Comment

Boris, Gove are pots calling Cameron kettle over migration

by Hugo Dixon | 29.05.2016
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • +1
  • LinkedIn 0
  • Email

The prime minister bungled by promising to cut net migration to the tens of thousands. But the Leave camp’s own migration policy is disingenuous.

What’s more, Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – who have attacked David Cameron in an open letter saying he is corroding public trust in politics –  aren’t in a position to lecture anybody about trust. Vote Leave, of which they are the two leading lights, is responsible for a string of misleading claims, the most notorious of which is that we send £350 million a week to the EU. This has been repeated so blatantly in the face of so much evidence to the contrary that it must now be called a lie.

Cameron should never have set a target for cutting annual net migration to below 100,000. Net migration measures inflows after subtracting outflows. It measures movement by Brits, EU citizens and people from outside the EU. The migration data also counts students, coming to learn at our often world class universities.

Setting a target for something with so many moving parts, only a few of which Cameron could control, was foolish. Promising to cut it below 100,000 was doubly silly. Net migration was 333,000 last year – equivalent to half a percent of the UK population.

Despite Johnson’s and Gove’s protestations to the contrary, EU migrants contribute to our society. They pay more in taxes than they consume in public services such as the NHS and schools. They help create wealth that could be invested in these vital services so there aren’t waiting lists and crowded classes. It is our government that has failed to make this happen.

But Johnson and Gove – and Gisela Stuart, the Vote Leave chair who also signed the open letter to Cameron – are conning the voters by saying his “promise is plainly not achievable as long as the UK is a member of the EU”. They want the electorate to believe that the target can be achieved if we quit.

But leaving the EU is most unlikely to slash net migration to the tens of thousands. For a start, net migration last year from outside the EU was 188,000. So even if the net flow from inside the EU fell to zero, we’d still be almost double Cameron’s target.

But post Brexit net migration of EU citizens to Britain wouldn’t come to a total halt. Migration Watch, the anti-mass migration pressure group, says a system of work permits would cut it by perhaps 100,000. If that was the figure – and nothing else happened – overall net migration would still be 230,000.

In practice, two other things might happen. First, the EU would respond by making it harder for Brits to move in the other direction. So the net outflow of our own citizens would fall, meaning the overall net migration figure would be higher than 230,000.

Want more InFacts?

Click here to get the newsletter

    Your first name (required)

    Your last name (required)

    Your email (required)

    Choose which newsletters you want to subscribe to (required)
    Daily InFacts NewsletterWeekly InFacts NewsletterBoth the daily and the weekly Newsletter

    By clicking 'Sign up to InFacts' I consent to InFacts's privacy policy and being contacted by InFacts. You can unsubscribe at any time by emailing [email protected]

    Second, Leave campaigners have repeatedly argued that one benefit of quitting the EU is to make room for migrants from further afield. For example, Priti Patel, who attends cabinet, writes in today’s Sunday Telegraph that “the EU’s ‘free movement’ rules have forced the government to cut migration from the rest of the world in an effort to meet its targets”.

    If the Leave camp is being honest that it wants to see more migration from outside the EU, that’s another reason to suppose net migration post-Brexit would exceed 230,000.

    The only way I can see how Brexit would cut net migration to the tens of thousands is by trashing the economy so badly that few people would want to come here. While that’s not impossible, it’s not a scenario that Brexiteers can openly desire.

    Unless Johnson and Gove are prepared to say that they would abandon Cameron’s target post-Brexit, they will be guilty of further corroding public trust in politics.

    Hugo Dixon is the author of The In/Out Question: Why Britain should stay in the EU and fight to make it better. Available here for £5 (paperback), £2.50 (e-book)

    • Tweet
    • Share
    • +1
    • LinkedIn 0
    • Email

    6 Responses to “Boris, Gove are pots calling Cameron kettle over migration”

    • Why is Boris Johnson referred to as “Boris” in the headline while the other people are referred to by their surnames? This also happens in newspapers and on television. Using his first name gives the impression that he is a friendly, pleasant man whereas he is quite the opposite: his disgraceful references to Hitler and the £350-million lie show that he is not a man to be trusted or admired. InFacts should not be promoting this image.

    • Gove, Johnson and Patel have been oddly reticent about their own migration policy. We none of us know what their target will be and whether they intend to reduce the major flow of migration – i.e. that from non-EU migration. Isn’t it time they were challenged on this point? If Priti Patel considers that migration needs to be reduced radically, how would reduce one of the major sources of migration – even higher than migration from Poland – i.e. migration from India and Pakistan?

      We should know. We need to know.

    • Quite a silly comment really. Stay in, migration from the EU is unlimited. Leave, migration is limited to that required by UK Plc. What is required by UK Plc? Only
      UK Plc knows. As nobody has a crystal ball, stop asking the Leave campaign to quantify the unknown. Rather ask the Remain if we in the UK can accommodate the unlimited migrants proposed by the enlargement (citizens of the western Balkans, plus Ukraine and Turkey) on top of the Romanian and Bulgarian citizens already here.

      PS – to gauge the likely flow of migrants, compare and contrast the average salaries in the new countries with the minimum wage offered in the UK. Then stand back for the tidal wave.

    • Pretty component of content. I simply stumbled upon your weblog and in accession capital to claim that I get actually enjoyed account your weblog posts.
      Any way I’ll be subscribing to your augment and even I success you get
      right of entry to persistently fast.

    • Keeping current can also be an easy process once you learn where tto look.

      You feel when you needed given your relationship some more effort and time it
      could been employed by out. News keps us touching political affairs not merely in our country but also
      of over the world.