A group of Conservative MPs are urging the
British government to adopt a different approach to immigration and
to abandon its pledge to cut net migration to the U.K. to below
100,000 people a year. The group, Conservatives for Managed
Migration, which according to the BBC claims to
have the support of “up to 20” Conservative MPs, is led by
Mark Field MP, who said in a statement on his website that his
party is perceived as hostile to immigration despite the fact that
“many immigrants in Britain demonstrate just the kind of vision,
enterprise and family values that would make them natural Tory
voters.” Field adds, “There are many minority and migrant
communities who are bursting with the sort of entrepreneurial
vision and family commitment that should make them natural
Conservatives – but they are hardly going to embrace our Party us
if we rarely seen to embrace them.”
It is certainly true that the Conservative Party is often
perceived as anti-immigrant, and
polling from November shows that Britons who intend to vote for
Conservatives are less likely to agree that immigration has
“generally speaking” been good for the British economy than
those who intend to vote for Liberal Democrats or a Labour Party
candidate. The same polling showed that as a whole only 31 percent
of Britons think that immigration has generally had a good effect
on the British economy and 57 percent think that immigration has
generally been bad for the British economy, highlighting the fact
that anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.K. is by no means
politically isolated.
Given the state of British opinion on immigration it shouldn’t
be surprising that
The Telegraph’s Political Editor James Kirkup wrote
that there are Conservative ministers “who agree entirely with the
group’s aims, but don’t dare so in public.” It is also telling that
so far, of the 303 Conservative members of parliament, only “up to
20” support Field’s new group.
This is shame, especially considering that the Conservative
Party is supposed to support free markets. As I argued
back in January, there is an inconsistency in believing in the
free movement of goods but not of people. But with public opinion
the way it is, there is little chance that Conservative members of
parliament who understand the benefits of immigration and the free
market will publicly criticize the government’s attempt to bring
down net migration. This is unfortunate, considering that the
argument can be made that recent immigrants are net contributors to
public finances and drive down
housing prices.
While Field’s group should be welcomed, it is a shame that,
according to Kirkup, Field’s group wants to take a firmer position
when it comes to deterring those who are not “smart, skilled, or
successful” from coming to Britain. Those who are not smart,
skilled, or successful have the same natural
right as smart, skilled, and successful people do to
make their lives better by moving.
Below is a graph illustrating British net migration from June
2004 to September 2013 (British Prime Minister David Cameron wants
to reduce met migration to the U.K. to below 100,000 people a
year):
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/1jrsjUp
via IFTTT