People keep saying they want facts in the referendum campaign. This analysis by Nick Carter-Lando is the best I have read on the reality of immigration. If you want to cast your vote on the basis of reality rather than myth, please read it:-
Immigration has been in the
news a lot lately, especially with the EU referendum coming up.
So let's use the tools and
data of political science to understand the topic
better.
Last year, 270,000 EU
citizens immigrated to the UK, and 85,000 returned to the EU. So EU net
migration was around 185,000 (1). Additionally, a similar number came from
outside the EU, so 330,000 in total.
That was the highest ever
level of EU migration – going all the way back to when we joined the EEC in
1975. Indeed during the 1980s the trend was the other way – British workers
moved overseas, particularly to Germany, as their economy was doing better than
ours at that time. You might remember the TV show ‘Auf Wiedersehen Pet’.
Currently our economy is doing better than many European ones so more people
are coming than going. But there's no reason to think that will always be the
case.
The Leave campaign claim that
EU migration is putting unsustainable pressure on our public services,
worsening the housing crisis, putting pressure on the NHS, on schools and on
our roads. Their latest TV broadcast for instance shows a sick older lady
receiving NHS treatment much faster in an imaginary hospital if we leave the
EU. Are they right?
Imagine that we left the EU
and banned EU immigration completely. Nobody else allowed – no footballers, no
entertainers, no chefs, no businessmen, no nurses, no cleaners, nobody. And we
kept that door shut for ten years. And for comparison let’s say that we stayed
in the EU and immigration continues at this year’s record level (the highest ever)
for the next ten years. How would that impact our population and our public
services?
In terms of population, we’d
end up with 1.85m fewer people living in our country after the 10 years. That
sounds like a lot of people, which it is. But we’re a big country – 64.6m in
total at the moment (2). So even under these very extreme assumptions the
difference is only 2.8%. Less than 1 in 35.
Would you notice the
difference if there were 34 instead of 35 people in your doctors’ waiting room?
If there were 34 instead of 35 cars ahead of you in the traffic jam? Would your
child’s education suffer in a class of 35 instead of 34? I doubt it.
And don’t forget that we’re
making crazily unrealistic assumptions about how much we could reduce
immigration if we left the EU. Because even the most ardent Leave campaigners
don’t say that we should stop immigration altogether. They usually talk of
using a points system to reach the government’s net target of 100,000 per year.
So the difference in population after 10 years wouldn’t be anything like as
much as 1 in 35.
Let’s say we could hit the
net target of 100,000 – half from the EU and half from non-EU countries for the
sake of argument. In that case, the difference in population after 10 years
would be 1.35m or 1 in 49.
And don’t forget that we’re
also making another very aggressive assumption – that migration will continue
at the same level as last year, our highest ever. It would be more realistic to
take the average of the last five years migration (3). If we do that, then the
difference in our population after ten years would be only 790,000 or 1 in 82.
1 in 82.
I can’t tell the difference
between a crowd of 81 and 82 people (even when they were my own wedding
guests!). Can you?
So here’s the thing: however
you feel about EU immigration, even under extreme assumptions the impact on our
overall population just isn’t very large.
Now at this point some of you
might be thinking – “This can't be right - step outside and look with your own
eyes! Britain is full of foreigners! The place I grew up is like another
country! How can you claim that EU immigration is not significant?”.
I live in inner London so I
can sense where you might be coming from. A few things to bear in mind:
1) The overwhelming majority
of immigration to the UK over the last 40 years has been from outside the EU
(3). However you feel about that, it has nothing to do with our EU membership;
2) Whether you like it or
not, Britain has been a multicultural country for several generations at least.
You can’t tell whether somebody is an immigrant just by looking at them (sorry
if this is an obvious point). You might hazard a guess at their ethnicity or
race but that’s a very different thing;
3) Historically, immigrants
have clustered in particular areas of the country, so your neighbourhood may
not be representative of the country at large;
4) British people from all
backgrounds have become much more cosmopolitan in their tastes over the last 40
years. We drink in pubs much less, but enjoy wine at home or go to restaurants
and cafes a lot more. Instead of just eating British food, we enjoy flavours
from all over the world. So the retail and commercial landscape of our country
has changed - to reflect our changing tastes, not just because of new arrivals.
“But wait! What when Turkey,
Montenegro and Albania join the EU? We’ll be swamped!”
No we won’t.
Mainly because Turkey and
Albania are nowhere near being eligible to join the EU, and Montenegro is tiny.
Also don't forget there are 27 other countries in the EU to choose from if
residents of those countries did fancy a change of scene.
And even if in the distant
future many other countries did join and we did find ourselves swamped, Britain
could leave. We’re free to leave the EU whenever we want. But if we leave and
then want to rejoin, we’d need the consent of all 27 other member states.
Better to stay and keep our options open than leave in fear of something that
is very unlikely to happen.
And so far we’ve also not
factored in the contribution that immigrants make to our country, and
specifically our public finances. EU migrants contribute more in taxes than
they use in public services, as they are much more likely to be of working age
than the general population (4). So if we used that extra tax revenue to hire
more doctors, build more schools, invest in transport and so on, we’d actually
have better public services than we would without any EU immigration.
It takes time to hire and
train teachers and doctors, build schools and roads, and so forth. So it’s true
that a sudden influx of people into an area can put short-term pressure on
services. But the fundamental reason for the issues we identified at the start
– NHS pressure, oversubscribed schools, congested roads, the housing crisis –
is not EU immigration.
We are now six years into a
government austerity programme to attempt to balance the books. So it’s not
surprising that our public services are feeling the pinch.
An ageing population and new
advances in medicine put particular strain on the NHS.
For the last thirty years, we
have failed by a wide margin to build enough houses in the UK. Interest rates
have been at an ‘emergency’ rate of 0.5% for the last seven years. That is why
house prices are so high.
And this story of decades of
underinvestment is repeated for our roads and railways too.
All of these issues are
home-grown. And all of those policy areas are entirely within the control of
our government in Westminster. They have nothing to do with the EU and are not
the fault of EU migrants.
Finally, there’s been plenty
of academic research into this issue, including a summary paper just published
by the London School of Economics (5).
The research shows, contrary
to many tabloid headlines, that
1) Immigrants do not take a
disproportionate share of jobs created by our economy;
2) There is no evidence of an overall negative impact of immigration on wages;
3) There is no evidence that EU migrants affect the labour market performance
of native-born workers (i.e. make it harder for native-born workers to get
promoted, get a pay rise, etc)
So it is clear from examining
the evidence that fears of immigration have been blown out of all proportion by
the Eurosceptic press and the Leave campaign.
But what about all that money
we send the EU? Couldn't we use that to improve public services?
Yes, but it wouldn't go very
far, and it would be outweighed by the economic damage from leaving.
Our net contribution to the
EU was £8.5bn last year (6) which works out at 36 pence per person per day.
That is a drop in the ocean compared to our annual NHS budget of £116.4bn (7).
And if you’re trying to work
out the impact of leaving the EU on our public services, you can’t just look at
our net contribution. You also need to consider the effect that leaving would
have on the size of our economy, and hence the tax revenue the government can
generate.
Seven highly respected
independent economic organisations have tried to work this out (8). And all
seven of them have reached the same conclusion: that the economic damage caused
by Brexit would more than offset the saving from our EU contribution.
The best estimate suggests
that the government would have between £20bn and £40bn less to spend on public
services than if we remained in the EU (9). So our public services wouldn't be
better if we left the EU - they would be much worse.
So if we left the EU to ‘take
control of immigration’, and then reduced it as discussed above, we’d still
have all the same problems we have today – the housing crisis, an overstretched
NHS, oversubscribed schools, heavy traffic, etc.
But we’d also have two even
more serious problems to add to the list: a recession and the unknown
consequences of destabilising the very institution which has secured peace in
Europe for the last 70 years.
People are sceptical of
economists’ forecasts. But you don’t even need to estimate many of the economic
problems that will arise from Brexit – you can see them already in the currency
markets.
The pound suffered its
biggest one day fall in seven years when Boris and other MPs joined the leave
campaign (10). You can watch the impact of movements in the referendum opinion
polls in the EUR/GBP exchange rate. A major bank recently warned that Brexit
could wipe 20% off the value of the pound through devaluation (11).
Devaluation sounds like a dry
and abstract concept. So let me explain what that means:
20% of your life savings
wiped out overnight.
The numbers in your bank
account will be the same, but what you can buy with it will be 20% less, since
most things we buy these days come from overseas.
Only the other day the
Financial Times reported that hedge funds are planning to run their own private
exit polls on referendum day to speculate on the currency markets ahead of the
official result (12).
Just as during the ERM crisis of 1992, the vultures are circling, waiting to
feast on our self-inflicted wounds.
And here’s another very clear
threat: to our jobs. Only last Friday, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, warned
his staff in Bournemouth that one, two or even four thousand of them would be
made redundant if we leave the EU (13). Imagine how his staff are feeling
today. And as a manager, let me tell you: that’s not the kind of thing you tell
your employees unless you’re deadly serious.
Even leading Leave campaigner
Michael Gove admitted just a few days ago that jobs are at risk if we leave the
EU (14). Multimillionaire UKIP donor Arron Banks described this economic damage
as ‘a price worth paying’ (15).
Arron Banks, Boris Johnson
and Nigel Farage might be rich enough to gamble their jobs on Brexit - but are
you?
It is quite possible that
some of your friends and family will lose their jobs as a direct result of
Britain leaving the EU. Do you want to be responsible for that?
We took an evidence-based
look at the immigration and EU issue above. But the Leave campaign and
Eurosceptic press (Express, Sun and Mail in particular) choose to paint a very
different picture. A picture which blows these statistics out of all
proportion. 'Strangers in Our Own Country' 'Our borders are out of control!'.
You know the stuff I mean. Pictures which invite us to eye our friends and
neighbours with suspicion and even hostility. Editorial which pins the blame
for every problem from housing to wages to traffic to NHS waiting times on
immigrants.
And it's not even because
they don't know any better. The leaders of the Leave campaign and the political
editors of those newspapers are clever, well-educated people. They know the
facts I set out above just as well as I do.
Yet instead of presenting a
balanced view, they choose to deliberately whip up fear and suspicion of
immigrants for their own political purposes.
Shame on them.
Why? Because appealing to
people's basest prejudices sells newspapers and gathers votes. Just ask Donald
Trump.
And what greater contrast
could there be between the divisive rhetoric of the leave campaign and the
noble vision of the EU's founding fathers.
Men who, amid the ashes of
World War Two, set their national differences aside and dared - not just to
dream but to build - a better Europe for us all.
A Europe in which war was
“not only unthinkable … but materially impossible” (16).
Here’s Winston Churchill
addressing the Congress of Europe in 1948:
“A high and a solemn
responsibility rests upon us here ... If we allow ourselves to be rent and
disordered by pettiness and small disputes, if we fail in clarity of view or
courage in action, a priceless occasion may be cast away for ever. But if we
all pull together and pool the luck and the comradeship - and we shall need all
the comradeship and not a little luck … then all the little children who are
now growing up in this tormented world may find themselves not the victors nor
the vanquished in the fleeting triumphs of one country over another in the
bloody turmoil of … war, but the heirs of all the treasures of the past and the
masters of all the science, the abundance and the glories of the future.”
And - against all the odds -
we did it.
We pooled the luck and the
comradeship and achieved Churchill’s vision.
Those “little children” are
now retired – the first generation in a thousand years to grow up without the
horror of war in Europe.
Instead of building weapons,
our scientists work together to solve the greatest problems of our age.
We enjoy a standard of living
unimaginable to people in 1948.
All the cities, art, history,
people, food and culture of this wonderful continent are open to us whenever we
want to visit, to live or to work.
Hundreds of millions of
European people who until only a few decades ago were ruled by dictators or
communists now enjoy democracy, human rights, the rule of law and the abundance
of the free market.
I think that’s worth 36 pence
a day.
And yet here we stand, about
to turn our backs on this great project, thanks to cynical newspaper owners and
barefaced lies from the Leave campaign.
Forget what the Sun says.
Forget what’s good for Boris’
and Farage’s careers.
Listen to every current and
former British Prime Minister (17). Every other major UK political party leader
(18). To Barack Obama, to Hillary Clinton, to Angela Merkel and a host of other
world leaders (19). To Stephen Hawking and 83% of scientists (20). To 40
religious leaders (21). To 300 leading historians (22). To the Trades Union
Congress and our six largest trades unions (23). To 88% of economists (24). To
the National Farmers Union (25). To the Chief Executive of NHS England (26), to
the Royal College of Midwives (27) To British businesses of all sizes (28).
For there is an overwhelming
consensus among experts of all kinds that Britain is stronger in Europe.
And what does the Leave
campaign say to this?
“I think people in this
country have had enough of experts” (Michael Gove, Friday 3rd June)
What an extraordinary
response.
If you were sick, you’d want
to see a doctor. If you had a plane to fly, you’d want a pilot. So when we have
the most important political, economic and foreign policy decision of our
lifetime to make I think we should listen to the people who are in the best
position to evaluate what to do. And they’re all telling us the same thing –
we’re much better off in Europe.
It might not be what Michael
Gove wants to hear. But it sounds like the right answer to me.
So when you’re in the polling
station on Thursday 23rd - with that stubby little pencil in your hand –Vote
Remain.
Not in fear, but with pride –
about what we, the people of Europe, have achieved together.
Not in ignorance, but with
science firmly on our side.
And not alone, but with the
greatest statesmen of the past three generations urging us on.
And then in years to come,
when your children ask you how you voted in the referendum of 2016, you can
look them in the eye and tell them you were on the right side of history.
Thank you for reading
