There was a time not that long ago when it was commonly argued that the vote to leave the European Union meant that immigration was no longer an important electoral issue. In 2016, it was argued, the public cared greatly about immigration but what worried them was not so much the numbers coming in but the lack of control. Once we had left the EU, it was said, we could decide who came here and the country would be reconciled to high levels of immigration.
It was an argument generally made by those who considered themselves to be liberal Brexiteers. They wanted to leave the EU for reasons of national sovereignty. Their policy agenda was about lower taxes and deregulation as we freed ourselves from what they saw as the bureaucratic and anti-market tendencies of the EU. Outside it, the UK would be more nimble and outward-looking, including by attracting the best talent from across the world. The public would accept the need for immigration if this was demonstrably a choice made by our governments rather than the apparently unintended consequence of our membership of the EU.
For a time, there appeared to be some truth to the argument. Immigration dropped down the list of the public’s concerns after 2016. In fact, support for immigration grew as Remain voters reacted to the referendum result by taking a more liberal position and the combination of Brexit and the Covid pandemic meant that shortages in the labour market were all too apparent.
One person who believed this analysis to be correct was Boris Johnson. The extent to which he was ever a sincere Brexiteer of any description will be long debated but no one really believes that his position in the referendum debate was driven by a passionate desire to reduce immigration. He was willing to exploit the issue, but that was the price to be paid to win. He was one of the keenest to believe that the Leave vote was driven by a desire for independence, not a desire to keep foreigners out.
Another prominent Brexiteer took a different view. Keeping foreigners out was exactly what Nigel Farage thought had driven the Leave vote. Failing to deliver that, he argues, was a breach of trust with the electorate.
From today’s perspective, it is clear that Farage was right. Perhaps if net migration had stayed at roughly the levels of the pre-referendum period of 300,000 a year it is possible that the issue would not have returned to such prominence. But it did not. For the last two years the aggregate level of net migration has been 1.6 million. A public reaction was inevitable.
The invasion of Ukraine has contributed significantly to the numbers, as have events in Hong Kong. Few are objecting to welcoming refugees in these circumstances. But there are other areas where high levels of immigration have happened because of choices made by the government because the costs of the alternative are unappealing.
We could have pursued policies that meant that universities were less reliant on overseas students, but that would have required higher tuition fees and, in any event, there are ancillary benefits for the UK in welcoming clever young people to the country. We could also have looked domestically for nurses and care workers but that may not have worked and certainly would have come at a higher cost. Incidentally, one of the explanations that mental health services face such difficulty is that, for various reasons, it is very hard to recruit mental health nurses from overseas. Our current waiting lists for mental health treatment suggest that it is just as well that we have been able to recruit nurses elsewhere in the system.
The difficulty for governments is that the aggregate numbers for the last couple of years are unsustainable but many of the constituent parts of that aggregate number are hard to reverse or, at the very least, come with a cost.
That does not stop our parties from promising action. Kemi Badenoch has announced that a Conservative government will introduce an immigration cap. This is a revealing early move from the Tory leader which suggests that her immediate priority is to see off the Reform threat. There is no doubt that concern over immigration drove many of the 2019 Tory voters to abandon the party in July, not least because of the broken pledge to “stop the boats”. But if she goes too far down this track she risks being viewed as Reform-lite and alienating a large part of the electorate, including many who are concerned about high immigration but dislike the emphasis.
Meanwhile, Keir Starmer has accused the Tories of pursuing an “open borders experiment”. It is the sort of hard-hitting language that Farage might use. Presumably, the intention is to so contaminate the Tory record that Labour will be inoculated from any subsequent attacks on its own record. It is a strategy that comes with risks, however. The language might not just mirror Farage but also assist him. It validates the argument that reducing immigration merely requires the will to do so, and it does nothing to explain the trade-offs to the public. If immigration remains high under Labour, the “open borders experiment” phrase will haunt Starmer.
Immigration as an issue cannot be ignored given that the levels are too high to maintain public support. In bringing them down, however, mainstream politicians should be wary about making promises that they cannot deliver. Failing to meet raised expectations would, once again, be a gift to Farage.
[See also: Britain needs a strong economy to be secure]
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