Comment

The consequences of the Tories’ immigration failures will dwarf their Brexit troubles

Polls show a surge in anxiety about the migration and asylum systems among 2016 Leave voters and 2019 Conservative voters

The Conservative Party must become a genuine force for lowering the rate of immigration or else be replaced as the main centre-right entity in British politics.

Britain has already seen historically unprecedented levels of immigration in the quarter of a century since Tony Blair walked up Downing Street for the first time, and the social changes wrought by that were clear to see in the Census results published yesterday.

Less than three-quarters of the UK population now classifies as white British, and further falls in that proportion are already locked in for many years to come, given the preponderance of ethnic minorities among younger cohorts. We now have several “majority minority” cities – urban areas where white British people are in the minority – including Birmingham, Leicester and, of course, London.

Leicester, which has seen the white population share fall ten points in a single decade, from 51 per cent in 2011 to 41 per cent now, provides a particularly interesting case study of the resulting social complexities. The city has not successfully integrated all of its minority citizens into a common culture of Britishness, as evidenced by recent violence between Hindu and Muslim youths, the proximate cause of which was the result of a cricket match between India and Pakistan.

During the pandemic no city was subject to so many lockdowns and intensive social-distancing regimes, a fact that had negative knock-on implications for surrounding suburban and rural areas. Lower vaccine take-up rates among ethnic minority citizens and evidence of less strict observance of government anti-Covid edicts were surely factors in this.

Perhaps either in retrospect or at the time you came to sympathise with this spirit of scepticism, but the point is it showed higher levels of diversity weakening the capacity for a united social response to a major problem.

The downsides of such a balkanisation of society associated with large-scale and rapid immigration have been on show in London, too, most recently via the gridlock deliberately caused in the centre of the city by Albanians celebrating their national day. On Remembrance weekend they also draped their national flag over the Churchill statue in Parliament Square – a deeply disrespectful act towards their host country. A few weeks earlier different Eritrean factions fought running battles on London’s streets. Before that it was Iranian demonstrators attacking the police.

So it is quite clear that the “multicultural” concept that has guided our approach to migrant communities, encouraging them to preserve country-of-origin affinities at the expense of developing country-of-adoption ones, has impeded integration, exacerbating the challenge of managing net inflows averaging a quarter of a million a year.

Last week’s immigration figures suggested we must now double that number to get a gauge on likely future inflows under the Tories or, indeed, Labour. Yes, there were “exceptional” factors that pushed net migration higher, but in modern times there generally are.

As former MI5 boss Baroness Manningham-Buller observed yesterday, all the global trends point towards higher migration volumes, not lower ones. She identifies “climate migration” as the next big push factor, arguing: “The migration we have seen so far as a result of conflict in some cases or economic migration will be as nothing compared to the migration which the northern countries in the hemisphere are going to see as people move away from areas that are uninhabitable.”

In my view it is difficult to envisage gradual deterioration in crop yields associated with global warming displacing existing vast living standards disparities as the prime motivating factor for migrants. If you live in a country with average incomes a tenth of what they are in the UK and with no wraparound welfare state, then managing to get to and stay in Britain is a lottery win. Yet setting motivations aside, Baroness Manningham-Buller is surely right to warn there will be ever-increasing numbers of would-be immigrants seeking a home in the UK. 

So how is public opinion really taking all this? The liberal contention of more relaxed attitudes prevailing overall is not based on nothing. Polling evidence shows a growing minority of citizens fully behind the “melting pot” conception of society.

Earlier this year a major survey by Ipsos for the generally pro-immigration British Future think tank found evidence of softening overall views. But still a large number wanted lower immigration. Their key result found that 25 per cent want it reduced a lot and 17 per cent reduced a little, compared to eight per cent wanting it raised a lot and 14 per cent raised a little. There were 28 per cent in the middle saying the level was “about right”. But remember this was when net migration was assumed to be running at about 250,000 a year. So most of that 28 per cent will presumably think the newly-confirmed half-million net is far too high.

But this does not fully capture the electoral threat for the Tories. For that you need to delve into political sub-groups, which YouGov helpfully does in its regular issues tracker.

This shows a surge in anxiety about the immigration and asylum systems among 2016 Leave voters and 2019 Conservative voters. Among the former group the issue is now only seven points behind the economy as the top political concern. Among the latter group it is 12 points behind and closing fast. In both groups, immigration is well ahead of the NHS as an issue of concern, despite the disaster unfolding there.

Part of this is undoubtedly due to uproar about the Tory bungling of the issue of illegal immigration, primarily via the Channel dinghies. But the massively increased volume of legal immigration will also be a huge concern.

The Tory record on every aspect of immigration is parlous. David Cameron said the average 200,000 net inflow presided over by Blair and Gordon Brown was too high. Yet in office he raised it to 250,000. Theresa May kept to that average. Then Boris Johnson doubled it. For year after year a promise to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands not only went unfulfilled but sat forlornly in a different and constantly shunned ballpark.

To put all this in Blair-style staccato: our society weakened, our pre-existing cultural norms ignored, promises broken, illegal inflows tolerated, asylum-processing collapsed, socially conservative voters insulted and misled, things set to get worse.

The Tory reputation on this issue is in shreds. If it cannot be repaired in the next two years then Nigel Farage – or an alternative and less appealing populist – will have all the ingredients he needs to take the Conservative Party apart: excessive immigration is Brexit times ten.

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