The writer is director of British Future, a think-tank. His new book is ‘How to Be a Patriot’
There is a simplistic populist narrative about high immigration — a story of betrayal. The claim is that political and economic elites ignore the persistent public demand for lower immigration. But changing attitudes towards immigration make that story ever less plausible.
The net migration figures to be published next week are predicted to be the highest yet, rising further above the most recent figure of just over half a million. This creates a headache for a government that pledged that overall numbers would come down. Immigration in 2022 was exceptionally high for exceptional reasons, with 200,000 Ukrainians arriving in Britain last spring. But rising immigration is also a matter of policy choice, not just circumstance.
Brexit gave UK governments more control over immigration. One major restrictive change — an end to EU free movement — has been outweighed by almost every other policy choice being a liberalising one.
British Future has tracked public attitudes to immigration for the past decade. Attitudes towards its economic and cultural impacts have become more positive. Historically, two-thirds of people supported reducing immigration levels, regardless of whether net migration was negative, or at record levels. Despite high migration, support for reducing overall numbers has now narrowed and become more selective than ever before.
Why did public attitudes change? More control has shifted the debate. The question is no longer “open or closed”, but a series of distinct choices: on students, NHS and care workers, bankers and seasonal fruit-pickers. If there is a control dividend, it does not apply to the visible chaos over small boats crossing the Channel, where Rishi Sunak is making promises he can’t keep.
While attitudes to immigration have softened, they remain polarised. Almost half of the public (42 per cent in 2022) would still like to see overall numbers come down. Around a quarter are sincere reducers. A rival quarter wants immigration to go up further. Only 5 per cent expressed such a view a decade ago. Some of those with the most liberal views — who regret the end of free movement — have the misperception that immigration has fallen after Brexit.
But most people are more interested in control than reduction, so consider immigration case-by-case. The irony is that the government’s policy choices closely map public attitudes. Only one in 10 people think we took too many refugees from Ukraine. The idea of reducing visas for the NHS or social care is equally unpopular: only 12 per cent would restrict visas for the health service. A mere 17 per cent are in favour of reducing the number of fruit pickers.
There are three possible political responses to high levels of immigration. Any credible call to reduce the numbers depends on specifying what should be cut. Even the most basic maths dictates that it won’t be possible to achieve anything even close to the net 100,000 figure without cutting immigration that is broadly popular. Any serious effort would mean reversing almost all of Boris Johnson’s typically “cakeist” immigration policies — saying he wants to bring down the numbers, while pursuing policies which, in practice, would maintain or increase it.
Second, the government could opt for “continuity cakeism” and attempt to weather the damage to public trust from unkept promises. One mitigation is that Conservative voters are cakeist too: six out of 10 would reduce overall numbers — though support for reductions falls to below a third for any specific work or study route. (By contrast, two-thirds of Labour voters do not want to reduce overall levels at all).
A third approach would accept that immigration is high and seek to manage it well. Sustaining consent for the economic gains it brings depends on managing the pressures better too. The impact on housing remains, rationally, the most widely-held public concern. Business advocates need a more nuanced public voice. A response to record levels of immigration which sounds like “the only problem is that there is not more of it” sounds tone deaf. Employers are not paying nearly enough attention to employment rates among large numbers of people coming to Britain on routes outside the points-based system. (These, who have the right to work, include refugees, those coming from Hong Kong and Ukraine, on family visas, students and dependants.)
If the populist story on immigration was true, a government could win great acclaim by simply reversing all of its pragmatic liberalising policy choices since 2019. But squeals of pain from the NHS, from universities, from farmers and from the Treasury given the fiscal loss, would not be tolerated by the public. The overall numbers are much higher than the government anticipated. Making decisions about whether the gains of higher migration outweigh that political pain is what control looks like.