Blogs

Letter by Sir Andrew Green
,Chairman,
Migration Watch UKThe Economist, 3 November, 2012  It is surely impossible toargue that Britain’s immigration policy is “crippling” business and the economy(“The Tories’ barmiest policy”, October 20th)when there is no limit to staff transfers between international companies andonly half the available work permits have been taken up.

Introduction: The Economist andothers, such as Jonathan Portes (Director of the NIESR) are wrong to claim thatimmigration control is acting as a barrier to economic recovery. A carefulexamination of the immigration statistics does not support their exaggeratedclaims. That is not to say that the bureaucracy cannot be improved andMigrationwatch will be

By Sir Andrew Green, Chairman, Migration Watch UK The immigration lobby are gettingdesperately short of arguments to set against the huge costs of massimmigration.  The first body blow was aHouse of Lords report which “found no evidence…… that net migration generatessignificant economic benefits for the existing UK population.” (Seeabstract here).  This

The cover story of this week’s Economist claimedthat immigration was the governments “barmiest” policy which was “cripplingbusiness and the economy”.  Analysis: These claims are wildlyexaggerated.  In the last available year(to Q2 2012) the facts are that[1]: Intra-companytransfers were slightly up to nearly 30,000. The article makes the familiar claim that 80%