NORMAN LAMONT: The people have spoken on mass immigration. So will the political class hear them?



For years, those who dared question the policy of mass immigration — including this newspaper — were shouted down as reactionary or plain racist.

But this week, a major new survey was published that revealed a dramatic hardening of attitudes by the British people as a whole towards immigration.

The 31st British Social Attitudes survey, by the country’s leading independent social research institute, found 95 per cent believe speaking English is an essential requirement of Britishness — up from 86 per cent a decade ago.



A major new survey was published this week that suggested a dramatic hardening of attitudes by the British people as a whole towards immigration. It found 95 per cent think speaking English is an essential requirement of Britishness

Not only that, nearly four out of five want immigration cut. And interestingly, from my point of view as a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, fewer than one in three thinks the mass influx has been good for the economy.

The Government-funded study, which is utterly apolitical, reveals the ‘disconnect’ between the people and the political class over immigration. That is why such attitudes should be ignored by politicians at their peril.

Fifty years ago, when annual levels of immigration were far lower, new arrivals could more easily be absorbed within British society. Indeed, migrants fully expected to be integrated into our national culture.

Today, however, this process has become much more difficult, not only because of the soaring rate of immigration, but also because of the emphasis on multiculturalism — a policy that carries the real danger of promoting the ‘Balkanisation’ of our society into separate communities.

In recent days, David Cameron has responded to the controversy over the so-called ‘Trojan Horse’ plot — in which Islamic extremists are alleged to have been trying to take over schools in Birmingham and elsewhere — by calling for the promotion of British values such as freedom, tolerance, responsibility and respect for the law.

But surely the more people who come to this country from elsewhere, the greater the challenge to teach those values to yet another generation.

The phenomenon of mass immigration really began when Labour took power in 1997. Due to the relaxation of immigration policy, net migration shot up five-fold from its previous level; a change that accelerated even further with the accession of a host of former Communist Eastern European nations to the EU.

Unlike most other EU governments, Labour placed no restrictions on the migration of citizens from these new member states and made a gross miscalculation of the number that would arrive.

The party has more or less apologised for this, but has still given no explanation as to why its adminstration allowed 2.5 million immigrants from outside the EU to come here.

Many British people, including immigrants themselves, feel that the influx has reached what ought to be the maximum limit.

David Cameron has responded to the controversy over the so-called ¿Trojan Horse¿ plot by calling for the promotion of British values such as freedom, tolerance, responsibility and respect for the law

To its credit, the Coalition Government has responded to this public mood by introducing measures that have significantly reduced immigration from outside the EU.

Yet some Labour politicians continue to argue — as Tony Blair did last week (when he was not fantasising about the reasons for the current crisis in Iraq) — that mass immigration brings enormous economic benefits to Britain, and that we tighten borders at our peril.

Such a claim has been accepted far too easily. The public, however, have more common sense, and they reject it: the British Attitudes Survey found that less than one-third of people believe politicians’ assurances that immigration is good for the economy.

In judging the case for or against immigration, what really matters is not the size of the economy, but the impact on the living standards of the existing population.

As economists might put it, what matters is not gross domestic product — the total size of the economy — but GDP per head, each person’s share.

While it is almost inevitable that a significant increase in the population will lead to an expansion in the economy, that does no good for individual citizens unless it is accompanied by an improvement in the prosperity of each individual.

A 2008 inquiry by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee (of which I was a member) found no evidence for the argument that immigration generates significant economic benefits for the British public.

In fact, the Government’s Migration Advisory Committee recently showed that any economic gains from higher immigration go mainly to the immigrants themselves, not to the wider population.

One key point, often ignored by supporters of mass immigration, is that the economic impact of newcomers has to be judged not just over their working careers, but over their entire lifetimes, including the costs of looking after them in old age and assisting their families.

That is why it is so foolish to argue that mass immigration is a form of financial protection against an ageing population. Immigrants grow old, too.

Some immigration is necessary, of course, to bring in skills and entrepreneurship. Our future lies in the creation of a dynamic, productive economy, not a low-skill, low-wage one.

Thus the benefits of accepting millions of unskilled migrants are far from clear.

For a start, many Britons, and particularly those who would traditionally be described as working class, find themselves excluded from the labour market.

In addition, the sheer scale of immigration is having a dramatic effect on the size of our population, which in turn is increasing the burden on our infrastructure.

If the influx continues at its present level, at least ten million people will be added to the population over the next 20 years.



Even now, our civic infrastructure is badly over-stretched, as reflected in the pressure on GP practices, transport, housing and schools.

Based on their own experiences, the public instinctively understand this.

They also grasp that this situation has been created partly by our membership of the EU.



The so-called 'Trojan Horse' plot is the claim that Islamic extremists have been trying to take over schools in Birmingham and elsewhere. Pictured is one of the schools involved in the alleged plot

The free movement of labour was a reasonable principle when the EU consisted of just six or nine countries with similar standards of living. But the enlargement of the organisation has led to the inclusion of more than 100 million people from the much poorer nations of Eastern Europe.

Their living standards are about a quarter of ours — a disparity that enormously increases the potential flow towards our country.

That influx is further exacerbated by the crisis in the eurozone, where levels of youth unemployment have reached more than 40 per cent in some southern member states.

Unsurprisingly, young people are strongly attracted to come and work in the rapidly expanding economy of Britain. But this movement has largely been in one direction only in recent years.

So, what can be done to deal with this problem?

The Coalition has brought in welcome measures, such as restrictions on access to welfare for new arrivals.

But the Government should also consider negotiating with our EU partners for an ‘emergency brake’ on free movement when the inflow of EU migrants towards one country is particularly strong, as is happening with Britain.

The agreement for such a step will be difficult but not impossible, particularly because the other EU governments have been made only too aware of the strength of public feeling on this issue in the recent European elections.

Above all, there has to be honesty in this debate. I am entirely in favour of an open economy of the kind we enjoyed in Britain for decades. But our economic future does not require the current massive levels of unskilled immigration.

Nations can never be just administrative areas to be filled up with people who choose to go and live in them: they need to share social and cultural values.

And to dismiss justified public concern on this question as nothing more than bigotry or xenophobia is to play into the hands of genuine extremists.

It is not tight immigration controls that would have serious consequences for our social cohesion, as supporters of immigration claim.