Since Labour’s 1997 election victory 1.6m people have been granted permanent right of residence in Britain, mainly from developing countries. And in 2008 24 per cent of all births in England and Wales were to foreign-born mothers, rising to nearly 50 per cent in London. Strikingly, however, at no point in the last 12 years does there seem to have been a strategic discussion in cabinet about the purpose of much higher levels of immigration.
In the course of making an Analysis programme for BBC Radio 4 on New Labour and mass immigration, I discovered that the final decision to open Britain’s labour market to—as it turned out—more than 1m eastern Europeans was taken by a small group of officials and special advisers before an EU council of ministers meeting in Brussels.
An accumulation of small decisions, all of them perfectly rational and sensible in their own right, has led to a mighty big—and pretty unpopular—outcome. So why did it happen? There were two big background factors: much cheaper mass transit and Britain as a “magnet” both economically and culturally. Our fast growing economy—at least for most of the last 12 years—plus a deregulated labour market meant jobs galore at all skill levels. Then there is the pull of the English language and the “London effect”—a city with communities from all around the world.
But the magnet effect needed some political decisions from government to open the door—and between 1997 and 2003 there were four significant ones. First, there was the abolition of the so-called primary purpose rule, which had the effect of significantly raising the immigration of foreign spouses.
Second, the introduction of the Human Rights Act made it harder to clamp down on the asylum wave which began to rise sharply in 1999 to over 70,000 a year. Third was a liberalisation of student visas and work permits, both of which more than doubled after 1997. Finally, and most significant of all for the fabric of British life, was a decision to open the British labour market to the new eastern European and Baltic EU states, seven years before any other big EU state. As is now well known more than 1m people came after 2004.
All of these, with the exception of the primary purpose rule, had persuasive non-immigration rationales too. Foreign students helped to pay for an expanded higher education system. More nurses and doctors from abroad were vital for the NHS when public spending began to rise in 1999. Business lobbied very effectively for liberalisation, Whitehall was mainly in favour, and there was a network of NGOs and legal campaigners who also pushed to keep the door as wide as possible.
There is one more significant factor in all this: the pro-immigration, pro-diversity, assumption not just of the Cool Britannia left-of-centre but of a large part of the metropolitan middle class, who were not only comfortable with an increasingly multi-racial Britain, but also benefited economically from the cheap labour that flowed in. Meanwhile much of the political and administrative class believed that large inward flows were simply a fact of modern life.
A distinctively New Labour combination of economic and cultural liberalism was the backdrop to Britain’s great opening of the late 1990s. But notwithstanding the careless manner in which historic decisions have been taken, it would be wrong to say that things were completely made up on the hoof. There have been six major acts of Parliament relating to asylum and immigration since 1997—and Tony Blair spent a huge amount of time on asylum when popular anxiety was at its peak. There have also been anguished national debates about immigration and integration in the light of the 2001 race riots in the north of England and, of course, the 7/7 bombings. But Labour policy has been an odd mix of restriction and frenetic intervention on asylum for example, combined with benign neglect on the broader national purpose of mass immigration.
Belatedly, in the past couple of years the government has put in place a more coherent system of immigration control. There is now a points based system which should restrict work-related immigration to those people the country really needs, and electronic biometric-based border controls will soon count people in and out.
Moreover, aware of the popularity of the Tory plan for an annual immigration cap, the government is preparing to retreat from its laissez-faire approach to overall population growth. Labour has been jolted by the success of anti-mass-immigration lobby groups like Migration Watch and is now prepared to accept that overall numbers do matter. Expect to hear more on this from Alan Johnson or Gordon Brown.
But when historians come to look back on this period in 100 years time they will surely conclude that, as John Seeley said of the expansion of the British empire, we acquired a whole new population in a “fit of absence of mind.”
Analysis: Foreigner Policy is on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 8th February at 8.30pm
Hear David Goodhart discuss national identity at Bath Literature Festival: “Can you still be proud to be British?” takes place on Saturday 27 Feb, 1pm – 2pm. Further details: www.bathlitfest.org.uk/prospectbritain
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Comments (25):
Accidental?
Andrew Neather said otherwise.
The stable door’s, er… ajar and still we hear arguments about the economic benefits of immigration which are simply ill thought out.
In broadly economic terms there are two kinds of immigrants; the useful – the skilled, educated and eminently employable – and the useless – unskilled, uneducated and in some areas unemployable.
The latter are clearly of no benefit to the country.
The former certainly are; however by ‘enriching’ our country they are impoverishing their own, which is clearly unethical.
Where, then, lies the ultimate benefit?
No mention of the housing bubble and the part immigration played there.
No mention of the electoral benefits Labour must expect to reap from handing out passports.
No mention of Labours secret ideological agenda as revealed by Neather and confirmed by the release of the document today.
To argue that a tiny minority wanted this policy in the face of widespread public opposition is correct. But these people have no shame and continue to try to advance their unwanted ideas. Alan Johnston in the media today again playing the “lets have an honest debate” card. A public inquiry into who is responsible for the policy is needed along with public admission from Labour that their social engineering has generated a mess of monumental scale.
Schools over-full, roads crowded, trains unbearable, illegal breating air, filthy coastal waters, severe threats to the “last bastion” green belts, aircraft noise, factory “food” in supermarkets. All show the tiny island has a “biological bearing” of around 60m minus 10m, not 60m plus 10m.
For the next decade, count out 10k adults per year more than come in. Cheap labour and charitable asylum will cease when the island is broken, as it soon will be.
Immigration seems to be one of Goodhart’s bugbears. Given that all one sees out in West Wales is a recognizably large contingent of Poles (now reduced somewhat) perhaps I am not one to comment in as definitive a way as say an East Londoner. However, I do find, as a matter of general principle, that the embrace by the business world of the capital benefits of globalization whilst government tightens up on the free movement of Labour somewhat skewed. No Tobin tax but a points system on immigration. Further hypocrisy is added to the mix by the fact that a significant number of Britons emigrate to countries that seem to take them in on the nod without even requiring them to learn the relevant language.
The working class resentment that is largely responsible for this article (and the rise of the BNP) is an ugly manifestation of a disregard for for the provenance of cheap goods (from China) in shopping malls whilst failing to recognize that it is capitalism that is their enemy, not the downtrodden Sudanese etc., etc..
It really does stretch credulity to suggest that the massive changes forced upon the country were barely noticed by our (supposed) elected representatives and that that is why so little was said to explain what anyone could discern around them. Changing the country into something attractive to the investors whilst providing opportunities for the Political Class as managers of the resulting maelstrom seems a plausible motive for such treachery.
There is an illegal alien deterrent gaining momentum in the United States. It is called E-Verify, a computer program that could be adapted for Britain’s use.Through not mandated, is becoming very popular in the business sector. Using the Social Security, Homeland Security data bases it identifies unauthorized workers. Right now penalties are not that strict, but public attention is reigning in corrupt politicians who are pandering to open border lobbyists.
I was born in London sixty four years ago. As a child I heard Polish spoken in our street; saw sad looking Indian students in bright turbans in the rain. Former Italian and German P.O.W.’s were about and my hair was cut by a Greek Cypriot. In the 70s another stint of living in London produced an overwhelming need to get out. I now vistit and find a city which is extraodinary interesting and complex where once it was expensive, unobliging and, for people like myself, unwelcoming. As far as I can judge this has been due to a combination of immigration – from all parts of the world – and the British system. As a nation we have gained more than near Continent neighbours because we embrace novelty and change – ‘the Anglo Saxon’ model. They do not. The infrastructure problems mentioned here are a consequence direct and evidential of two decades when public investment was denied and characteristically left to ‘the market’. In brief, successful and dynamic societies in the future will be more like us than not.
Barry Larking says:
“I now vistit and find a city which is extraodinary interesting and complex where once it was expensive, unobliging As a nation we have gained more than near Continent neighbours because we embrace novelty and change In brief, successful and dynamic societies in the future will be more like us than not.”
If you find the place so alluring, Barry, I wonder you don’t move back there yourself, to that great shining Disneyland for sociologists that is London. I have no desire to even visit, and certainly do not wish its social pathologies visited upon me as the metro types wish to do to much of the country. Arguing that we gain more (of what???) through embracing novelty is some very shallow sh1t indeed.
Mr Fay resorts to low abuse. I will not follow him. He has stated his own position fairly succinctly and his readers can judge for themselves as to what are Mr Fay’s values.
London is demonstrably a world city and will remain so. The British have a track record in setting this kind of thing going around the globe. The success of such places is in attracting innovation and enterprise. The near Continent does this poorly by comparison and speaking to ex-pats I find many refer to this mono-cultural deadness at the heart of Europe by contrast with the vibrancy of modern life in British cities – not simply London, but one has to start with the best example.
In 1759 Horace Walpole wrote it was impossible to proceed past St James’ such was the throng of Indian nabobs and foreign ambassador’s intent upon paying respects to the new kids on the block – Great Britain. Get used to it Mr Fay.
Incidentally, the great Oscar wrote one of my favourite quotes: “Only the shallow know themselves”. There! All that and not a single abusive word.
“Mr Fay resorts to low abuse. I will not follow him”
Well…I wouldn’t dream of making anyone who quotes the great Oscar follow me. You go first at the urinal, ducky.
Homophobic and xenophobic! I long suspected they go together.
I suspect most readers wish the issue under discussion is immigration rather than denigration. Britain gains by being perceived as an internationalist country and, incidentally, a beacon of toleration in public life (apart from the occasional isolated ignorant utterance) which many countries seek to emulate. Some French students I knew once were adamant on this point and after a few years here were keen to stay.
BARRY LARKING:
I much enjoyed your witty, urbane but completely annihilating exchange with Stephen Fay.
Yes, it is curious and undignified that the British, in numbers the greatest emigrant nation ever, should complain about immigrants, most of whom at least speak English.
I also agree with you that the UK has become vastly more tolerant and interesting than it used to be.
“I also agree with you that the UK has become vastly more tolerant and interesting than it used to be.”
Having not visited London for quite a few years hardly qualifies me to comment on your situation – but it seems as though there are parallels with Australia.
Here, the ‘debate’ is just starting to get underway. The ABC recently ran 4 consecutive nights on the topic on its prime-time political slot, which is the first time I can recall that a major media organ has hefted its barge-pole and prodded the beast, which more or less went back to sleep.
The people most affected by this issue are for the most part those without a voice. If you are comfortable middle-upper class, or one of the urban dwelling latte sippers, great! You will generally be exposed the immigration’s positive aspects – diverse cultures, different cuisine experiences, more clients for your business and so on.
If, however, you are one of the lumpen proletariat dealing with a 100 mile round trip daily commute, trying your best to bring up children in an increasingly pressurised environment, trying to hold your job against an increasing number of desperate immigrants, then your view may be slightly different.
Most people will accept other people on a one-on-one basis quite happily. However, when you are under pressure and the elites issue an edict declaring that you’ll simply have to accept swarms of (insert immigrant culture de-jure) without any explanation, you will probably not be too impressed. You might even question the wisdom of such a policy at which point you will be called xenophobic and otherwise vilified as racist and told to shut up. At which point, the BNP might start to look like a viable option.
We don’t (yet) have the equivalent to the BNP. The beast, however, is sleeping with one eye slightly open…
I’d agree the UK is much more interesting then it used to be, interesting recent imports like honour killing, suicide bombing, female genital mutilation, race riots, “youth” gun crime, gang raping school girls and then pouring bleach over them to cover their tracks, then there’s the reintroduction of things that were stamped out long ago like TB, incestuous marriages, witchcraft and mugging, the right for a man to beat “his” woman (or women) – the list is endless as to how immigration has enriched this once boring stable, polite, homogeneous society.
A far cry from racist, David Goodhart’s radio narrative seems one of an erudite
cupid , floating down the Portobello Road – ? – later , flirting with the Turkish
delights of Dalston. His refreshingly well-researched , elegantly presented BBC
programme an open Valentine to immigrants
new and old( long-suffering beneath the
indignities imposed upon them by ghettoising, self-serving ‘human rights’ lawyers and lobbyists, one of whom, Trevor Phillips, allegedly now faces an inquiry for ‘ trying to influence parliamentary probe ‘ ). If a little uncharacteristically cavalier ( perhaps to invite Sir Andrew Green to defend it ) about our countryside
( and Britain’s Co2 reduction targets ) which need a further 10 ( ten ) million inhabitants like … ‘a fish needs a bicycle’ .
However, recent history proves tax-maniac New Labour and the greedy business consultants who got them into power and massage their strings did have a strategy,
mainly to line their own pockets. High unemployment and subsequent ’substance abuse’ ( ergo, increased crime ) amongst the disenfranchised working class ( of all ethnicity ) a small price to pay for their policy reform of simply importing voters..
With 700 parliamentary hours wasted debating the Hunting Act ( aka ethnic cleansing the countryside ) a strategic ‘narrative’ about mass immigration was lacking not due to any bashful feelings , but was entirlely in keeping with New Labour’s desire to sink Britain, don’t spare the peasants, which appears to have worked pretty well so far.
( They never were open to ‘narrative’ other than their home grown spin. Remember Hans Blix on WMD ? ” They did not want to listen to what I had said about increased Iraqi cooperation..they preferred to ignore it ” )
Further key background factors to the speed of mass immigration were, and remain, the unrealistic demands of union officials alongside Britain’s unreformed welfare state system ( another juicy source of assured Labour voters ), without ‘dependency culture’ there would be few hard-to-employables to put ignore, and thus , no argument for further over-crowding this beautiful island.
Mr Lee describes a list of crimes. Crime did not arrive in this country with immigrants unless you mean my ancestor’s, the Anglo Saxons. The description of ‘this once boring stable, polite, homogeneous society’ is also a surprise. In my youth a cinema manager a week was being put in hospital by gangs of Teddy Boys. ‘Army towns’ during National Service (pre 1961) were a bye word for violence. I think the Welsh, Scots and Irish also resisted England’s ‘homogeneous’ embrace. Many new immigrants are from across Europe, the Americas and Far East. But I suspect these are not the ones on Mr Lee’s mind. Britain cannot have an ‘open door’ immigration policy; but neither should it wall the door up.
Mr Larking, Give it a rest about Teddy boys! How many people actually died back then? One per year? One every two years? Mods and Rockers, Teddy boys add all those troubles together and the total number of fatalities will match today’s London for one month. Last year 28 \youths\ stabbed another to death in London alone. We know who’s doing it and it is overwhelmingly the problem of an immigrant \community\. The left will simply not admit the demographics involved with violent crime.
Mr Lee is not concerned about immigration as such: – “We know who’s doing it and it is overwhelmingly the problem of an immigrant \community”.
How many of the victims and or their assilants were immigrants? If U.K. born, what then makes one an ‘immigrant’? I think Mr Lee is exercised by race alone. There are in fact murders of an entirely similar kind right across the U.K. – young men armed with knives in large cities. Where I live stabbings are all too common – and, yes I would welcome a return to ’stop and search’ police powers – hereabouts entirely crimes carried out by white Anglo-Saxons, those one time immigrants from across the North Sea.
Mr Larking, Race isn’t the problem, culture is, if, back in the 50s, we instilled our culture on newcomers we could have had a perfectly harmonious multi-ethnic (but mono cultured) society. If you import people from a country where arguments are routinely settled at the point of a knife and/or down the barrel of a gun – handing them a British passport and telling them their old culture and values (or lack of) are welcome will not magically and instantly civilize them. Yes there are stabbings all over the country but the vast majority are carried out in the big cities by a particular group of people. Look at the government’s anti-“gun crime” and anti-“knife crime” posters splattered all over London, notice the Operation Trident motif on the posters? Who’s that aimed at then? It’s the government making a tacit admission that it knows where the problems lay – even if it won’t openly admit it. When Mr Blair actually had the danglies to say “it no use pretending it is not young black kids doing it”. (“it” = “youth” murders) he was attacked left right and centre for “racism” (telling the truth is now racism). As for being born here making you British – a dog born in a stable is still a dog.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/apr/12/ukcrime.race
Anyone who says that Labour did not know exactly what it was doing doesn’t know the Labour party under Blair and Brown. Part of the ‘project’ was to let millions of immigrants into the country so that it could be changed for ever. Why they would want to do this is unclear: perhaps theyw ere ’sleepers’ left over from the cold war, or just bitter and twisted. I really don’t know. But even this government was never as incompetent as to not know that millions of people were flooding into the country and that this influx could not be stopped once it had begun.
As a postgraduate student researching the European Union I feel obliged to comment on this article. Over 1million Eastern Europeans came into the country post 2004… which out of a population of 72m in the UK is not really that many. Plus how many of them have now left, and how many Brits now live in Spain or France? When people talk of “Britishness” they mean “Englishness”, in my experience as a welshman the welsh and scots are more tolerant of incomers, theyd have to be since we tolerate the english! But when they talk about “Britishness” people mention ideas such as tolerance, respect for the rule of law, fair play etc. So why worry about people who have this mentality but who werent born here? if “Britishness” is based on birthplace not ideals then that means Nick Griffin is as British as me, but I wouldnt ascribe to him any of the above mentioned values. In contrast, many of my Eastern European uni friends do have that mentality. This is after all an island, we are all descended from immigrants. England comes from the Angles, a tribe who came here from Denmark, or the Saxons who came here from Germany.
It is all going pear-shaped.
“it is called E-Verify, a computer program that could be adapted for Britain’s use.”
E-Verify has a 54% error rate.
Thanks for your comments Steve Lee – despite being born here some 41 years ago I’m the proverbial dog in the stable you mention. When will people like you – and by that I mean with your attitude and simplifcation of complex issues – begin to understand that there is an overwhelming majority of black, brown, yellow people in this country born to parents not from this country who have gone to school, joined the workforce, paid their taxes, driven your buses, nursed your ill, cleaned your toilets and have gotten on doing all of that without settling their arguments at the point of a knife, but rather have attempted to walk a fine line between fitting in and holding onto some of what they recall of their parents’ reminisces? To call it a generalisation would be to do you a favour – it’s a great deal less savoury than that and I say that as somebody who’s been around for long enough to recognise the difference between a genuine appeal to understand the reasons behind mass immigration and a cheap shot at visible minorities. If you were representative of white people in this country, I’d have a pretty dim view of you all. But thankfully, you’re not. Nor are the criminal element in my community so move on to your next argument..