Immigration

What do people take away from the 2011 census? I cannot help but see the clearest possible reason for why trust of politicians is at an all-time low. Perhaps other voting members of the public remember as far back as 2004 when the Labour government predicted that fewer than 20,000 people would come to Britain from those Eastern European countries given full access to the UK labour market. As of last year the Office of National Statistics confirmed at least 669,000 people from these countries working in the UK. Or they might remember Labour immigration minister Phil Woolas promising in an interview with the Times in 2008 that, ‘It’s been

Theresa May gave a defiant statement to the house on the Special Immigration Appeals Committee’s (SIAC)  decision to uphold Abu Qatada’s appeal against deportation to Jordan on grounds that he would not receive a fair trial. She vowed to fight on by ‘appealing the decision’, which prompts the question: how will she do that? It’s necessary to understand what the SIAC considered (here is its judgment and here is a précis). First, it examined whether or not evidence given by Qatada’s former co-defendants in an earlier trial (from which Qatada was absent), Abu Hawsher and Al-Hamasher, is admissible in Qatada’s retrial. This question is not initially concerned with whether the

Under the alias ‘Director General of the Russell Group’, a certain Dr Wendy Piatt has slammed the government’s policy on student visas. In a quote to the Independent, she warns: ‘as ministers crack down on abuse of the system, they must be careful about the messages they send to the world’s best and brightest students.’ Surely this cannot be the same Dr Piatt who rose through the ranks of Tony Blair’s favourite think tank, IPPR, before being seconded to the Labour team at the Department of Education in 2002? The same Dr Piatt who later became a senior Downing Street aide under the Labour government? We should be told! Her Labour links do not

‘Intellectual laziness’ — that’s how Chris Bryant described the left’s bashing of the Tories’ tough stance on immigration. The shadow immigration minister spoke this evening of his ambition to shape a new immigration policy for Labour in the role he personally requested from Ed Miliband: ‘By the next general election, I want to build a coalition of the rational on immigration. Last time, immigration hurt our vote…we failed to explain our policy. It’s not racist to say that talking about immigration is the most important political matter we face’ In his quest for a new rational policy, Bryant presented two key messages for Labour activists to take to the doorstep in

There was a flutter of excitement among the Higher Education community this morning, when the education editor of the Times tweeted that David Willetts, the Universities Minister, was about to announce that overseas students would be excluded from net migration figures, and therefore from the Prime Minister’s pledge to reduce net migration to under 100,000 by the election. Straightaway I responded that I thought this unlikely. There is a strong policy case for taking students out of the political ‘numbers game’ on immigration. Net migration figures are supposed to measure ‘long term migration’, whereas most overseas students return home fairly quickly. It is increasingly clear that having students inside the

Michael Fallon has given a pugnacious interview to the Sunday Telegraph. He said that Britain must end its obsession with the ‘politics of envy’ and celebrate wealth creators as ‘Olympian’. (I wonder what the minister makes of the Romford Business Awards, which are presented by his colleague Andrew Rosindell, the Conservative MP for Romford.) As well as having venerated wealth, Fallon introduced several policy objectives: a new round of privatisation (Royal Mail being the first target), employment law reform to ease the dismissal of underperforming workers or where working relationships have collapsed, and a sustained attack on 3,000 regulations. The Sunday Telegraph describes Fallon’s ideas as an ‘agenda pursued by Lady

As an ambitious young MP rewarded with promotion to Immigration Minister, Mark Harper could be forgiven for viewing the job with mixed emotions. Traditionally one of the most senior ministerial jobs outside Cabinet, it will certainly guarantee him plenty of exposure, but not always for the right reasons. His first and biggest problem is the target the Conservatives have set themselves, to reduce net immigration to under 100,000 a year. The latest figures remain more than double this level, despite a series of controversial reforms, and few observers think the target can be met before the next election. The very idea of ‘net immigration’ doesn’t anyhow seem to capture what