Britain’s immigration debate must address three key issues

Politicians tend to get all the blame for immigration policies not working. But politicians are often doomed to fail on migration questions because there are deep-rooted problems with the way we all debate immigration and with what we expect of immigration policy.

Following UKIP’s success in the European elections, and given the likely failure of the government to meet its net migration target by 2015, immigration is guaranteed to be a key focal point of public debate in the run-up to the general election next year. There is widespread agreement that Britain needs a ‘better’ immigration debate – but how can that be achieved?

Over the past year I have been developing an online course on international labour migration for Oxford University which deals with this question. I suggest that three key issues need to be addressed, not only by politicians, but also by the media and the public:

1) Unrealistic understanding of nation states’ capacity to regulate immigration

Policy, media and public debates frequently fail to appreciate the role and capacity of nation states to regulate the admission and rights of migrants.