The Spectator recently held a debate at the Royal Geographic Society with the motion ‘Immigration: Enough is Enough’. Proposing it were Frank Field MP, Dominic Raab MP and Kiran Bali MBE JP. Opposing were Oliver Kamm, Jenni Russell and David Aaronovitch. Andrew Neil chaired. Here is Lloyd Evans’ review:
‘I’m a coward,’ admitted Frank Field, the Birkenhead MP, proposing the motion. For years, his Labour party membership had prevented him from speaking out about immigration. ‘But when we had huge numbers coming in from eastern Europe, I knew it was safe to move.’ Primarily this is an English issue because, ‘for reasons I can’t fathom,’ migrants tend to shun Wales and Scotland. Current migration levels have made England, along with Holland, the most crowded nation in Europe. ‘This raises, in an acute form, the question of what it means to be English’. The present ‘mess’ has been caused not by politicians but by ‘the collapse of public ideology.’ ‘We were afraid to tell newcomers what we believe in.’ Our population, he predicted, would soar by 7 million in the next 16 years. ‘That’s five Birminghams settling mainly in England.’ The vast majority of the public, over 75 per cent, want these numbers ‘stabilised and brought into balance.’
Times columnist Oliver Kamm argued that our concerns about immigration have been exaggerated. Migrants in Britain make up just 10 per cent of the population compared with 13 per cent in Germany and the USA.
The idea that immigration ‘undermines social stability is an unconscionable myth,’ he said, and he labeled the so-called ‘open door’ policy ‘fanciful’. Immigration patterns merely reflect the global market in skilled labour. While regulations and controls are being tightened all the time, the debate has ‘insinuated the perception that there’s something wrong with immigration.’
Growing up in Leicester in the 1970s, he was aware that 20 per cent of voters were drawn to far right parties. ‘Not any more. We’ve changed the political debate.’ He said racism in Britain was ‘shallow but it becomes deep when underpinned by us, by the commentariat.’ He rejected calls for an immigration cap and called it ‘a social engineering solution that tarnishes and toxifies the debate.’ As for the idea that immigration is a damaging phenomenon, he said it made him ‘fed up!’
Kiran Bali, whose family arrived here from Asia when she was a child, said it was the scale, not the fact, of immigration that causes problems. ‘Goodwill and social cohesiveness are declining.’ Difficulties are exacerbated by newcomers whose cultural mindset conflicts with British values. In particular she highlighted those cultures ‘which regard women as “a desirable object”, and have no intention of reforming the practices of shariah, forced marriages and honour killings.’
Concerns are rising even within her own community. Over 39 per cent of British Asians declare that ‘immigration should be halted until the our economy is back on track.’ As a country we should impose the same controls as a university and ‘take only the brightest and the best. Quality not quantity.’
Political columnist Jenni Russell admitted that her life had been made easier by ‘hard-working people who weren’t born in Britain.’ She recalled that in the 1990s she couldn’t find staff to care for her young children or to renovate her house. She was saved by the accession of eastern European countries and the arrival of ‘Polish men keen to sell their labour.’ This, she said, transformed the building market in London.’ Yet she understood that the poor had cause to be angry. A ‘baffling’ decision had been made in the 1970s to allocate council housing to migrants rather than those with a long-standing attachment to their community. The government, she said, ‘should pay for additional school places and enforce the minimum wage so that people don’t feel immigrants are taking their jobs.’ This UK needs the ‘talent and energy’ that immigrants bring. ‘It’s the price we pay,’ she said. And to limit numbers would be ‘like going to a restaurant, and saying, I’d like the fish but I’m not going to pay.’ If immigrants go elsewhere with their ‘restless and innovative minds’, our country will turn into a ‘shrunken, mean little island.’
Dominic Raab, a migrant’s son, said we need to be less prissy about the issue. ‘We’re uniquely eccentric in the way we fret about fretting about immigration.’
We’re right to offer a refuge to those fleeing genuine persecution, he said. But we mustn’t allow criminal migrants to evade deportation on the basis of family ties formed during the bureaucratic process involved in removing them. ‘The safe haven mustn’t become the soft touch.’
Immigration controls, he said, are just a contractual measure. ‘Every country has a right to decide who joins them.’ He found it amazing that some migrants arrive without the slightest intention of learning English. We now spend £200 million a year on translators for migrants which ‘subsidises the creation of isolated communities’. No one wants to draw down the portcullis, he said, but we risk letting the UK ‘become hooked on migrant labour which damages the social fabric and harms our economic performance.’
Journalist David Aaronovitch said that the terms of the debate had changed little in the last century. His grandparents arrived here in 1905 ‘from somewhere in the Baltic’ and their fellow immigrants were accused of taking jobs from the locals population. The slogan ‘enough is enough’ has always has used against incomers.
He turned to the figure of 70 million which some lobbyists regard as a desirable maximum population for the UK. To achieve this ‘magic figure’, he said, would require ‘extremely distasteful measures’: the rejection of all unskilled migrants; a ban on the world’s brightest fee-paying students; the imposition of quotas on ‘UK citizens who’ve been away for a while and want to return.’ And Britain would have to leave the EU. That suggestion prompted a huge cheer from the Knightsbridge crowd. ‘Yes, it may be popular here,’ said Aaronovitch, ‘but it’d be extraordinary stupid.’
Frank Field, summing up, welcomed the growing maturity of the debate. In the past, he said, the anti-migration lobby had invariably been called alarmist. ‘But tonight the prize for scare-mongering goes to David Aaronovitch.’
The motion was carried.
Votes
Prevote: For, 129; Against, 61; Undecided, 75
End vote: For, 178; Against, 85; Undecided, 2
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