News

You can tell immigration is back on the political agenda by the way both main parties are floating ideas aimed at "toughening up" their positions. Conservative proposals for a compulsory health check on asylum seekers are one recent example. And from the Labour backbenches, Stephen Byers made a speech proposing an annual limit on new entrants to Britain that would be set by Parliament after a debate.

These policies share common features. Neither is based on firm evidence. Health screening is a policy solution for a non-existent problem. The one substantive survey of the health of refugees and asylum seekers found that only one of 6,000 people presenting at a port of entry was carrying any serious disease. Indeed, when Sars arrived, it was businessmen and public schoolboys returning from a school trip who were most likely to be bringing the disease into the country.


The Byers plan is a response to the political perception that Britons feel that we are taking more than our fair share of migrants and that our key public services are coming under undue pressure. Both of these are flawed arguments. In Europe we take fewer refugees than do many other countries, while many of our services would collapse if it were not for overseas labour. Since the inception of the NHS, nurses and doctors have come from Ireland, the West Indies and India to work in Britain. As government investment boosts the NHS over coming years, full staffing will be based on overseas recruitment and the same may well be true of social care.

So what is going on? Why are politicians of both sides raising the stakes on immigration?

Both are responding to what they see happening to disaffected portions of the working-class electorate and, in particular, the ability of the British National Party to win council seats by tapping into local resentment. Labour and Tory politicians want to "signal" to these voters that their "concerns" are understood by mainstream parties. The problem with this strategy is that voters who want fascism will not settle for fascism-lite, they will stick with the BNP. But they will feel their racism is more legitimate because it is so clearly echoed by respectable politicians.


Unfounded views about migration should be challenged by our political leaders. In a Dutch auction about who can be toughest on those wanting to come to Britain, the centre ground of debate will shift to the right and we will risk losing liberty and civility from our public life.

John McTernan is a political analyst.