Failing universities have become dependent on foreign students – fueling immigration

If Labour’s 1983 manifesto was the longest suicide note in history, the Home Office’s release of immigration statistics on Thursday was the shortest. After 12 years of leadership and four manifestos pledging to control our borders, the data revealed that the Conservative party has allowed half a million migrants and refugees into the country over the past year – 504,000 net, to be precise. 

It turns out the OBR’s predictions of 237,000 made last month were off the mark: not too surprising to those of us who remember them fiddling the forecast up from the initial 151,000 in March. Britain has undergone one of the most extraordinary demographic shifts in the Western world, done against public consent and without historical precedent.

The familiar economic arguments about immigration benefiting our economy lie in tatters. British productivity has slumped for 15 years, and GDP growth is sluggish. Yet fans of open-borders double-down regardless. Spare a thought for James Kirkup, who has the unpleasant job of convincing his flock that “cutting immigration leads to higher taxes” in a time when both figures have never been higher. Witness the grimace upon the Home Secretary’s face as she thanks the “generosity of the British people” for contributing to this record figure, while scrambling to claw back credibility as the party supposedly “committed” to reducing immigration. 

In the same timeframe we allowed half a million people to live here, we built 230,000 homes in Britain. Some Conservative backbenchers who have overseen the liberalisation of Britain’s visa policies also threaten to revolt each time a moderate proposal for planning reform is put forward: it doesn’t take a genius to realise the consequences of all. 

The young will bear the brunt of our failures to insulate renters from mass migration. New arrivals typically cluster in urban centres especially London, the very same places that are facing chronic shortages and astronomical price hikes. I should know: my search to find a room under £900 per month in an area without semi-regular stabbings has proven fruitless. It’s hard to escape the impression that those who enter Britain searching for opportunity are treated more compassionately than the young people who’ve had the misfortune to be born here. 

It’s not the only way my generation is feeling the impact of what is, in everything but name, an open-borders policy. A record number of international students were granted visas this year: migrants arriving on study visas accounted for the largest proportion of long-term immigration of non-EU nationals, at 277,000. On some campuses in Britain today over 50 per cent of students are on a visa scheme.

We can thank Boris Johnson’s government for the jump. Under his leadership, the Home Office removed May-era restrictions on bringing dependents and removed the requirement for employers hiring graduates to consider British applicants first. 

British vice chancellors have become dependent on recruiting foreign students. As growing numbers of British universities face financial insolvency, second-rate institutions lacking in wealthy donors or research grants have turned to international students to fill the gap. Allowing unprofitable universities to go bust would be the kindest thing for my generation - but is hardly likely. After all, it stands in direct conflict with the government’s ‘Levelling Up’ fantasy, where money from productive sectors of the economy is redirected to the unproductive. 

Indeed, earlier this year, Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove supported the creation of new universities in northern towns like Doncaster, Wigan and Grimsby. No doubt Sunak will fear a Red-Wall backlash if he does indeed follow through on student visa reform, so will follow the logic of a man afraid to break up a Ponzi scheme for fear of people losing their savings. 

But if older generations reject immigration on cultural grounds, and the young continue to suffer disproportionately from the economic knock-on effects, where does this leave the Conservative Party? No amount of statistical manipulation can conceal the truth that whenever the British people have been consulted about immigration they have demanded greatly reduced numbers. The post-Brexit belief that the government had finally ‘taken back control’ has been destroyed by the ONS statistics, and immigration has once again risen to the second-most important issue for Conservative voters. 

Meanwhile, the Government will continue to cling to the delusion that Brexiteers voted to take hundreds of thousands of non-EU workers, or that there is no relationship between rapid demographic change and a lack of housing stock. After decades of betrayal, the Conservatives may soon find themselves bereft of their traditional allies. And at the next election, younger voters will be only too happy to stick the knife in for good.