A Million Immigrants a Year Could Be ‘New Normal’ for UK: Think Tank

New paper calls for immigration proponents to engage with concerns

The Canary Wharf financial district is seen on the horizon, beyond the residential areas and streets in London, on Aug. 22, 2022. Leon Neal/Getty Images

The record 1.1 million immigrants to the UK in the year ending June 2020 “could become new normal,” a British think tank has said.

In a new report published on Monday, Jonathan Thomas, senior fellow at the Social Market Foundation, argued that British publish opinion will become “steadily more open to immigration,” but warned against dismissing the concerns of those who take a less liberal view.

He called on the government to stop setting “unrealistic” targets and the pro-immigration camp to compromise on “how” to achieve their aims, such as accepting a cap on the number of refugees.

Immigration Number May Stay ‘Historically High’

According to the latest estimate by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 1.1 million people moved to the UK in the year ending June 2022, up from 435,000 in the previous year.

The ONS said the year is “unique” owing to a number of “simultaneous factors” including the continued recovery in travel following COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, a new post-Brexit British immigration system, and several ad-hoc humanitarian visa programmes for Ukrainian nationals, British National (Overseas) from Hong Kong, and Afghans fleeing Taliban rule—an analysis echoed by many other commentators.

People wait at the international arrivals gate Heathrow Terminal 5 in London, on Nov. 28, 2021. Hollie Adams/Getty Images

However, Thomas argued that both supply- and demand-side factors suggest the UK’s future immigration trend may remain “at historically high levels in the medium to long term,” citing “credible academic forecasts” that predict a near-tripling of the number of first-generation immigrants in the UK over the next three decades.

The UK’s aging population means the ongoing skills and labour shortages “may be worsened” despite politicians’ discussion on boosting the skills and productivity of domestic workforce, he said.

Under the UK’s more liberalised immigration rules, the former empire’s historic ties to some of the “most populous nations,” such as  India, Nigeria, and Pakistan, also means there are plenty potential immigrants to the UK, Thomas said, citing the already “staggering” increase of students from the three countries.

Numbers vs. Control

Ditching the previous Conservative government’s pledge to reduce immigration from “hundreds of thousands” to “tens of thousands,” former Prime Minister Boris Johnson campaigned on an “Australian-style” points-based immigration system in 2019 before winning a landslide majority, gaining dozens of so-called Red Wall seats from Labour.

Conservative governments have since interpreted the Brexit vote and the 2019 general election as mandates to gain control over immigration, while opponents argue voters actually want a reduction in net migration and ignoring them could cost the Conservative Party the next general election.

Thomas sees the divide between control and numbers as a “false dichotomy” and said it’s been “overplayed” but agreed that a spike in the salience of immigration as a political issue could potentially be “transformative.”

He rejected an argument from both the pro- and anti-liberal immigration camps that the UK has “a seething mass of voters angrily opposed to all immigration.”

Referencing poll results, Thomas said the UK is one of the countries most supportive of people who escape from war or persecution taking refuge in other countries, and there appears to be “clear net positive support for multiculturalism” across the Red Wall constituencies, where people are “supposedly most socially conservative and resistant to more open immigration policies.”

Recent studies show that while the salience of immigration as an issue can be volatile, people’s personal views are formed by late youth and don’t change much after that, he said.

Therefore, he argued, as the younger generation are largely more liberal on immigration, the findings of these studies suggest Britain will “become steadily more open to immigration” in the long term. But he also warned immigration liberals against believing public opinion had shifted in their favour after Brexit.

Commenting on studies in recent years that found a strong correlation between the salience of immigration and the polling of anti-immigration parties in most Western European countries, Thomas said he believes the trend reflected “the opposite” of worsening attitudes to immigration.

“Slowly improving attitudes to immigration across the voter base as a whole—as cohorts with more liberal attitudes to immigration reached voting age—significantly raised the salience of immigration for those who did not hold those more liberal attitudes,” who “felt increasingly that they were a threatened minority,” he contended.

‘Politically Transformative’

Apart from the regular publication of migration statistics, Thomas said the salience of immigration before Brexit came from factors including incidents involving two former prime ministers: Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s pledge to reduce net immigration to “the tens of thousands,” which only served as a quarterly reminder of the government’s failure to meet the target; and Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s dismissal of Gillian Duffy, a voter who raised her concerns over immigration, as a “bigoted woman.”

He criticised Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s resurrection of Cameron’s target and her reported goal to try and stop all people-smuggling by small boats, saying such “high-profile flagship policy statements,” combined with the government’s fiscal plans that he said are “effectively dependent on an increase in net migration,” is a most “combustible combination.”

He also said the “significant degree of consensus” on immigration between the Conservatives and Labour may also be “a problem rather than a solution” as more voters in the last decade became concerned that their views on immigration were not represented by either of the major parties.

Engagement and Compromise

On refugees and asylum, Thomas said there is “significant common ground” across British society, while pro-asylum advocates need to engage with the concerns around “the uncontrolled and unlimited nature of the asylum regime.”

He recommended refugee advocates accept two compromises, namely the numbers can be limited by the state, and those arriving and making asylum claims in the UK will not be prioritised ahead of refugees elsewhere in the world, in order to reduce incentives for refugees to make dangerous journeys and potentially allow in more genuine refugees.

A group of illegal immigrants are brought in to the port of Dover, Kent, after their small boat was intercepted in the English Channel on Oct. 9, 2022. PA Media

To deter people-smuggling across the English Channel, Thomas called on the government to “accept that France has no obligation and little incentive to help Britain on asylum” and negotiate a deal with European neighbours, agreeing to take more refugees in exchange for the swift return of illegal entrants.

Regarding labour immigration, Thomas argues while importing young migrant workers can kick the demographic can “down the road a little, improving the dependency ratio and generating the tax revenues and social contributions necessary to support an aging population,” the dismissal of dissent can “easily slip into creating the toxic perception that overseas workers are not just important for the British economy and society, but are somehow better regarded than, indeed preferred to, domestic workers.”

Recent studies in Europe suggest individuals’ attitudes towards immigration are linked to their values, although economic concerns are often cited as an argument to restrict immigration.

Focusing on economic concerns, Thomas said immigration must be presented as “supplementing, not supplanting, local resources.”

It means highlighting the “significant costs” employers pay to sponsor migrant workers and requiring key stakeholders engage with “longer term workforce planning,” the report said.

He also said the UK should “strategically shape migration sustainably on mutually beneficial terms” with the origin countries of migrants, forming “global skills partnerships” to identify and help develop skills in those countries.