Cameron’s immigration problem

Old Politics

"This is a compliment to Cameron: the most sincere vote people can make is with their feet. And in our globalised world, countries have to compete for people. Britain is as attractive as ever it was to immigrants, and more natives are staying put" - ha! Nothing at all to do with the collapse in house prices and the currency which means "a place in the sun" is no longer affordable, then?

Span Ows

The fact that the outflow reduction began in 2008 tells its own story: world recession, panic etc... people stay where they are, plans get put on hold. This doesn't mean that your statement is wrong because it was a silly thing for DC to say: to get net immigration down to below 100 thousand will take many, many years however I didn't expect an immediate response; it is silly to expect that reduction in ONE year.

Dennis Churchill

Because the political class does not believe in the concept of nationality nothing has been done to reverse Labour’s Open Door policy. This is no doubt because it is an unofficial policy that is carried out by our courts and senior officials regardless of the actual law.
We need an Inquiry into how this has occurred in order to give the Conservatives the ability to counter the institutionalised nature of the problem.
The public has a right to know what went on under Labour and former ministers and officials need to be held responsible.

nonny mouse

Presumably these are net figures so British born people returning offsets against those who leave.

I myself returned from the States in this period so I did my part to help reverse the brain drain.

Jayu

Just to clarify Fraser, is it only emigrating UK citizens who are counted in the emigration figures?

Puncheon

I think it was Frank Field who made the, fairly obvious, point that you can't have a liberal welfare policy and an open borders immigration policy in the same society. The two are simply imcompatible. This is yet another policy area where cowardice and laziness on the part of the non-socialist faction have allowed the collectivists to assume the high moral ground and pretend that theirs is the only solution. Collectivists have been wrong about every single problem they have turned what the absurdly call their minds to, but it is the rest of us that have allowed them this delusion. It will destroy us all.

REPay

Hmmm...a lot of people leaving. My suspicion is that many are foreign finance professionals and UK higher rate taxpayers. 61% is too high for most - especially if you are American and have to pay federal tax.

Duyfken

Disappointing in the extreme and it is pitiful to find the government trying to explain it away as due to actions of the previous regime. This is another failure to perform and it is one of the most important issues which we voters are concerned about(that and the EU).

Jayu

That should have read, "UK born citizens".

SpeakasIsee

Hasn't he failed in both ways? Or even three ways!
He can't produce the jobs to keep people here, he's failed.
He hasn't reduced the number coming in, he's failed.
And shock horror, all the jobs we do have are going to immigrants, he's failed.

Even Labour now understand that immigration has badly hurt our own working class and being seen to do nothing on immigration, which is how it looks, will not help him get the votes from those working class people who believed he would help them.
There are a lot of things we all understand Cameron can't do for one reason or another,but immigration is, and should be, a main priority, sadly it doesn't seem to be.
Looking like a one term government more and more!

PaulJ

The greater question is why Cameron's ridiculous targets weren't scrutinised before the election, as they were never realistic. So long as Britain remains in the EU, we have minimal power to stop immigration.

Like the mandatory sentencing on knife crime and restricting bankers' bonuses to 5K, the immigration cap was just an electoral ruse. Why are Tory media and voters so easily fooled every time?

In2minds

Cameron - a broken pledge, so what?

Slim Jim

Yes, Fraser, and you haven't mentioned the elephant in the room - the EU. However, the number one priority for this government is either the repeal, or a major amendment of, the Human Rights Act (AKA the criminal's charter). It is this piece of legislation that is holding us back from any meaningful reform in this country. I still say that Cameron should call an election, and state clearly and unequivocally what needs to be done to bring us back from the abyss. Oh well, there's no harm in dreaming...

Nicholas

"Why are Tory media and voters so easily fooled every time?"

Probably because of the wearing down effect of 13 years of relentless spin and propaganda from New Labour. At the prospect of another 5 years of Gordon Brown and the East German aspirations of his chums Cameron was the only hope.

John Richardson

Puncheon
August 25th, 2011 2:02pm

"I think it was Frank Field who made the, fairly obvious, point that you can't have a liberal welfare policy and an open borders immigration policy in the same society. The two are simply imcompatible. This is yet another policy area where cowardice and laziness on the part of the non-socialist faction have allowed the collectivists to assume the high moral ground and pretend that theirs is the only solution. Collectivists have been wrong about every single problem they have turned what the absurdly call their minds to, but it is the rest of us that have allowed them this delusion. It will destroy us all."

Along with Dennis Churchill, spot on.

The 'liberal welfare policy' is the obvious reason that, now unemployed, eastern Europeans 'decide' not to leave but instead to stay and take money via the 'welfare system'.

For the Editor to ascribe any above developments as a 'compliment to Cameron' simply exemplifies how twisted the MSM's perspectives are.

How can the Editor really imagine, and then write to suggest, that anyone could say....

'Well, we were going to leave the UK, but now that David Cameron is the Prime Minister we have decided to stay!'

It would be funny in ordinary circumstances.

An total stranger to the reality of contemporary England.

As for Cameron 'meeting his target'; more facile analysis.

As everyone now realises this IS his target.

His target was to lie to people regarding immigration. Specifically regarding the numbers entering the UK.

Then, when enough idiots had managed to convince themselves that he could do what he said he would (despite not having the legal power to do so) he would be in NO.10.

That was his target.

If you do not 'get it' by now, then you probably think Cameron is telling the truth about the ECHR as well.
Pathetic.

What motivates MSM journalists to repeat these lies?

Peter From Maidstone

Why is there a need for labour market reform when it is clearly an immigration problem? What is required is a halt on most forms of immigration. Also other EU countries have stopped the free flow of labour without leaving the EU?

And let me say again, the Net Immigration statistic is not very important. Indeed it would be possible for the entire English population of England to be swapped with Pakistanis and the net migration would be ZERO and so the Government would congratulate itself.

disenfranchised

compliment to cameron, my arse.
it's only family that stops me, most of our friends, and a very large swathe of middle england from moving abroad, away from the lib-left insanity.
england is now finished; done away with in name of equality and diversity.....

Dennis Churchill

Even the EU immigrants are a diversion.
How many non-EU citizens are coming in? These are more likely to be a drain on our Welfare budgets than Czechs etc getting jobs serving coffee.
When we hear about immigrants getting housed in multimillion pound houses I have not seen many that look like Latvians.
Ethnic Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are proportionately the most likely sector of the population to be unemployed.Afro-Carribeans the most likely to be imprisoned.
Enforce the asylum laws properly stop all immigrants from the third world who can’t support themselves. Deport illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers. Deport foreigners convicted of any criminal offence at the end of their sentence. As our judges can’t be trusted to enforce the laws remove their discretion and let the European court decide if necessary.
Start enforcing the laws that exist.

TrevorsDen

'Because the political class does not believe in the concept of nationality ' .... Mr Churchill - It is daft to build an argument based on cobblers. But once you go down that route you end up inventing a world to inhabit to justify your prejudice.
But this is the same old same old from to many.

Its right to reduce immigration so it was right for Cameron to say he wanted to reduce it - the problem though is enormous.

Sir Everard Digby

Or is it an education problem? Why are we importing people to fill a basic skills gap? Does our education system not produce anyone with those basic skills? If not,why not? It is damaging to our economy.

Clear Memories

This Net Migrant figure is a con and always has been.

What we should be told, using the ABC etc gradings beloved of Advertising Agencies, is the impact on society as a whole. Those leaving the UK fall into several categories, but none of those categories are from the Indian sub-continent.

Having just completed the process to emigrate to Australia, I can tell you that only fit, intelligent, relatively wealthy persons are allowed in. They certainly do not allow non-English speaking, illiterates with medieval attitudes.

Many of those leaving the UK were EU citizens going home, but that has stopped as the economy has picked up.

The UK needs an absolute ban, other than EU (for the time being) for 2-3 years whilst we fully assess the situation in the UK, identify exactly who is here and determine their current and predicted impact upon the existing society. Only then can we formulate a fair policy for the future - and that means fair on those here as well, irrespective of their ethnic background.

And sad as it is, the UK must accept an ID card. It need be little more than a photo ID - it shouldn't be too difficult with current print technology to make it virtually impossible to forge. Then a small change to the law making it fiercely unlawful to make any financial transaction in the absence of ID and we should be able to starve the illegals out of the UK and make it not worth their while to try and break into the Country.

It doesn't add up...

Lazy journalism: the chart focuses just on the last decade, dominated by Labour's lax policy. Take a longer view:

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=260

and it is immediately clear that emigration remains well above the levels of the previous Tory government, while immigration has virtually doubled. Dig a little further, and the idea that immigration is being driven by demand for migrant labour is a load of tosh. Out of 536,000 immigrants just 110,000 came to a job they had already secured. Some 228,000 came for "formal study" - numbers that have quadrupled and more under Labour.

Please, do your research properly before coming up with nonsense like this.

Julian F

Of 575,000 immigrants in 2010, only 110,000 arrived to take up a definite job. 228,000 came to study. That leaves 237,000 who will presumably be reliant on the welfare state in some form. And the relatively small percentage of immigrants who have arrived for jobs are taking up all the employment created in the last year, according to this post. This doesn't look like an especially encouraging or sustainable picture: all job creation going to immigrants, leaving a large number of the indigenous population reliant on benefits, supplemented by several hundred thousand additional immigrant claimants. Hard to see how that squares with the claim made by some make immigration makes economic sense.

Rhoda Klapp

TD, there is no way in which a UK citizen is ever preferred by UK law over the next person, whether EU citizen or non-EU immigrant. All are entitled to the same things, or at least any separation of status is virtue of other factors. Thus mr Churchill has something of a case that to the political class there is no concept of nationality. Vide Dr Massie's open borders fixation. Open borders are a negation of nationality. To prove or disprove the Churchill contention we ought to be asking the political class questions which would make their position clear. Nobody does ask the questions, and I am willing to bet we can't get the Spect journos to ask on our behalf either.

denis cooper

"Cameron should only ever have pledged to stem the inflow. Governments of free countries can't stop people emigrating, so the net figure, ie the inflow minus the outflow, is not something he could or should have given a pledge on."

How strange, some of us have been saying exactly that ever since he first started with his "net immigration" fudge.

echo34

talking around the edges of Neather again Fraser?

Publius

Weak, Mr Nelson, very weak. Yet another example of Cameron talking the talk and then doing nothing.

There is plenty that could be done to address the problem.

But doubtless Clegg's "get-Nick's-permission-before-you-speak-to-me" veto, plus the cat's cradle of supra-political regulation that makes our government little more than a cypher, mean that it is all just too complicated.

I am constantly confronted - every day - by recent immigrants who are unemployed and unemployable.

Dennis Churchill

Rhoda Klapp
August 25th, 2011 4:02pm
Exactly.
If nationality has a meaning it must have privileges attached as well as duties.
I expect an Italian in Italy to be treated differently than me and accept I am merely a guest in their country. Here we have laws and conventions that deliberately minimise or even eliminate any privileges a British citizen has over a non-citizen. It would therefore seem to me to be fair to assume our political class, who are responsible for passing and enforcing (or seeing they are ignored) laws to do with foreigners in our country, not to believe in the concept of nationality, if they eliminate the privileges of nationality.

Dennis Churchill

denis cooper
August 25th, 2011 4:27pm
The use of Net Immigration figures seems to support my contention that our political class does not believe in the concept of nationality. If it does not matter if a million Britons leave as long as a million Africans arrive we seem to be considered bipedal work units rather than a nationality.

Ron Todd

As long as we have the EU we can't control EU nationals coming in.
As long as we have the ECHR we can't deport anybody alredy here or stop them bringing in their relatives.

TomTom

Why not offer UK Nationals £100,000 - £250,000 per household to emigrate ? Thousands would jump at the chance to sell their space on this island and then the net immigration figures would be lower

Tom Gallagher

Rhoda,
While still exasperating, the cosmopolitanism of Fraser Nelson and his soulmate Alex Massie is less mysterious if it is kept in mind that they are both Scots and bourgois Scots at that.
Some of their forefathers were as likely as not involved in the great population clearances of the 18th and 19th century in which rural folk were driven from the land and forced onto emigrant ships or else towards the factories and mines of industrial Scotland. It is not widely known that this forced movement of population affected not just the Highlands but much of Lowland Scotland. It left a largely empty land outside 4 or 5 cities; then to top thngs off, large numbers of Irish from both the then rival Christian wings were encouraged to migrate from Ulster to augment the industrial population,something
which opened up a huge fault-line in the West of Scotland that to this day is far
from healed.

The purpose of this historical ramble is to point out that Scottish intellectuals like this pair are unable to draw on a sense of settled Scottishness based on historical continuity and shared traditions. So they find English thinkers and public figures like Roger Scruton or Frank Field who argue, often very eloquently, that unmanaged emigration will sweep away behaviour patterns and norms that are quintessentially English and lauded by people the world over who encountered them, as anachronistic or slighty menacing.

The Scottish environment from which Fraser and Alex have both spring has helped to turn them into libertarians whose espousal of open borders is a kind of Tory anarchism; beforehand, other prominent Scottish intellectuals embraced communism as a way of transcending a mean-spirited and internally divided country; a lot of conflicted Jews also sought transcendence through radical transformation of reality
owing to not dissimilar frustrations.

It is a funny old world but the very last place I thought that unchecked globalisation would become fashionable was the Spectator; if William Cobbett or GK Chesterton were able to see the Spectator now, the championing of wholesale immigration to an island with shrinking resources and part of an increasingly turbulent world, would make them wonder if England had simply ceased to exist in any real sense.

denis cooper

Dennis Churchill -

They don't, which is why they've allowed this to be embedded in the EU treaties - Article 18 of the Treaty on European Union:

"Within the scope of application of the Treaties, and without prejudice to any special provisions contained therein, any discrimination on grounds of nationality shall be prohibited.

The European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure, may adopt rules designed to prohibit such discrimination."

Dennis Churchill

Ron Todd
August 25th, 2011 5:21pm
Although I would like the UK to leave the EU most of the problems with immigration are caused by our judges rather than international treaties or EU law.
Do you think France or Italy does not deport foreign criminals? I doubt if often ludicrous claims of a Right to Family Life (tell that to the parents who have their children snatched by the Secret Family courts) stop them or any of our other EU partners.
Our judges use the law to impose their political views on us as the recent case of the Jamaican criminal who had been deported a number of times illustrated. The judge gave him 11 months to avoid the automatic deportation a 12 month sentence would trigger.

Justathought

Ron,

I agree however the high level of welfare benefits in the UK compared to the countries from which the immigrants migrate need to be reduced.

In fairness this would mean that all UK welfare benefit entitlements would have to be reduced for everybody. Given the split in the coalition on this I cannot see any reduction in welfare immigration anytime soon.

Hepworth

Each time I read the comments post of an article referencing either the EU or the immigration question I notice that public feeling is hardening and the posters at long last realise that we DO NOT live in a Democracy and we have only one option at the ballot box and that equates to Marxism. (That one word will stir the mods into delete mode).
Big problem. Who do we vote for? (As if a vote in the UK makes a blind bit of difference) UKIP? They're part of the problem even if their activist can't see it.
They've won folks. The next stage is civil war. All going to plan.

Captain Christy

I agree with Dennis Churchill

Dennis Churchill

Ron Todd
August 25th, 2011 5:21pm
Although I would like the UK to leave the EU most of the problems with immigration are caused by our judges rather than international treaties or EU law.
Do you think France or Italy does not deport foreign criminals? I doubt if often ludicrous claims of a Right to Family Life (tell that to the parents who have their children snatched by the Secret Family courts) stop them or any of our other EU partners.
Our judges use the law to impose their political views on us.

Archie

And I'll bet good money that one of the three main parties who have acquiesced in this appalling state of affairs will be voted in at the next election!

Derah Yasque

TrevorsDen

Why is it a huge problem for the leader of a sovereign nation, to stop the flow of immigration into that nation?

What is the point of voting a person into such a position if he is powerless to influence something of such crucial importance to the future prospects of his nation?

Simon Stephenson.

"And the relatively small percentage of immigrants who have arrived for jobs are taking up all the employment created in the last year, according to this post."

It's time this little piece of nonsense was put to bed for good. Immigrants create jobs as well as being absorbed into them. A considerable number of the new jobs created are to cater for the rise in demand brought by the immigrants, so if they hadn't come, there would have been fewer new jobs created.

TomTom

"A considerable number of the new jobs created are to cater for the rise in demand brought by the immigrants"

Yes, West Yorkshire Police spent £3 million on translators last year which helps employ immigrants to service the immigrant population

Making the simple appear complex

Poor Cameron? He has got the money to escape the mean streets created by the political class. The rest of us have to live in it and worry about our children's future.

It would be extremely simple to reduce immigration, it is just a political decision away. Cameron will never take it.

Ruby Duck

Simon Stephenson 9:26 pm : "Immigrants create jobs as well as being absorbed into them."

Would that be teaching jobs, housing benefit officers, hmrc jobs, dwp jobs, nhs jobs, street sweepers, bin men, equality and diversity officers ?

daniel maris

"Poor" David Cameron? He shouldn't make promises he knows he will not have the power to honour because he has no intention of taking us out of the EU or abrogating the absurd Refugee Treaties.

The 250,000 figure (we can round up as it probably completely underestimates illegal immigration) means that we have to grow by 0.5% in our economy just to stand still in terms of per capita wealth. If our economy is growing 0.2%, that means a per capita decline of 0.3%.

But that of course does not take into account the huge infrastrucure costs of net immigration - all the houses, schools, hospital facilities, roads and other extremely costly items that have to be built. Add it up and amortise it and you are probably talking about £20,000 per person per annum -minimum. At least £5 billion, or £50 billion over a decade.

daniel maris

PFM -

Of course you are right on both counts. Net migration tells you nothing about how the culture of your country might be changing even with net outflow.

Secondly, it is an immigration problem. The solution firstly is to make employers pay for the true costs of immigrant labour. Any migrant worker should come with an infrastructure levy to be paid by the employer. Next, their term of employment should be limited to 3 years or execeptionally 5. Their employment should confer no rights of citizenship. Finally their employmnet should carry with it a financial bond that the government should be able to execute if the person disappears or fails to leave at the end of the period of employment.

daniel maris

Simon Stephenson,

By that logic, take down all passport control. The more the merrier. We'll all be wealthier.

Not.

Edward McLaughlin

Simon Stephenson

But then surely we are left with the problem of where our own young people will gain employment?

And how precisely does the influx of immigrants actually create jobs that would not otherwise have existed?

MairT

@ Simon Stephens

Are you a Landlord?

Derek

echo34
August 25th, 2011 4:31pm

I echo that.

ed h

I rarely bother visiting the Spectator blogs pages these days. This article, which would appear to be a spoof, if it wasn't written by Fraser Nelson shows how low the magazine has sunk.

Appalling, verging on treasonous, drivel.

michael

More of the same... 4 legs good 2 legs bad.

FvH

But who is going to pick all the asparagus and raspberries if immigrants are sent home?

Peter From Maidstone

FvH, when I was a teenager, 30 years ago, it was all English people who picked fruit. There is no reason why this should not be the case again.

Peter From Maidstone

If 1.4 million jobs have been filled by immigrants and migrants then it is reasonable to conclude that at least 25% of these would have been created in any case and could have been filled by English people.

Were all of these 1.4 million jobs in the private sector it would disappointing that most have not been filled by English people, but it would be interesting to know how many immigrants and migrants are working in positions paid for by the English tax payer. In such a case not only are we paying for an English person to be unemployed, but we are paying twice for a non-British citizen to make a British citizen unemployed.

When my father left school in the early 50's he went to the job centre, he was handed a card, and turned up for work. He wasn't offered an open-ended benefit system that required only the obviously fraudulent filling in of a form once a fortnight to show that a person was looking for work. He was just given a job.

When I was last made redundant a couple of years ago I started my own business, which is still operating. Twenty years before when I was made redundant in the last recession I applied for every job going and was offered a job in Toys-R-Us the same day that I was offered a job in the place I ended up working for 18 years. I'd have worked anywhere.

It is a myth that English people will not work in the jobs that immigrants do. In fact English people are being paid not to work and so make a career from not working. If that was changed then people would work. There is no shame in working in a coffee bar, or doing any work at all. The shame is in not wanting to work. But the state has engineered a system whereby there is no shame in not wanting to work, and indeed a system where many people think it foolish to want to work.

The wellbeing of our society requires that wanting to work is universally considered normal and honourable and that those who do not want to work are not subsidised. But this also requires a halt to immigration so that British jobs go to British citizens in all but the most unusual of circumstances. It means the explusion of the half a milliom 'students' who are not engaged in formal university studies but are registered at the North Peckham International College of Business while working and then disappearing into the population. It means a halt to all immigration from Pakistan, Bangladesh and India, and the strict enforcing of EU rules on travel.

The EU Law states that there is to be a free movement for trade but not for benefits. Anyone coming to the UK can be required to have full health insurance, anyone coming to the UK can be removed if they are not able to support themselves. The UK does not enforce these EU rules.

Simon Stephenson.

Tom Tom : 9.38pm

Yes, this is perhaps one example of where the demand created by immigrants is not spread across the indigenous population. But, equally, there are examples where it is. I'm not trying to say that immigration is all-good, just that it's not all-bad either, and if we continue to form conclusions based upon something having to be classified as eother black or white, we'll meke an awful lot of bad decisions.

Ruby Duck : 9.49pm

Some of them, certainly, in the same way that a similarly numbered group of the indiginous population will "create" such jobs themselves. There will also, I'd argue, be considerable "new" demand created by immigrants for products which are more obviously value-added. I don't know how much, and neither do you, but to take the stance that immigrants must be pernicious to the indiginous population is just prejudice, not reason.

daniel maris : 10.22pm

Poor argument, for you. I'm not claiming immigration to be all-good, or even net-good, just that it hasn't been established to be all-bad or net-bad either, and those who claim that it has are over-stating their argument either in ignorance or in a need to pander to their prejudices.

Edward McLaughlin : 10.33pm

All I'm trying to show is that the problems we have won't be cured by taking the immigrants away - that bogey-men arguments are usually far more about denial of our own shortcomings than accurate determination of real causes of problems.

But in a culture which is swamped with artificial and largely unwarranted self-esteem, it's impossible to see a problem and accept any blame for it - it must be someone else's fault, irrespective of where the responsibility really lies.

MairT : 12.24am

No

Peter From Maidstone : 10.02am

"If 1.4 million jobs have been filled by immigrants and migrants then it is reasonable to conclude that at least 25% of these would have been created in any case and could have been filled by English people."

It's not "reasonable" at all. It's a self-serving assumption selected to fit in nicely with a prejudicial conclusion you've already reached. Like, seemingly, the entire population, you've started from what you want to be true, and then built an argument round it.

Julian F

I think we may conclude with reasonable certainty that immigration has NOT created ALL the new jobs in the past year. But it has certainly filled all of them - on the basis of official statistics. So, net-net, my point still stands and is basically unarguable.

Linda Jones

Nelson Fraser findings fail to show that the real increase in net migration is citizen of new EU member. This is not David Cameron's fault as there is little or nothing Britain can do if we are still member of the EU. Mind you, non EU figures are down either as a result of work permit or other for of settlement migration. Migration should not be Britain headarce but productivity. Revive manufacturing and productive sector of the economy and all other problems would solved. Cameron is doing fine but fraser is misleading.

Simon Stephenson.

Julian F : 12.23pm

"I think we may conclude with reasonable certainty that immigration has NOT created ALL the new jobs in the past year. But it has certainly filled all of them - on the basis of official statistics. So, net-net, my point still stands and is basically unarguable.
"

Grumpy Optimist

I know - lets make this country such a shit hole that 500000 emigrate every year. Then we will have reached the Tory target.

Simon Stephenson.

Julian F : 12.23pm

Let's have another go:-

"I think we may conclude with reasonable certainty that immigration has NOT created ALL the new jobs in the past year."

Yes, correct.

You may wish to take into account, however, how many existing jobs have remained in being only because of the demand created by immigrants.

In other words, to see the whole picture, you have to look not only at the new jobs, but the existing ones, as well.

"But it has certainly filled all of them - on the basis of official statistics."

Not correct. Not all immigrants have found places in newly-created jobs. Some of them have replaced people in existing and continuing jobs - either through retirement, resignation or some other sort of departure.

It's highly likely, I'd say, that the vast majority of newly-created jobs have been filled by the indigenous population - not by new immigrants.

"So, net-net, my point still stands and is basically unarguable."

No, your point doesn't stand, and is almost certainly mistaken. It is built round the fallacy that the introduction of immigrant labour has no effect on the economy other than to fill jobs that would otherwise be provided for, and taken up by, the indigenous population.

Rhoda Klapp

Look, neither of your points stand, because neither of you know or can find out the truth.

Plainly some immigrants are good for the country, financially, and some are not. What remains to debate is whether the effect of mass immigration as a whole is overall advantageous or not. I'd say we should have had that debate, but we the people were ploughed under by the political class deciding for us, with one side wanting dependent voters, and the other cheap labour. Note that we are not really able to have the debate even now, lest the pols have to actually fix it, which they are both unable and unwilling to do.

And what gets me about Cameron is that he knows fine well that he cannot do anything, but speaks as if he can. He is a dissembler. He cannot be trusted. And once you lose trust, it is damn difficult to regain.

Simon Stephenson.

Rhoda Klapp : 2.57pm

If I'm right in thinking that I'm one of the people whose "point doesn't stand", can I ask exactly what point this is? I've deliberately attempted not to judgementalise about any aspect of immigration, just to point out the shakiness of the case being presented for it being unquestionably detrimental to the position of the indigenous population in the UK jobs market. I really don't have enough information to conclude whether it is net-good or net-bad, but then, equally, neither do any of the other commenters on this thread.

I see that my "point" is no more than that one shouldn't assert something as a fact, or an unqualified truth, when it's no more than a conclusion which depends upon one or more assumptions, or which has been reached via fallacious reasoning. If you believe that this point "doesn't stand" then I'm sorry, but I disagree.

Rhoda Klapp

Why Simon, if everyone followed your precepts it would do away completely with argument by blind assertion, and then where would we be?

(As close as Rhoda gets to an apology)

Ron Todd

Dennis Churchill

You are right about the courts. Unfortunatly we have the type of judiciary and politicians that will make a intallectual rather than a practical interpetation of the law. The only solution is to change the law to one that the judges can only implement one way.

To do that we need to regain control over our own laws.

Julian F

"Not correct. Not all immigrants have found places in newly-created jobs. Some of them have replaced people in existing and continuing jobs - either through retirement, resignation or some other sort of departure.

It's highly likely, I'd say, that the vast majority of newly-created jobs have been filled by the indigenous population - not by new immigrants."

It's the net effect that matters, not whether the jobs filled by immigrants are specifically new or not. Let's take it step by step, with a fictional illustration. In one year, 100 "new" jobs, that did not exist previously, are created At the same time, 50 "old" jobs become vacant. In total, that means 150 vacancies are created, but only 100 additional employment opportunities arise jobs (this is what most people mean by "created"). If the newly arrived immigrants take up 25 of the "old" jobs and 75 of the "new" jobs, the situation faced by the population as it stood prior to the arrival of the new immigrants is exactly the same as if they took up 100 entirely new posts. There are 100 fewer opportunities for employment compared to the situation if those immigrants had not entered the country. Basic maths.

Simon Stephenson.

Julian F

No.

Basic maths only if the total number of jobs available is the same whether or not there is immigration. In other words, that the immigrants' entry into the economy has no effect on the overall demand for labour, only its supply. This is an example of the Lump of Labour Fallacy, explained pretty well by Evan Davis, here:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/evandavis/2007/11/05/

Edward McLaughlin

Simon Stephenson

After all of the pontificating around the finer points of new jobs and existing jobs and the dangers of generalisation, we are left with the ludicrous situation in which a minibus full of east European builders pull up at a site, one gets out to speak to the site manager to offer the first week's labour free as a sample, after that they will work for just over half of what is paid to the current workers.

Sixty workers were finished at a week's notice. My nephew was one of them. This happened in January this year.

How many times, I wonder, is this replicated across the country? And why is our government, repeatedly applauded in the pages of the Spectator, facilitating such?

Julian F

Simon, I accept the argument that immigration may have some positive impact on employment opportuinities, but my point remains an arithmetical one and, hence, unarguable.

Let us strip it down to a very easy example. At time T1, an economy has 2000 jobs and a workforce (indigenous population plus former immigrants, it doesn't matter) of 2200. So, there is unemployment of 200 amongst the population before the arrival of immigrants AFTER time T1.

Between time T1 and time T2, 50 of the previous 2000 jobs become vacant. In addition, 100 entirely new jobs become available. This increase in jobs MAY have as one of its functors the demand created by immigrants who arrived prior to T1 - good, but my point is about what happens between time T1 and time T2.

So, at T2, there are 2100 jobs available - job "creation" of 100.

Between T1 and T2, the non-immigrant workforce increases by 100, as it happens. So, without any immigration between T1 and T2, the total number of unemployed would remain at 200.

If between T1 and T2, 100 immigrants enter the workforce and take all of the net jobs "created", there will be 300 of the T1 population unemployed come T2, ceteris paribus (I am ignoring the effect of emigration and other factors for the sake of this simple example).

Now, it MAY be that SOME of the jobs created between T1 and T2 are in anticipation of the arrival of 100 new immigrants and the additional demand they will create, but it almost certainly will NOT be the case that ALL of those 100 jobs is accounted for by the migration FLOW (not stock, note - this is a point about dynamics, passing no judgement on what has happened before T1).

I think most people will see that the net effect of the description above is probably not good for the T1 population.

Add to that - in our fictional example - another 100 immigrants who arrive as "benefit-seekers" and the situation is, as I noted initially, neither encouraging nor sustainable.

This is not to decry immigration as a concept - as a libertarian, I'm all for it, in fact. But it is a simple - and, I repeat, unarguable - comment on the numbers.

You will note I have not made many "assumptions" - my comment is based on the ONS data and Fraser's comment in the original post that most of the jobs created since Cameron became PM have gone to foreign nationals (one assumption here - that those "foregn nationals" are new immigrants). There is also a shortfall between the numbers arriving for employment/education and the total arrivals, SOME proportion of which I have assumed will end up reliant on the welfare state: not an unreasonable assumption, I would suggest.

I think our point of difference is that you are thinking about the positive overall impact of the STOCK of immigrants and I am commenting on the impact of the FLOW within a defined period.

Julian F

Simon, thanks for pointing me towards the Evan Davis post. I'm struck by this comment:

"In practice, we do not know whether the labour market effect of any particular new migrant employee is to create many other jobs, to create the one job they themselves fill, or to create no jobs at all, and hence to displace one domestic worker."

I can't see any compelling argument that immigrants create as many jobs as they fill - each new entrant to the jobs market-place does not automatically create new jobs, almost by definition. If they did, there would be no such thing as unemployment.

Evan Davis doen't actually present any arguments for his preferred assumption that immigrants create as many jobs as they fill. IN fact, he admits that it is a "simplifying assumption". And he passes no comment on the effect of a large immigrant population on benefits.

Hexhamgeezer

In my view, Britain's immigration inflow is driven primarily by free housing, health, generous benefits, the 'right to family life', and the political class' hatred of its own population.

In my view anyone who argues otherwise is a dissembling facilitator of this process.

Framer

Cameron picked on the net figure as the BBC kept saying you are taking no account of the number leaving. Of course the BBC are now desperately reporting it is the declining number emigrating that is the relevant figure when it is in reality the incoming figure that matters and always was.

Stephanie Tohill

"Of 575,000 immigrants in 2010, only 110,000 arrived to take up a definite job. 228,000 came to study. That leaves 237,000 who will presumably be reliant on the welfare state in some form"

Julian F - immigrants (non-EU) do not have access to the welfare state immediately. Not entirely. I know of two examples who emigrated without jobs. One American, one Kiwi both of whom relied on their savings until they secured positions here. Neither of which were entitled to benefits while looking for jobs.

EU citizens do not need to secure jobs prior to arrival nor do those on working holiday visas.

A tiny bit of research would have told you this.

So it's unlikely that a large number (if any) of the 237,000 you mention will be on benefits. Also Britain is not the only country to allow some people (depending on your class of visa) to immigrate without a job. Australia has the same in their highest class of visa typically the skilled migrant visas (state sponsored or independant.)

Walter Barfoot

ulian F - immigrants (non-EU) do not have access to the welfare state immediately. Not entirely. I know of two examples who emigrated without jobs. One American, one Kiwi both of whom relied on their savings until they secured positions here. Neither of which were entitled to benefits while looking for jobs.

Becuse they were white.