The right thing, the wrong way

Date: 10/04/04

The government's immigration policy is in a mess. It has only itself to blame

PERHAPS Tony Blair's hastily convened Downing Street “summit” on asylum and immigration policy, held on Tuesday in the wake of last week's ministerial resignation and a swathe of further embarrassing newspaper revelations, will serve some useful purpose. It might at least persuade officials at the Home and Foreign Offices that communicating with each other occasionally would help them in their undoubtedly difficult jobs. What it won't do is restore public confidence or rescue the government from the twin charges of ineptitude and duplicity.

How many of the allegations made in the last few weeks are true in their entirety has yet to be established. The latest (and one of the most politically damaging because it directly implicates the prime minister) is that Mr Blair connived with his Romanian counterpart to waive visas for Romanians coming to Britain as a way of reducing asylum applications. This could have been seen as a necessity after Mr Blair's promise early last year to halve the number within six months. It sounds credible because Britain has said it will lift visa restrictions early for European Union (EU) applicant countries if they meet certain conditions. But there is no hard evidence, and both Downing Street and the Romanians have rebuffed all suggestions of a deal.

Whatever the facts, most people, to the extent they are paying attention, will conclude that official policy was indeed being subverted by a nod and a wink. Government denials are of limited use because they fly in the face of two wider truths. The first is that the government has form when it comes to the manipulation of targets: once Mr Blair had announced a target for asylum applicants, it was bound to be met no matter what. The second is that ministers are suspected of being quite happy to see armies of industrious east Europeans arriving to help fuel Britain's successful and flexible economy: if several thousand Romanians arrive here a few years earlier than otherwise, no great harm will have been done, it is thought.

The government's difficulties stem from the fact that, when it comes to immigration, at some point its brain and its gut became fatally parted. As immigration raced up the list of voter concerns, its gut told it to be very afraid. Race riots in the north of England in the summer of 2001, growing anxiety about Islamic cultural separateness following September 11th and, above all, the explosion in the number of asylum-seekers (usually seen as “bogus”) in the late 1990s formed a potent cocktail happily stirred by the popular press. The asylum system itself made things worse. By preventing refugees from working and forcing them into benefit dependency, it helped feed the prejudice that most migrants were cheats and scroungers. No wonder Mr Blair wanted to be seen to be doing something about it.

However, as the number of asylum-seekers began to decline in the latter half of last year (thanks in some degree to the prime minister's magic wand, but also because of a general reduction across the EU caused by a mix of tougher controls and regime change in Afghanistan and Iraq) attention and headlines have switched to other forms of immigration. Whereas the government could always claim to be doing its inefficient best to prevent abuse of the asylum system, the “getting on top of the problem” line doesn't wash if there has, in effect, been an unannounced policy to allow in much larger numbers of people than hitherto from outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which is the EU plus other rich European countries.

And that is certainly what even the inadequate official statistics indicate. From 1982 to 1997 (when Labour was elected), the number of non-EEA migrants granted settlement was almost flat at 50,000-60,000 a year. But by 2000, this had more than doubled (recognised asylum-seekers representing only about a quarter of the total) and there has been little let-up since. Various programmes to attract foreign workers have been either set up or expanded. While many of these are classified as temporary workers or students, a large number will become permanent settlers and eventually citizens. Add to these the expected arrivals from the EU accession countries later this year (who will be allowed to work in Britain immediately, a right almost all other EU members have delayed), plus the apparent willingness to smooth the way for Bulgarians and Romanians who are not yet even in the union, and the overall numbers look quite large.

A question of consent

The government's brain is, however, confident that this is wholly in Britain's economic interests. Many migrants have skills that are in high demand - London's health service and schools would collapse without them - while others, as immigrants always have, are prepared to do menial jobs shunned by the indigenous population. When ministers claim that employers are crying out for these workers, there is no reason to disbelieve them. Latterly, David Blunkett, the embattled home secretary, has plucked up the courage to explain why migration on this scale is desirable.

Sadly, it is too little and probably too late. The government is in its current bind because until now it has been afraid to explain what it was doing. There is a one-paragraph reference in the 2001 manifesto to the “positive contribution” people from abroad make to British society, but only the tiniest hint about what was really going on.

In short, the government has carried through an important policy that affects the lives of many citizens, but without having adequately gained their consent. The tragic consequence is that when it now argues perfectly sensibly about the need for “managed” migration, it is simply not trusted. Post-Iraq, Mr Blair likes to talk about being more interested in doing the right thing than in being popular. If only he had said rather sooner that this was what he was doing about immigration.

Commentary feature. The UK's immigration policy is in a mess. Writer says it has only itself to blame.

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