Migrateful’s Founder Jess Thompson was asked to appear on the Nigel Farage Show to talk about net migration figures hitting a record high. She turned the opportunity down but decided to write this blog post instead which explains why net migration to the UK is the highest on record and why this is not to do with the channel crossings.
Throughout the 50s and 60s, Western governments recruited migrant workers to fill job vacancies in their booming economies. Following the 1971 oil crisis and the ensuing global recession, the general public in Western countries started to perceive migrants as competitors for jobs and public resources. Since then, governments which have promised to reduce migrant numbers have gained electoral support. However, they have often failed to deliver on these promises. For example, David Cameron, the former British PM declared “No ifs, no buts” when promising in 2010 that the Conservative Party would bring down net migration to below 100,000. Despite the Conservatives repeating this pledge during their last 13 years in office, net migration levels to the UK in the year ending June 2022 have just been reported to total 745,000, the highest level on record. For the year ending June 2023, the figure is estimated to be 673,000. This type of policy failure is being witnessed throughout the Western world; what explains this failure? I was asked to go on the Nigel Farage Show last night to discuss record net migration figures and the ‘channel crossings’ (see below). I decided not to attend but to write this blog post instead.
One reason, in my opinion, why government pledges to reduce net migration fail could be that they are designed to serve a symbolic purpose to win elections rather than to be workable policies. For example, the policy to send refugees to Rwanda has been rejected by the UK’s high court on the grounds that Rwanda is not a safe third country, meaning it is very unlikely to be successful. However, it has not been dropped by the current government – perhaps their hope is that this hard-line policy approach will win votes in the next general election. History tells us that even if we see a change in government in the next election, this policy approach to migration is unlikely to shift significantly because politicians know that hardline migration policies win electoral support. For example, the Labour Party have just announced that if they are elected they will bring net migration down to 200,000. There are numerous strategies proven to be effective in reducing anti-migrant sentiments, such as interventions which facilitate social mixing between members of the host country population and newly arrived migrants (e.g. Migrateful cookery classes!). The government could choose to fund these initiatives instead of opting to make pledges to reduce migration levels, which they then struggle to deliver.
The government’s promise was doomed from the start because the UK economy (like all Western economies) is highly dependent on migrant labour. Labour shortages are currently the biggest challenge facing the UK economy, which has over 1 million unfilled job vacancies. Faced with labour shortages, the UK government granted 331,233 work-related visas in the year ending June 2022. Research shows that rather than stealing British workers’ jobs, migrants do jobs that British people don’t want to do. Even in times of high unemployment, job vacancies in sectors like agriculture and hospitality remain unfilled by British workers, meaning we turn to migrants to fill these roles. This dependency on migrant labour is predicted to deepen over time, as the state pension costs of an ageing population will increasingly need to be funded through tax contributions from working migrants, given declining birth rates in the West due to the changing role of women and a reduced appetite to have children.
During the year ending in June 2023, a total of 498,626 sponsored study visas were granted, representing a 23% rise compared to the figures reported in the previous year. Given the current university funding landscape, these students are keeping UK universities alive, with some universities saying a third of their income comes from foreign students. This is another example of how the UK economy is dependent on migrants. Rather than migration being a drain on the economy, as often argued by right-wing commentators, they are an essential part of it. For example, between 2001 and 2011, research shows that immigrants living in the UK made a £25 billion net fiscal contribution to the welfare state.
Another reason that the government’s pledge to reduce migration failed is because they decided to admit Ukrainian refugees last year. Previously, the UK had pursued a highly restrictive refugee admissions policy. For example, in 2021 Germany hosted 1.2 million refugees whereas the UK hosted just 138,000. And yet when the invasion of Ukraine occurred in 2022, the UK welcomed an additional 133,854 Ukrainian refugees. In my opinion, besides this perhaps being a sign of racist immigration policies (why were Western countries happy to accept Ukrainian refugees but not Syrians?), supporting Ukrainian refugees met an important geopolitical requirement for Western governments to ensure that Russia’s invasion did not create further instability across Europe. Similarly, during the Cold War, Western states refused to admit refugees from dictatorships pursuing free trade policies, but they would admit refugees from communist countries because it supported their geopolitical aims. I personally believe Western governments should accept more refugees no matter where they come from, not just when it meets their geopolitical objectives.
Are record net migration figures to do with the channel crossings?
Of the 745,000 net migration figure in the year ending June 2022, 45,756 arrived by boat; making up a relatively small number. Similarly, 44,460 migrants arrived by boat in the year ending June 2023. Before 2018, it was rare for migrants to arrive by boat, instead, they travelled stowed away in the back of lorries coming over from France or arrived by legal refugee resettlement schemes. For example, just 299 migrants were smuggled across the Channel in boats in 2018. The increase in migrants arriving by sea is a result of government policies which have made the sea route the most viable option. This does not represent a very significant increase in the overall number of asylum-seekers arriving in the UK (the highest number on record was in 2002 which was a third higher than in 2022), the change is only in the way migrants are arriving.
This change occurred firstly because the UK government started to enact thorough vehicle searches on the UK-France border making travel via vehicle far less viable. Secondly, the government significantly reduced the number of family resettlement schemes. The primary reason that people come to the UK is to join their families. Therefore, this policy change leaves desperate family members no choice but to employ smugglers to cross the Channel. 94% of migrants arriving by boat go on to make an asylum claim. This is because policy changes have also meant that the only way to seek asylum is by claiming it when you are in the UK. Yet there is no safe and legal way to get here, forcing asylum-seekers to come by boat in the dead of night, when the sea conditions are rough, to avoid being spotted.
The reason that taking away safe routes for migrants to come to the UK has not stopped them from coming is that if someone is fleeing a very high-risk environment in their country of origin, they will not be deterred by taking a further risk to reach a place of safety. As articulated by Somali-British poet Warsan Shire “No one puts their child in a boat unless the water is safer than the land”. The two most common reasons for asylum-seekers to want to come to the UK are that they have family already in the country and that they speak the English language. Both these reasons, rooted in British colonial history, are very powerful motivators, the former driven by the human need to be with loved ones and the latter the human need to make a livelihood; greatly helped if you can speak the host country’s language.
If I were finishing an interview with Richard Tice on the Farage show tonight I would conclude that the government’s ambitious pledge to reduce net migration to below 100,000 was always unrealistic and symbolic rather than practical. The government knows that the economy needs migrants, so rather than presenting migration as a problem through inhumane Rwanda-style policies, they should focus their energies on effective strategies proven to reduce anti-migrant sentiments, such as initiatives fostering social mixing, exemplified by organisations like Migrateful. More needs to be done to educate the British public that the UK’s economy relies heavily on migrant labour to address significant job vacancies and contribute to the welfare state. This will help to reduce the hysteria around net migration figures and work towards an inclusive and welcoming society for all. Migrateful advocates for a society that does not see migration as a problem to be solved but as a natural phenomenon that has existed since humans first migrated from Africa, and if embraced can benefit everyone in society.
