour home secretary Jack Straw has been apologising for his government's decision not to introduce interim measures to restrict the number of Poles who came to work in the UK after accession in 2004 – something no major party advocated – and now the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, matches and sometimes exceeds every Tory commitment to restrict migration.

Successive governments have manoeuvred themselves into a political dead end. The impact of the unanticipated influx of Poles and other nationals from eastern Europe, and the immediate impact on public services, has stifled proper discussion ever since. It is rarely pointed out that in 2004 Britain was the biggest EU country not to introduce interim measures. Poles, unable to go to Germany or France to work, came here instead. The result – as most people recognise – has been good for the economy. But the folk memory is of a crisis that politicians were far too slow to acknowledge. Gordon Brown's notorious "bigoted woman" remark came to symbolise in particular a Labour disregard for the real experience of people who should have been natural supporters. The discourse ever since has been relentlessly negative, leaving opinion out of line with the evidence – most people think migration is bad for the economy and that immigration is rising a lot, neither of which is true, while only a fifth know that the Conservatives have pledged to halve net migration. But surveys also find that the hostility is abstract not personal, and as long as they appear self-sufficient, migrants are welcome. LSE research actually finds that ethnically diverse communities in London are more resilient than others. It seems likely that migration has become the proxy for a deeper anxiety about living standards, jobs and public services.

In this fantasy world, it is quite logical to want to find ways to shut migrants out, and since the EU is perceived to be the main source of migration (rather than the Asian subcontinent, which is in fact where most new migrants are from), then it should be against Europe that action is taken. Hence the latest moves to restrict access to benefits and tighten "habitual residence tests" that Ms Cooper reasonably pointed out should have been taken months ago in order to be in force from next January – if they were to be taken at all.

As before, they are mainly window dressing, more windmills tilted at in order to buy off public concern: some, like the six-month limit on jobless benefits, are already in place, while the evidence suggests that few EU migrants claim benefits anyway. Other measures risk a stand-off in the European courts. But in the current mood of political consensus they go unchallenged. As a nationalist right gains strength across Europe, the old nasty party must not be allowed to capture the country.

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