The latest announcement on measures to control immigration haven't gone down particularly well with remainers. It's an interesting insight into the psyche of liberals now bemoaning the loss of what they see as a low pay underclass that exists solely to service their grazing habits. There is a soft bigotry in assuming EU migrants are there simply to grub in the fields and wipe bottoms, and that GDP should be the overriding factor in immigration policy.
There are, however, several problems with the new approach. Without quotas and limits there is no guarantee these measures will reduce immigration, and then there is the unanswered question of enforcement and how effective it is likely to be. A points based system does not address the problem of overstays and the gaping holes in asylum policy.
Then, of course, there are always those unintended consequences. Whenever I imagine policymaking I think of a railway signal box with a row of levers, only if you pull one lever forward, the gearing shifts two other levers back. No policy lever works in isolation. In this instance, setting a wage threshold on new arrivals means natives become the low pay pool.
Personally I'm not moved by the special pleading of business who tell us they have labour shortages. For instance, I don't see that importing delivery drivers to sustain the Amazon behemoth as a welcome development, nor do I see any reason would we should have seasonal produce all year round - especially when it's underpinned by what is now termed as "modern slavery". Our services economy props up precisely the sort of consumer spending I view as actively harmful.
As it happens, if Brexit means we end up paying what we're supposed to be paying for things (on the provisio that we have managed immigration) then I'm good with it. It will force us to rethink our spending and consumption habits. There is a price to pay for a more cohesive, and hopefully less transient and frivolous society. But then I suspect we shall see a reversion to the seasonal workers visa so it won't be as bad as some imagine.
Ultimately I take the view that our first foray into serious immigration control is going to be a dog's dinner and it was never going to be any other way. We'll have to refine it over time, and deal with the consequences as and when we find them. The most vocal criticism comes from those who prefer the status quo who don't see a need for action, which simply isn't an option. GDP cannot be the overriding factor. It comes back to that fundamental question of whether this place is our home or a business park open to all comers. It can't be both.
One way or another the economy will have to adapt and it will have some welcome developments as well as some unwelcome ones, whereupon I hope to see a resurgence of union activity instead of the passive conformity we have seen in the last two decades.
But then, we have to bear in mind that nothing we see these days is ever quite real. More likely the purpose of this announcement is less to do with controlling immigration as it is promoting the belief the Tories are doing something about it when in the real world it may not make the slightest difference in which case we'll still be having the exact same debate on ten and twenty years time.
In the end we have to do something and this something may not be the answer. All policy to one extent or other is experimental. That is how the single market evolved. EU regulatory frameworks were notoriously bad in their infancy, but over the years have evolved to a workable level. The same can be said of the CAP. Britain as an emergent independent country is going to have to relearn the art of statecraft, and indeed the art of doing politics, both of which have been in deep stasis for the better part of half a century.
As a first foray into immigration control, this latest policy at least sends out the right signals. Again it reveals the economy first mindset of liberals who prefer technocracy over democracy. We can now see the values underpinning the liberal regime. Though these latest measures may be seriously flawed, they at least speak to those who think governing a country is more than massaging GDP ever upwards and that there is something here worth conserving that is worth the sacrifices required of us.
But best of all, let's suppose my thinking on this really is total crap, and in the end the consequences of these measures are just really not worth the hassle, and when faced with those consequences, the public decide that cheap coronation chicken sandwiches are the paramount concern, we can always adjust our policies accordingly without seeking permission from Brussels or anyone else. That, above all, is the point of Brexit.
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