My work on immigration policy for a think tank argues for a more open approach to immigration in the UK, but also one rooted in majority public consent and acceptance.
The EU Referendum reminded us of the real and important differences in people’s experiences of and worldview around immigration. Those differences are quite natural and understandable. That does not mean that British public attitudes to immigration are unduly restrictionist, or that our society suffers from irreconcilable differences on this issue.
While our media frequently presents a polarised narrative around UK immigration policy, what happens in practice can be very different. Take these recent examples:
- The EU Settlement Scheme: following the EU Referendum, every EU citizen who came to the UK before the end of 2020 was offered the chance to stay in the UK forever, on more favourable terms than before. Over 5 million people applied to do so.
- The work immigration system: now enjoys broader public support. It allows greater control over who comes in, levels the playing field between overseas workers wherever they are from, focuses on raising wages and prioritising skills in shortage.
- International students: the UK is the second most popular worldwide destination and numbers are booming. In 2022, nearly half a million study visas were issued here, and since Brexit those students can extend their stay in the UK to work, potentially permanently, afterwards.
- Hong Kong and Ukraine: In 2021 the UK offered over 5 million of Hong Kong’s residents the right to permanently come to the UK; nearly 125,000 have arrived so far. Following the Russian invasion, almost 200,000 Ukrainians have arrived under the UK Government’s schemes, most housed with local families.
- Refugee resettlement: the UK was among the largest resettlers of refugees globally over the past decade. Unlike countries such as Canada and Australia, the UK has prioritised resettling the most vulnerable refugees. In 2016 the community sponsorship scheme introduced a platform for greater local community support throughout the UK for resettled refugees.
These developments have elicited little media coverage or barely a murmur of public dissent.
What do the British public really think?
Perhaps this is because – as reflected in the most recent World Values Survey – the British public are amongst the most accommodating publics on earth in their views on immigrants.
On questions such as how comfortable are you with immigrants coming to your country to work, to seek refuge from persecution, or indeed to live next door, the UK is near the top of the charts. We beat the feted Canadians in all three categories.
That only 5% of Brits say they would have a problem with immigrants as neighbours hardly screams ‘polarisation!’
Keeping perspective
I am not saying every aspect of the UK’s immigration and asylum policy works fairly. Nor denying its terrible failings in some areas. But we should put things in perspective and appreciate the complexity of developing and implementing immigration systems. There will always be losers from any system, with all the hard, often seemingly harsh, consequences that entails.
And being comfortable with immigrants does not mean being comfortable with immigration in all forms and circumstances.
It is quite understandable that some people would be concerned over potential impacts on communities, access to housing and services, and investment in local skills, where employers are given unfettered access to the cheapest overseas workers. And over an asylum system that in practice allows large numbers of claimants to stay in the UK regardless of whether they are adjudged to be refugees.
Practical solutions to complex situations
Immigration policy is full of the most difficult, complex situations to get the balance right and practically address the consequences. It needs a proper debate. Instead it is oversimplified and exploited on all sides as a political football.
It is easy to point the finger of blame for this at others. But perhaps we are too willing to only hear only what we want to hear? After all, to stand on one side of an imagined polarised situation requires little effort, yet can be totally energising and self-affirming, conferring high social status amongst your in-group. In Tom Holland’s words, Jesus didn’t have much time for “those who paraded their virtue and condemned the faults of others”. But Twitter/X does.
Rather than taking the time and enduring the discomfort of having to engage with the other side of the debate, the rightness and righteousness of your own position is constantly affirmed. Who can resist that? And at the risk of coming over too Girardian, you can join with others in being a persecutor while imagining yourself the victim. In modern life, what could be better?
In contrast stand those willing to get on with actually trying to work things through, to create practical solutions to real problems. These unrecognised people are the ones who often end up doing the most to actually help others.
Jonathan Thomas is a Senior Fellow responsible for immigration policy at the Social Market Foundation think tank. He adds:
This 3 min, 41 sec video encapsulates many angles of the immigration debate. It shows how lecturing others tends to have the opposite effect to that intended – a good reminder for anyone trying to change anyone’s mind on anything…
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It’s great that Grace & Truth has such insightful guest writers and this article continues that trend.
This is a thoughtful article. However, I wonder if there is a danger in being over complacent about the UK’s immigration policy, and the goodwill of the British people? While welcoming the determination of those who are actively working in the field to see it work as effectively as possible .
There needs to be an acknowledgement that UK policy has sought to actively deter refugees, closing legal routes to settle here. While the UK’s record may be good in comparison with Canada it receives fewer international refugees than Germany, France, Austria or Sweden. If we look beyond our western-centricity then we see the heavy lifting in accommodating refugees is borne by those countries least able to afford it incuding Turkey, Jordan, Uganda, Pakistan, Lebanon, Sudan, Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Iran. All of which receive and support far more refugees than the UK.
Immigration and resettling refugees is highly contentious, as the article points out, and any encouragement for a reasoned debate is welcome, I would hope that debate recognises that on immigration and resettling we can, and should, do better and practical solutions to achieve this are essential.
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Lee, thank you for your v thoughtful comments.
– You are right that this piece is in a sense one-sided; I wrote it deliberately so to seek to rebalance the debate. If you want the longer, more balanced version – at least as of 9th months ago – it can be found here: https://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Routes-to-resolution-December-2022-2.pdf
I also set out in there more fully my thoughts on some aspects of the international refugee regime mentioned below.
– A key element of the national sovereignty embedded in the UN Refugee Convention is that while signatory states are obliged to give rights to refugees on their territory, states are not obliged to give refugees the right to access their territory to claim those rights. Hence the dystopian gameshow of refugees trying to seek protection in those states! The UK absolutely takes part in this gameshow, seeking to deter refugees (other than those it has agreed to resettle) from reaching its territory in every which way it can. But so do all other signatory states.
– It is true that countries such as Germany and Sweden did for a very short period exhibit a more open approach. But they do not do so now. For some of the reasons set out here https://unherd.com/2021/09/swedens-cultural-revolution/ Of course this is only one side of the story, but all sides of a story need to be considered.
– The fact that thus far the UK has only been able to onboard Rwanda as a country willing to take its Channel crossing entrants does not suggest that there are lots of countries more open than the UK to taking these people. Even for money.
– Countries that take more refugees than the UK do so not because they want to but, because they have to – they are in the region of the refugee flows and cannot practically control them, or they are countries which refugees come to first – whereas the UK is geographically at the end of the line – although not so much the end of the line as Australia and Canada which as a result can exhibit the most control on refugee flows.
– This fact is why the list of countries you name host most of the world’s refugees – because they have to – and we should certainly help some of those countries a lot lot more.
– Despite all the lawyers crawling all over it, refugee protection is ultimately in practice about realpolitik rather than rights. In perhaps the ultimate demonstration of this – and the irony embedded in the international refugee regime – some of the countries hosting the biggest refugee populations – such as Turkey and Bangladesh – don’t actually grant refugee protection under the Refugee Convention because they haven’t signed up to all or some of it, precisely because they don’t want to provide refugees on their territory with the rights that would entail.
– In fact – while again there are worthy exceptions – in general those countries give refugees very few if any rights. Refugees in the UK get access to everything that a local person gets – they get the right to work, to access the full social safety net, to housing, to schooling. They get none of this in Turkey or Bangladesh, even if it were available in practice. Turkey has in addition of course managed to extract a lot of money and being left alone to its somewhat dictatorial ways by agreeing to help prevent more refugees reaching nice places like Germany and Sweden. With this being the case not surprisingly some of those refugees who can, do try to move on from these ‘in-region’ countries to countries in the Global North, rather than being consigned to a relatively right-less life in their region.
– As you say, resettling refugees is highly contentious. Ideas for reform of the international refugee regime are few and far between. But, to at least end on a more hopeful note, here is one idea for reform – from one of the leading theorists of international refugee law: https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/article/30/4/591/5310192
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People looking for more “meat” on this might be interested to see what Jonathan writes elsewhere. https://www.smf.co.uk/people/jonathan-thomas/
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Many thanks for that Mark. Yes, in particular:
– for those interested in a much fuller take on the glass half-full/glass half-empty perspective on the UK immigration system, that can be found here: https://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Routes-to-resolution-December-2022-2.pdf
– I also know that many faith groups and organisations are understandably very focused on asylum seeker right to work in the UK and i recently wrote a specific piece both supporting and challenging some of the notions around this: which is here if anyone is interested in that: https://www.smf.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/The-sound-of-silence-July-2023.pdf
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Yes it’s a thoughtful article and does well to break down the various types of immigration.
I am also convinced that the majority of the British public are not against immigration as such, many are very welcoming and hospitable and not just to Ukrainian refugees. And many people are nuanced in their approach to the issue.
BUT in my view this piece underplays
1. The existence of extreme racism among a section of white British society and a popular culture which tends to rank migrants by land of origin with African and Islamic migrants seen as of less value than white European people or even Chinese and perhaps Indian .. especially if they are professionals.
2. The cynical way the current government plays to this racism within its supposed core vote, by stirring up a narrative of hatred, making policy ever more hostile and cruel towards the most vulnerable and desperate. At the same time a Home Office that is overwhelmed and has long been in chaos hasn’t a clue how to manage and control migration.
3. Policies which either deliberately or by bureaucratic failure render many people destitute, with no recourse to public funds, no right to work and vulnerable to unscrupulous rogues who scam them with promises of a better life in the UK..at the extreme to trafficking and slavery.
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