Lloyd Evans Lloyd Evans

Web exclusive debate report: ‘Immigration: Enough is Enough’

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.

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