Immigration. Rolling up the welcome mat

Tough talk on immigration may do the government more harm than good

“THE latest headline-grabbing initiative from a panic-stricken government.” David Davis, the Conservative home affairs spokesman, went a bit over the top in his judgment of Labour's five-year plan for immigration and asylum: a government so certain of victory at the election expected in May can hardly be said to be panicking. But tough talk from the Tories and the loss of two ministers to immigration-related scandals in the past year have rattled the government; and, in attempting to recover its composure, it has gone far beyond a cure for present woes.

Until recently, ministers distinguished between two types of immigrant: those who come openly to Britain in order to work or live with their families and those who arrive clandestinely as asylum-seekers or illegal labourers. To the former they were kind, relaxing immigration rules and opening new routes to settlement. The latter were subjected to draconian new laws and a steady deprivation of legal rights.

The new plans, released on February 7th, signal an end to this distinction. It is not that the government is going soft on asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants: if Labour's plans are enacted, more would-be refugees will be locked up and may be deported after five years if the situation in their home country is deemed to have improved. Fines will be levied on bosses who employ illicit workers.

What has changed is that the government is now talking tough about foreign workers, students and wives. In future, rules allowing settlers to sponsor family members will be tightened. People turned down for work permits or student visas will not be allowed to appeal. Skilled would-be migrants will be assessed by means of a points system which, while it may not much alter the current criteria for judging who gets a work permit, will be more rigid and bureaucratic. Most striking are reforms aimed at less skilled workers, who will no longer be able to work their way towards citizenship - a nod towards a German-style guest-worker policy, which Britain has strenuously avoided until now.

Such initiatives are likely to show more tangible results than the government's plans to crack down further on asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants. The second group is smaller, elusive by nature and already so persecuted that further initiatives are likely to fall foul of Britain's courts. By contrast, it is easy to make life more difficult for foreign chefs. But will that appease Little Englanders?

Britons dislike workers and families much less than they dislike refugees. The flood of labourers began a decade ago: between 1993 and 1998, economic migration to Britain rose by more than half. But the proportion of people telling MORI, a pollster, that immigration is one of the greatest problems facing the nation, did not reach double figures until 1999, when the number of asylum claimants began to increase sharply. Worries continued to intensify as asylum numbers rose. Since 2002, both anxiety and numbers of asylum-seekers have eased, although attitudes have adjusted more slowly.

The Conservative Party (which wants an annual quota) and the government are now behaving as though immigration in general is unpopular. It is, but that may be because the public thinks the groups it dislikes make up a larger proportion of the total than they actually do. In a poll for The Economist in December, 86% of people cited asylum-seekers and illegal workers as the main cause of high immigration. Just 12% blamed workers and spouses.

Neil Gerrard, MP for Walthamstow, says some Labour MPs are worried about getting into a fight with the Tories over the scale of economic migration. As he points out, the Conservative Party will always be able to outmuscle Labour on the issue. Particularly as there is little chance that the Tories will actually be obliged to implement their policies before 2010 or so.

Article says that tough talking by the Government on immigration may do more harm than good.

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