If the consequences of Labour’s heavy losses in the local elections were not already clear, they became so in this morning’s press conference to relaunch the government’s migration policy.
Reversing years of generally friendly attitudes towards migration, dating back to Tony Blair’s day – when the UK opened its doors to migrant workers from Eastern Europe seven years ahead of most EU countries – Keir Starmer has unashamedly tried to reposition Labour as an anti-immigration party. He lambasted the Conservatives for saying they would reduce migration before trebling it, and repeatedly used the Leave campaign’s slogan ‘take back control’.
This followed policy announcements by Starmer and by the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, which promise to make it more difficult for asylum seekers to challenge decisions to reject their applications and to make it harder for care homes to recruit care workers from abroad.
Whether any of this will impress Red Wall voters drawn to Reform is one thing, but the PM’s announcements were noticeable for one thing in particular: his rejection of the idea that migration is good for economic growth. This, said Starmer, is no more than a ‘theory’.
Groups such as Migration UK have been arguing as much for years, asserting that high rates of migration can have a negative effect on growth because the easy availability of cheap labour disincentivises employers from investing in labour-saving technology, depressing productivity. But it is novel to hear a senior Labour politician making this point.
While there are advocates of migration such as Jonathan Portes of King’s College London who point to statistics showing migrants have higher earnings than the native population (skewed somewhat by a few billionaires), the Office for Budgetary Responsibility (OBR) is fairly neutral on the matter, stating the obvious: that it rather depends on what the migrants are doing.
One thing is for sure, however. Without high net migration over the past couple of years, the UK would have fallen into a recession. High migration hasn’t helped boost GDP per capita, which has fallen back, but it has – just about – helped keep raw GDP growth in the black. That is something for which Rachel Reeves, in particular, may feel grateful.
Moreover, is the government sure about blocking care homes from accessing migrant labour? The NHS is under enough pressure from ‘bed-blockers’ as it is; it won’t go down well if operations have to be cancelled because hospitals are full of patients who cannot be discharged because the care home they would go to can’t find enough staff.
There has to be a suspicion that the government is lashing out at legal migration because of its impotence when dealing with illegal migration. If you can’t stop the boats because you are not prepared to take on the human rights lawyers, then trying to make life a pain for people coming to Britain to work is at least one way of trying to reduce net migration. Unfortunately, it is also a way to ensure that migration becomes even more negative for economic growth, because it increases the proportion of migrants who are unproductive – who are banned from working as they await the outcome of asylum applications and numerous appeals.
As for impressing voters, it is surely illegal migration which upsets them most – in particular the criminals, terrorists and chancers who at the moment are abusing the asylum system by using the European Convention on Human Rights, as interpreted by clever lawyers, to save them from deportation. If you want to stop your voters from drifting off to Reform UK, this is surely where you have to start.
Will Starmer, however, have the determination to take on human rights lawyers, given that he has a background in that profession and has repeatedly said he is committed to the ECHR? If he is not, he can forget about winning back Reform voters; his migration policy will be doomed.
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