Immigration and UKIP

Dennis Skinner, the Beast of Bolsovcr, says it like it is about immigration and UKIP:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30141159

Never thought the day would come when I'd be cheering him on.

Immigrants as the drivers of economic growth

In the 1980s, when I lived in Sydney, Aussies prided themselves on having created a truly harmonious multicultural society. It always seemed to me to be overstated, so I commissioned a study rather provocatively entitled “Racism in Australia”.

At that time the latest influx of immigrants was from Vietnam. Many of them were highly qualified in a multitude of areas, but they arrived having lost the war with the Communists and with little or no English. They took any job they could get, many of them as taxi drivers or taking in laundry. Within a very short space of time they were setting up businesses of all kinds. And their children were doing spectacularly well at school and university.

A striking insight came during one focus group, when an Aussie mum said: “I walk past the university library late evening. And the lights are still on in the library. And I know who’s in there working…”

Working too hard, apparently. It was those Vietnamese, of course. Resentment seems to follow every new immigrant wave.

It occurred to me as a result of that study that in reality Australia’s long-term success economically had been continuously driven by successive waves of immigrants – from England, Ireland and Scotland, Italy, Greece and Lebanon, Serbia and Croatia, Vietnam, Hong Kong and Singapore, Japan and so on.

In a fairly recent mixed society, such as Australia (or indeed the USA), with hindsight, this is rather obvious. But my sense is that it also applies in less evident ways to the “older” nations… such as Britain.

Above: "Shearing the Rams" by Tom Roberts, 1888-90, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Immigration to save our bacon

The widespread public opposition to immigration in Britain is something that will have to be tackled, sooner rather than later, by the major political parties.

With our rapidly ageing population and consequently shrinking workforce, and with all the future demands on the healthcare system and pensions, Britain is going to need a consistent influx of immigrants ready and willing to do the work, be entrepreneurs and drive innovation.

Together, this might just provide the wealth creation (and therefore taxation) to sustain our old folk (and our young) in the style to which we have become accustomed.

(I notice that the annual Fiscal Sustainability Report of the Office for Budget Responsibility, out yesterday, has lots of tables and graphs demonstrating all this.)

To block immigration at this juncture would seem to be next door to suicidal.

Or have I missed something?