Immigration

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Border Force ‘neglecting duties’ and ‘weakening’ security – MPs

Is the Border Force fit for purpose? At one point it became a model for reform with ministers arguing that its performance had improved significantly since it was split from UKBA in March 2012 into a separate law enforcement body. But today the Public Accounts Committee suggests the Border Force isn’t quite fighting fit: more puffing at the back of the line and a bit paunchy. The PAC’s report points to weakened security at the border as the Border Force is forced to prioritise passenger checks over checking freight for illicit goods or illegal immigrants, gaps in intelligence on those coming into the country, and ‘inadequate IT systems’. It has

Monday

Rod Liddle

The spite and vindictiveness of the British state

Good luck to Trenton Oldfield, his wife Deepa Naik and their newborn baby today: it’s Oldfield’s day of judgement. He will find out if he is to be kicked out of the country, as Theresa May apparently wants. The tribunal hearing is at 1400. Oldfield, if you remember, disrupted the Oxford-Cambridge boat race a couple of years back and served a bizarrely lengthy prison sentence as a consequence. I did not – and still don’t – agree with his protest. But it hurt nobody, endangered nobody apart from himself and the boat race was concluded. It seems to me to have been a rather grandly eccentric protest in a great

Douglas Murray

Britain’s immigration debate is utterly mad

This week’s Mail on Sunday carried two stories on the same page about immigration. Perhaps unwittingly the two stories — and one man in particular — demonstrate the craziness of this country’s immigration debate. One story was about a Conservative party candidate at the 2010 election who has defected to UKIP. Her ex-husband has released a video made while she was a Conservative candidate saying stuff about sending illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers back home. The second story is about a Labour party pollster who tweeted sarcastic comments about Labour voters who express concerns about immigration levels. Perhaps unfortunately for him the Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi (who I once heard speak

Friday

Ed West

The EU is corrupt because southern Europe is corrupt

What with Britain’s dreadful performance in the PISA educational rankings, there has been comparatively little attention given to another international league table– Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. The good news is that Bulgaria and Romania, with whom we will become much more intimate next month, are already in the EU’s top 5 for corruption, placed 2nd and 4th, with Greece, Italy and Slovakia filling out the leader board. I don’t object to Romanian and Bulgarian EU citizens being able to come to Britain as such, I object to the very idea of these countries joining the polity of which I am a member. But then I’m not too happy about

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson

Brits are not idle – they’re just taxed to death

Today’s Times has a headline designed, I suspect, to make the blood boil. “Idle Britons are allowing Romanians to take jobs,” it says – paraphrasing the conclusion of Mariana Câmpeanu, Romania’s labour minister. This echoes a widespread idea repeated even by some British politicians. Especially those who argue that we need mass immigration to grow the economy because our own people won’t do the jobs. It’s true that many Brits don’t work: the number on out-of-work benefits never fell below four million during the Labour boom years and 99.9 per cent of the rise in employment during 1997-2010 can be accounted for by extra immigration. The same is also true under

Monday

Alex Massie

When oh when will we ever be able to talk about immigration (sensibly)?

I do wish we were never allowed to speak about immigration. That seems the only way to prevent folk from spouting – and writing – rubbish on the subject. But of course there is no conspiracy intent on stifling discussion on immigration. Not even a liberal, metropolitan or elitist conspiracy. Sorry. You can say all the things you think you can’t say. And we know this because many, even most, of them are said all the time. So often, in fact, that they lack novelty. And we also know that no-one really wants to have a conversation about immigration. Conversation would require some back and forth. It might even allow the possibility someone might

Thursday

Melanie McDonagh

Net migration is bogus. Gross migration is what affects communities

Just over half a million people migrated to the UK in the year to June. And half a million the year before – actually, it was 517,000, but let’s not quibble. A million, then, in two years…that’s quite something. But you wouldn’t have known from the news about the new immigration stats from the Home Office, which focussed instead on a rise in net migration to 182,000 (ie the number of people arriving, less the number of Brits leaving). Now, for all the noise about Bulgarians and Romanians coming to Britain, about half the new immigrants were from outside the EU – 242,000, down from 282,000 the previous year. You’d never think

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Tory agitators choose their stalking horses carefully

Labour is enjoying some success with its narrative that the government is running scared of all sorts of awkward votes and campaigns at the moment, from plain packaging to payday loans. Yesterday Miliband’s spinners were briefing that this included the Immigration Bill amendment tabled by Nigel Mills and supported by influential backbenchers such as 1922 Committee chairman Graham Brady. It now has 49 signatures. It’s worth noting that Mills’ amendment is the latest example of how Tory Eurosceptics now work together to get what they want from the Prime Minister. I explained this unity between the factions in a recent Telegraph column: ‘Now all these factions have united into a

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

David Cameron: The tide of ideas and opinion is going in my direction on EU reform

David Cameron’s restrictions on welfare for new migrants have pleased Tory backbenchers – but not enough for them to drop their Commons campaign for the transitional immigration controls to be extended. There are now 46 Conservative MPs signed up to support it, and I’ve just spoken to Nigel Mills, who tabled the amendment, who said: ‘The Prime Minister’s announcements are welcome steps in the right direction. However the issues with our current levels of unemployment and pressures on other public services would not be tackled so I still believe we need to keep the restrictions in place, and so I will still proceed with my amendment.’ Labour is briefing that

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Is László Andor spinning for the Tory party?

Tory MPs are in a funny state of mind this morning. They’re pleased that the Prime Minister has started to give some meaty details of what he wants from an EU renegotiation. But they’re also confused that there seems to be no media operation to ‘soak up’ this new line. There aren’t any ministers hogging the microphone in broadcast studios, beyond an exclusive interview that the Prime Minister has given to the BBC. The whole operation could do with a bit more punch. This might change in just under ten minutes’ time when PMQs kicks off, followed by an urgent question on the policy. But before then, here’s another theory.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The EU needs to limit free movement to stay together

David Cameron’s proposals on free movement recognise that the European Union is very different now from what it used to be. When it was essentially a club of rich Western European nations, total freedom of movement was workable. But now that it includes countries whose GDP per head is less than half ours it is not. This is not a particularly Eurosceptic insight. As I reported back in February, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats were thinking of basing future transition controls on per capita GDP to prevent an unsustainable level of immigration. But what is true is that unless the freedom of movement issue is dealt with, it’ll be

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Immigration announcement aims to take stings out of a number of tails

David Cameron knows that the only criticism from other parties of his plans to restrict welfare access for new migrants will be that he isn’t being tough enough. Such is the fear on all sides of being accused of repeating what the Prime Minister describes in his FT article as the ‘monumental mistake’ of the last Labour government that the only option on the table for Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will be to support the move. It will be interesting to see how Miliband fares at Prime Minister’s Questions today. Given Labour has put forward its own ‘tough’ proposals and given Yvette Cooper went to such lengths to complain

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Influential 1922 Committee chair backs rebel immigration call

The swell of support continues for Nigel Mills’ amendment to the Immigration Bill which would most likely land the British government in court by trying to extend transitional controls on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants to 2018. I have learned that Graham Brady, influential chair of the 1922 Committee, has now signed the amendment too, and the rebels organising behind it tell me they now have more than 40 backers. The list now includes a number of 1922 Committee executive members, including Nick de Bois, John Whittingdale, Charles Walker and Jason McCartney. A number of Conservative MPs who have never rebelled before (yes, they exist) are considering signing the amendment because they

Ed West Ed West

When it comes to diversity, most of us vote with our feet

Liberals are almost as likely to flee diversity as conservatives, according to new research by Prof Eric Kaufmann for Demos. Some 61 per cent of white people who were ‘very comfortable’ with mixed marriages (the best indicator of views on race) moved to whiter areas during the period, compared to 64 per cent of those who were ‘fairly uncomfortable’. The Sunday Times called it ‘polite white flight’. The tendency of white liberals not to practise the diversity they preach dates back to the 1960s at least, and offends people who rightly point out that their reasons for moving are to do with space, schools, housing and a number of other

Monday

Isabel Hardman

List of MPs pushing PM on Bulgarian and Romanian migrants grows

There are now 33 MPs backing Nigel Mills’s amendment to the Immigration Bill which calls for transitional controls on Romanian and Bulgarian migrants to be extended until 2018. You can read the full list of names below – the amendment will be debated at the report stage of the bill, which is expected to take place in the next few weeks. Today at the morning lobby briefing, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman wasn’t particularly willing to discuss reports that appeared over the weekend of his own plans to stem the flow when the controls do lift – which they will have to unless Britain wants a legal challenge from Brussels

Sunday

Nick Boles

Nick Boles: how to deport jobless EU immigrants

From Fraser Nelson: David Cameron proposing delaying welfare payments to EU immigrants – which some might see as his listening more to Lynton Crosby and less to the likes of modernisers like Nick Boles (whose approach to politics Bruce Anderson critiques below). But Boles has advocated going far further: deporting EU immigrants who don’t work. He believes he has found a clause in EU law that allows it. Given that Boles is generally seen as an uber-moderniser,  I thought Coffee Housers may be interested in seeing another side to his political thought –  a deportation plan which is further than most right-wing Tory MPs would go.  The below is abridged from

Saturday

James Forsyth

Cameron and the Romanians and the Bulgarians

For months now, Number 10 has been fretting about what to do about Romanian and Bulgarian immigration. From the end of this year, any Romanian and Bulgarian will be able to move here in search of work. Downing Street knows that if they come in large numbers it’ll negate everything that the government has done to try and get immigration under control. Fairly or not, it’ll be fatal to the Tories’ reputation for competence on this issue. David Cameron is, as today’s Times and Mail reveal, now planning a major intervention on this issue. He wants to achieve three things. First, show that his government is handling the issue better

Melanie McDonagh Melanie McDonagh

Who was surprised by the Mail’s immigration poll?

Was any one actually surprised by the splash on immigration in yesterday’s Daily Mail? Its poll (of 1,027 people by Harris/Daily Mail) suggests that nearly two thirds of people think that immigration since 2004 has not been good for British society; eight in ten think that 176,000 net immigration last year was too much; and nearly eight in ten think that the public has not been consulted adequately about the effect of immigration on the population. Actually given that the last question was framed thus: ‘Since 1997, immigration has added 2.5 million to the population. Has the public been adequately consulted about this change?’ it’s surprising that only 79 per cent

Thursday

Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland: The one issue where we accept the idea of genetic determinism

Some people are gay. Get over it’ — this was the slogan for a campaign against homophobia. A series of YouTube videos follows the same approach: a cameraman asks people on the street, ‘When did you choose to be straight?’ The subtext — that sexual orientation is innate, not chosen — has undoubtedly succeeded in promoting tolerance. The only strange thing here is that the argument leans heavily on genetic determinism which in almost any other field of debate is anathema to most liberal opinion. Imagine putting up a poster with the legend ‘Some children are brighter than others. #Truth.’ Or ‘Women are crap at parallel parking. Just live with it.’ A more principled argument

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Nick Boles is right: the Tory party must change.

Another outbreak of the Tory Modernising Wars! What larks! Nick Boles’s speech to Bright Blue, a newish think tank for metropolitan swells folk who think the Tory message needs rethinking, has, as it was designed to, caused a minor rumpus. Rod Liddle thinks Boles is off his head. Iain Martin is kinder but concludes the Cameroons are still obsessed with fighting the wrong battles. Other commentators are gentler still, conceding that Boles is asking the right question but that he’s searching for answers in the wrong places. Nick Denys and, to some extent, Paul Goodman fall into this camp. On the other hand, Ian Birrell and Matt d’Ancona essentially agree