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Even before the damage from the last economic crisis has been repaired, the danger is growing of another. After briefly showing signs of recovery in 2013, the eurozone has slumped back into stagnation. Meanwhile, Japan has entered recession again, growth in China is slowing down and geopolitical threats proliferate.
David Cameron’s warning that “red lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy” was justified, even if his motives were primarily political. It is in the interests of the Conservatives for voters’ attention to be concentrated on this issue, rather than immigration, on which Ukip leads, and on the NHS, on which Labour does. By alerting the electorate that the storm has not passed, Mr Cameron aims to persuade them not to take a chance on the opposition at the general election. The hope is that a vote for Labour will appear too risky and that a vote for Ukip will appear too frivolous.
But if the Prime Minister’s jeremiad was politically astute it was also disingenuous. Having blamed the 2008 crisis on Labour’s profligacy, rather than global forces, he cannot now reasonably cite the same conditions as an alibi for the coming UK slowdown. While highlighting the dangers abroad, he ignores those at home, including the long decline in living standards, the lack of public and private investment and an overheated London property market.
Mr Cameron is correct to note the harm inflicted on Britain by the parlous state of the eurozone, our largest trading partner, but refuses to add that this results not from an absence of austerity (the policy he promotes for growth) but from a dangerous excess. As Mehdi Hasan writes on page 33, Europhiles should question their faith in an EU that has done so much to choke off demand in member states and so little to support it.
In these circumstances, voters in the UK and elsewhere are easily susceptible to populists and demagogues who seek to demonise immigrants. Politicians have spent a decade complaining that we do not talk about the issue. The truth is that many voters hear about little else. By too often reinforcing the myths about immigration, rather than challenging them, the two main parties jointly ensure that Ukip is the main beneficiary. No voter who heard Labour’s panicky pledge to ban migrants from claiming out-of-work benefits for two years after their arrival and to limit tax credits for those in employment would be reminded that migrants contribute considerably more in taxes than they receive in welfare payments. An OECD report last year, for instance, found that they make a net contribution to the UK of 1.02 per cent of GDP or £16.3bn, because they are younger and more economically active than the population in general.
The truth, which almost no politician will dare utter, is that Britain will need more, rather than fewer, immigrants in the future to meet the challenge of an ageing population. The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that should the UK maintain net migration of roughly 140,000 a year (significantly higher than the government’s target of “tens of thousands”), debt will rise to 99 per cent of GDP by 2062-2063. But should it cut net migration to zero, debt will reach 174 per cent.
The Conservatives never miss an opportunity to boast of their “long-term economic plan” and their commitment to balanced growth. But the gap between rhetoric and reality has seldom been greater. Fixated on their ideological commitment to achieve a budget surplus by the end of the next parliament, the Tories offer none of the innovative thinking required to remake the British economy for this new insecure era. After Mr Cameron’s cynical promise of £7bn of tax cuts, even their devotion to fiscal restraint is now questionable.
Rather than managing decline, both Britain and the eurozone need an ambitious programme for growth. In the absence of economic leadership, the world is likely to remain at best trapped in what Keynes called “the long, dragging conditions of semi-slump” and at worst caught in the rapids of another global crisis.