There is an interesting article on The Spectator today by Professor Paul Collier of Oxford University, discussing immigration, and making some important points showing it is not entirely true to claim the economy needs mass immigration. He argues:
Inchoately, many people sense that ever-rising population would threaten our environment, while ever-rising diversity would threaten our cohesion. Trotting out exaggerated claims of the economic benefits of immigration talks past these concerns. In doing so, it plays into the corrosive populist idea that political elites are disconnected from reality.
He argues that immigrants, over their whole lives, will receive more from the state than they pay in taxes, unless they earn above-average incomes, and consequently a snapshot taken early in their working lives, when they are not receiving pensions and other expensive forms of care, does not show that such people will, over their whole lives, “contribute”.
I’m not sure every single point made there can be welcomed by all: the writer says “it would help if ‘English’ ceased to be an ethnic identifier and became the accepted identity of everyone reared in England”, but then, in that case, what would I be? If ‘English’ were defined in that way in a multicultural society, it would empty it of any ethnic or cultural meaning. So what word would be used to signify those whose identity were based on the cultural traditions of England?
The writer argues for staying in the EU and wielding a veto, oblivious to the fact that qualified majority voting exists in most areas.
In any case, I welcome the piece as an example of the fact that, even within the Establishment, there is an awareness that claims the economy would collapse without immigration are not intellectually coherent, and are simply insufficient to meet UKIP concerns on this issue.
We need a higher quality debate on this subject. So far, most participants in the debate are quite resistant to an elevation of the discourse.
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I have already replied to Professor Collier directly. Regardless of one’s position on immigration, his claim that we can control the borders whilst staying in the E.U. is false.
As for immigration – well let us try a free market policy (no “free” education, healthcare, and no income support – and no loose monetary policy and subsidies for house building) and see who wants to come here. To judge by previous experience (when we actually had a “free migration” policy”) – few people would come to stay. And, of course, if they were not loyal to the Crown (if they were enemies of the nation) there was always (even in the Victorian period) a right, indeed a duty, to kick them out.
“So we should probably aim to stabilise immigration and the diversity it brings at around the present level.”
Professor Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, believes we should remain in the EU in order to wield our ‘veto’, otherwise Brussels might turn nasty and punish our exporters; let them, and watch for the BMWs clogging up Rotterdam; does he not know as well that we have a huge trade deficit with the EU? He seems to know remarkably little about how the EU operates in both theory and practice to purport to be an authority on Public Policy.
His theory that importing half a million uncalibrated aliens from the four corners of the Earth is remotely sustainable is even more bizarre, especially as he also believes the huge increase in the birthrate can be attenuated simply by reducing child allowances; unless it is accompanied by substantial reductions in direct taxes for those with children, it will force more responsible English people to limit their families in favour of the irresponsible and the culturally diverse.
John Gartside is correct “veto” argument is dishonest of Professor Collier – incredibly so.
The “veto” was taken away on many matters decades ago – Mrs Thatcher was lied to about how the “court” would “interpret” the Single European Act and so on. And there have been many treaties since then anyway.
We can not remain in the E.U. and secure our borders, and we can not remain in the E.U. and control many other aspects of policy – indeed the various treaties have given the E.U. power of most aspects of policy, The idea we can “veto” powers that HAVE ALREADY BEEN GRANTED is absurd – and, I repeat, dishonest (grossly dishonest).
We should leave the European Union as should all other nations.
I think I would much rather live in further poverty than live as an ethnic minority in some kind of Afro-Eurasian and ever Islamic influenced outpost of Mogadishu, which this country seems hell bent on becoming.
Be damned with everything revolving around the “economy”. It is obviously important, but it is not as important as how the future of this country develops as a nation of people and what kind of civilisation ensues.
If we had ONLY have had the Eastern European peoples coming here since 1948, in small numbers, I don’t think the country would have been changed all that much and people would not be so concerned for the future way of this country.
Now, it is quickly becoming a foreign land in both race, religion and culture – not to mention the vast difference within the indigenous populace when it comes to them being battered with liberal dogmas and concepts for three generations or more, to the point where freedom of thought and expression is frowned upon as “irresponsible” and something for which people ought to be sacked.
The British people are no longer what they once were, whilst cities and towns simultaneously transform into some nightmare cacophony of racial and cultural replacement. Keep the Eastern Europeans if we must, for it is the rest, who (if we are to talk financially) have cost us £120Billion (and counting) who are more the problem.
Homogeneous peoples and nations are the bedrock for any coherent and meaningful application of libertarian ethics. If things carry on as they are doing, with Birmingham, Leicester, Luton, Blackburn, London, I think you can kiss libertarianism goodbye for this country and have it put into the history books (that our replacements would never read) as a quaint concept of a long lost civilisation.
Companies want state-sponsored immigration to drive down labour costs, whilst their own products and services are protected from foreign imports… It’s a case of privatised profits with socialised costs…. Once you apply this simple formula universally, everything falls into place and you realise that everyone is a hypocrite.