Specific Proposals for reducing non-EEA immigration
Tier 6 Asylum Visa
Balanced migration means the number of people settling in UK equals the number leaving. But balanced migration does not mean zero population growth. Recent immigrants have been young. Young people have children. The UK birth rate has risen significantly. Each year there are 200,000 more births than deaths: the population will grow by 200,000 a year even if net immigration is zero.
To achieve a balanced population - one that does not grow or only grows slowly at the traditional British rate - net immigration has to be less than zero - i.e. more people leave than come in. In practice that means much lower levels of immigration and letting emigration take its natural course. (It does not mean compulsory deportations!)
The UK has got into the habit of high levels of immigration, particularly since 1997. Economic benefits are often cited though these are disputed. If you add 20% to the population you'll probably add 20% to the size of the economy. Politicians can claim "x million extra jobs" and "20% economic growth" yet individual people and families are no better off. There's more wealth but it's spread around that many more people. And the oft-cited economic benefit of 60p a week does not go far when immigration-fuelled population growth makes housing unaffordable.
Whatever the benefits, real or imagined, many people experience the negative implications of immigration: overcrowding, social tension, green spaces eaten up for housing, cultural change, perceived challenge to the "British way". Balanced migration does not remove all of these negatives: balanced migration could be achieved with 500,000 non-EU immigrants coming in and 500,000 "British" people emigrating to Australia.
Immigration brings "diversity" and "multi-culturalism" which are either good things or bad things depending upon your point of view. People are certainly told they should like these things. Though people tend to like what they like not what they are told to like. Few people move house to live in an area dominated by new immigrants, people do move house to get away from such areas.
Yet for years no politician dared say a word against immigration for fear of being shouted down as a racist.
And so immigration continued on and on.
But something changed in the middle of 2009, which with hindsight will be seen as a significant turning point.
It's hard to pinpoint exactly what triggers such a change, but Nick Griffin's election to the European Parliament may have been a factor. However unpleasant you find what he stands for, he said there should be less immigration and a lot of people nodded - even those who wouldn't vote BNP in a million years. And then on TV we saw people saying they had good friends who were Indian or West Indian but they were voting BNP, not because they hate black people, but simply because they wanted less immigration. And many of us have heard people who are themselves immigrants complain there's now too much immigration.
When asked: "Are you a racist?" Griffin would reply: "What do you mean by racist?". Trite but it worked. Almost overnight the charge of "racist" was no longer an adequate response to the suggestion that immigration should be cut. Suddenly the subject of immigration could be discussed rationally. It is hard now to realise just how impossible it was to discuss the subject before mid 2009. And no longer will people accept politicians telling them their views are "wrong" and will therefore be ignored - this is a democracy after all. Nor will they be impressed by leafy economists saying immigration benefits "the economy", "the migrants" and "the migrants' country of origin", for they will ask: what about us? Do we not count for anything anymore?
Until the middle of 2009 whenever anyone even mentioned the word immigration you could see the PC brigade's ears prick up as they listened for the slightest excuse to shout "racist!" and end the debate. And since few people like to be called names, very few raised the subject of immigration let alone proposed a significant reduction. That would have you howled down amidst knowing, self-righteous smirks.
It was in mid 2009 that Nick Griffin who, when asked "Are you a racist?", started to answer "Tell me what you mean by racist and I'll tell you if I am one." And the truth was revealed. Nobody knew what they meant. The word had become an insult with no particular meaning. And then nobody bothered to ask Griffin the question any more. And now, themselves faced with an impossible to answer question, morons who had shouted the word instead of engaging in rational debate either shut up or started thinking.
It is already hard, now in November 2009, to remember just what a potent word "racist" had become, and just how
much irrational guilt and even fear it could strike into those denounced.
It must have been the same in the Middle Ages when denounced as a witch: since the word had
no clear meaning it was impossible to prove you weren't one.
Specific Proposals for reducing non-EEA immigration
In recent years many people have come here from new EU states such as Poland. But that is yesterday's story, that phase is over. There may be another blip when immigration from Romania and Bulgaria is unrestricted, but that too will be a finite phenomenom. There are under 30 million in Romania and Bulgaria combined. There are 1,500 million people on the Indian sub-continent alone. With the Romania/Bulgaria exception, from now on the numbers coming from and returning to other EU countries will be roughly equal. And despite the recent surge from Eastern Europe, a much larger number of immigrants has in fact come here from outside the EU in recent years.
Until now, when asked what they will do about immigration, politicians have been able to say "we can't do anything about immigration because there is free movement within the EU" and thereby duck the issue. But no more. From now on immigration means nonEU immigration. And politicians can do something about that.
So these things have come together: immigration can be rationally discussed and immigration now clearly means
nonEU immigration about which something can be done.
Every now and again there's a paradigm shift. What was the norm - and expected always to be the norm - changes suddenly and radically. Sometimes the person proposing the new way believes himself to be a revolutionary and expects to meet resistance, but discovers he is pushing on an open door - he is proposing what people have long wanted. Those whose views previously held sway find they suddenly go unheeded. As far as immigration is concerned we are in the midst of such a sea change.
The new orthodoxy will be very significantly lower levels of immigration. That will be the norm.
The past 12 years - indeed the past 30 years - of high immigration will be looked back upon as an aberration.
What can be done?
PBS Tier 1 and 2 "Qualifying" and "Non-Qualifying" Visas
Specific Proposals for reducing non-EEA immigration
Charge employers £5,000 for each immigrant worker they bring in
Written January 2010