For decades, British politicians have refused to lead an honest discussion about immigration, its benefits and its effects. Labour and Conservative governments have vied to appear “tough” – or have made unrealistic promises about net migration targets and “British jobs for British workers” – and then hidden from the consequences of their own policies. “It was as if the makers did not dare to tell the truth,” Ruud Lubbers, the former Dutch prime minister and one of the architects of the Maastricht Treaty, said of the reluctance of Britain’s politicians to be candid about what greater EU integration entailed.
Rishi Sunak’s government treated the recent news, that net migration to the UK has reached a record high of 504,000, as a failure that needed apologising for, rather than an opportunity to explain and contextualise. The figures are not, contrary to reports, proof that the British immigration system is “out of control”.
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