The impact of Brexit on immigration will be minimal

With negotiations set to begin on divorce proceedings with the European Union, an array of questions, primarily economic ones, remain unanswered. However, the inaccuracy of the Leave campaign’s hallmark promise: that Brexit will enable Britain to take “Take Back Control,” is becoming clearer. There have been headlines today regarding new migration figures, which show that immigration has fallen in the wake of the Brexit vote. But experts are clear that the long-term impact of Brexit on immigration will be small. According to a new report by think tank Global Future, there is unlikely to be more than a 15 per cent reduction in net migration to the UK post-Brexit. This works out as a fall from 335,000 immigrants to 285,000 per year.

Notably, the analysis doesn’t consider future trade deals with nations from outside the EU that may be dependent on migration stipulations; so the reduction could be much less than that 15 per cent. Already, both Australia and India have made their intentions known. In any potential free trade discussions with the UK, they will be seeking favourable entry conditions for workers. Consider also that the government recently conceded that all new free trade deals being considered come with provisions that soften migration regulations for foreign workers.

But here’s the thing: immigration is good for the economy. This is the extent of Brexiteers’ confusion: their promises are not only unkept, but misguided to begin with. It’s difficult to hold a position that is more of a mess than that.

Britain’s industries, services and public sector depend on immigration. On top of an already weakened pound, which has hit some businesses hard, policy uncertainty in this area will cause headaches. It will harm recruitment and retention efforts in EU migrant-dependent sectors such as the accommodation and food services, construction, health and social, retail and wholesale sectors.

Even so, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) notes that despite policy uncertainty, over a quarter of employers indicate that they are willing to absorb additional costs to continue recruiting EU workers. Thus, despite government rhetoric, businesses that know the value of EU migrant workers highlight the honest truth: we cannot do without them. The government’s hard-Brexit path so far suggests it is oblivious to their importance.

Given all this, the government’s refusal to guarantee the rights of EU nationals in the UK is most puzzling. Reassuring them of their worth would be the decent thing to do. There are over three million EU citizens contributing to our communities and tax base.

It is ironic that the same EU workers who were demonised and used as a rallying point for Brexiteers during the campaign are now holding in their hands Britain’s future prosperity. And how hypocritical of the government to pursue a foolish hard-Brexit, pulling Britain out of the single market, at the risk of exposing us to catastrophic World Trade Organisation tariffs and then, in the end, to seek free trade agreements with new countries which will likely entail a boost in the number of foreign workers in the UK.

The Leave campaign’s misleading rhetoric has got us into this mess, and its leaders in Whitehall must fix it. We know that the NHS isn’t getting the promised £350m extra per week and is in fact in the midst of a winter crisis. And now, with these new revelations on immigration, it is becoming abundantly clear that “taking back control,” at least when it came to immigration numbers, was just a slogan. Just demagoguery.

I accept the results of the referendum and that the UK is on the path to leaving the EU. However, I reject the idea that Britain must rip itself out of the single market without a deal with Europe, especially if the promises that drove us to this point are undeliverable.

I know many feel the same. A new ICM poll found that only 35 per cent of Britons support the idea of leaving Europe without a deal. The responsibility is now on all of us to put collective pressure on this government so they pursue a soft-Brexit. Though pig-headed politics, trumping pragmatism, seems to be a theme these days, now is the time to rise above partisan lines and do the right thing for both the country and its EU citizens.