Owen Tudor
This week’s news that the Prime Minister has downgraded the policy of reducing net immigration to under 100,000 a year from a target to an ambition is a significant defeat for the populist wing of the Conservative Party, although the Prime Minister attempted to balance that with a ‘dog whistle’ attack approach to integration. It may also require a new category for “the TUC told you so” blogs. As I argued here as recently as February, the problem with the proposed cap on immigration is not only that it is flawed in principle and misses the point, but that it isn’t achievable (or rather, that it can’t be delivered directly by public policy: as I also pointed out, a nose-diving economy could certainly deliver the higher emigration and lower immigration required, as an unintended consequence). However, there’s still a long way to go before the Government achieves a migration policy that is actually good for Great Britain. That would require recognising that migration is not, in itself, the problem: the issue is how we manage its consequences.
Comment made by Elli Davis on Apr 26th 2011 at 2:23 pm:
I have been watching the wave of anti-immigrants policies around the Western countries closely for quite a while and I shall say that British approach towards immigrants would not be that harmful even if the 100, 000 a year target was kept. Of course, I hail the downgrade to “target”, but remember that your government is still not doing so badly compared to other countries facing similar troubles.
Trackback made by ‘Staged’ cracks in the coalition, debate over new GDP figures, and Cameron’s ‘Dear’ moment: Political blog round up for 23 – 30 April 2011 | British Politics and Policy at LSE on Apr 30th 2011 at 11:52 am:
[...] Tudor at the TUC’s Touchstone Blog discusses how the government has changed it’s ‘target’ of reducing immigration to 100,000 a year to an ambition saying that the government has [...]