02/08/2014
The
Independent and many other newspapers have been telling us â courtesy of a recently published
Civitas report - that mass immigration is a BAD THING.
While it is useful to have an establishment figure recognise this â the report is authored by "Cambridge economics expert Robert Rowthorn" â there are probably very few people outside the Westminster bubble who didn't already know that, and who haven't been saying as much for years.
So well-known is the harm that we even have the
Mail telling its readers that, this time, the conclusion arises from Rowthorn rather than from the paper itself.
We are thus is a position rather similar to that which we have been experiencing with the EU. "Everybody" knows by now that the EU is a BAD THING, yet still we are continually assailed by reports confirming it. However, we can have too much of it. The constant repetition is becoming tedious, if not counter-productive. There can only be so many statements of the obvious before people stop listening.
What we need, therefore, is something of a shift in emphasis â taking us away from the reminders of how dire things are, and towards ideas of how to make things better. In the context of the EU, we need to devote more of our energies to working out how we leave. With immigration, we need to explore mechanisms for controlling the inflow, and balancing the different needs in society.
Since some of our immigration problems arise from membership of the EU, there is of course, a degree of overlap. Dealing with leaving the EU and with mass immigration is to an extent related.
However, what we cannot do is state â as did Tim Montgomerie in
The Times yesterday â that we "can't control immigration as long as Britain is a member of the EU and the EU has freedom of movement across its borders". Like many, he is implying that leaving the EU will necessarily give us the control over our borders and solve the immigration problem.
The trouble here is that people like Montgomerie, who have made a career out of sneering at eurosceptics and fawning over David Cameron, are only now waking up to what membership of the EU means. But, having devoted no effort to understanding the nature of the beast, they are way behind the curve. Yet from their position of profound ignorance, they still presume to instruct us on how to deal with problems we've been working on for decades.
Montgomerie, in particular, has not woken up to the idea that if we are to win an "in-out" referendum, we have to safeguard the single market. And if we are also resolve matters within the timescale set by Article 50, this means taking the off-the-shelf EEA agreement as the basis of our exit plan.
The necessary consequence of that is that we have to accept the continuation of the "four freedoms", which includes freedom of movement. Even outside the EU, therefore, Mr Montgomerie cannot rely on us regaining full control of our borders. As a means of resolving our immigration problems â in the short-term, at least - we are going to have to look elsewhere, something we were always going to have to do.
In this, there always were and will be other realities which rain on Mr Montgomerie's parade. Even if we could secure total control of our border, we would not exercise it â not unless we wished to emulate supreme leader Kim Jong-un and exclude all visitors from our country. Yet the moment we open our borders to tourists, students, business people and others, we expose ourselves to the risk of illegal immigration.
Not to put too fine a point on this, experience has shown that, all things being equal, the more restrictive the legal immigration regime, the higher the rate of illegal activity. And while this is controllable, the expense and resource allocation required makes it more problematical than coping with higher levels of legal migration.
Perhaps even more problematical though is that there are more external controls over immigration than just the EU. Specifically, Council of Europe
provisions and the
1951 UN Convention on Refugees, plus the 1967 Protocol, limit our scope for independent decision-making - and there are many other factors.
Nevertheless, there is a positive side to leaving the EU and keeping within the EEA. While remaining in the EEA binds us to freedom of movement, it does exclude us from the remit of the ECJ. And many of our constraints arise from ECJ case law, rather than regulation or treaty requirements. Potentially, for instance, we could rid ourselves of the
Baumbast principle, as well as Teixeira (EUECJ C-480/08) and Ibrahim (EUECJ C-310/08), and much else.
On top of that, there are Articles 112-3 of the EEA Agreement, known as the "
Safeguard Measures". These permit the parties unilaterally to take "appropriate measures" if serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties of a sectoral or regional nature arise and are liable to persist. Unilaterally, we could restrict freedom of movement, long enough to get our policy in order.
Needless to say, this creates a complicated situation. It is one in which leaving the EU is only one factor, the effect of which is not easy to predict. We must also address other issues such as membership of the Council of Europe, and the status of the Convention on Refugees - a convention which is long overdue for fundamental revision.
None of that, though, excludes the need to address the core issues, the physical drivers of migration â the "push" and "pull" factors which can have more effect than any legislative or treaty provisions. In other words, leaving the EU is no magic cure. More is required, not least structuring an effective immigration policy (which is a lot more than a points system), encompassing related policies on aid and trade.
Thus, ten years ago - where Montgomerie is now - I was saying exactly what he is saying: "we can't control immigration as long as Britain is a member of the EU". But my understanding has moved on. I would no longer argue that as an absolute. In reality, we can do a lot more than we generally realise, without leaving the EU. And when we do leave, we need to do more than simply leave. That alone will not be enough.
Therein lies a paradox, as well as an opportunity. If we have to accept an interim solution to leaving the EU â which indeed we must â then we will not immediately regain full control over our borders. But we will be better off than if we had not left. Insisting on a grand slam, however - which would still only give us partial control - could actually leave us worse off, if as a result we lose the referendum and remain in the EU.
And if leaving the EU is only one element in constructing an adequate policy, we can start working on the broader issues right now, without having to wait until we leave. Then, when the day comes, we will be ready. On the other hand, those who believe that leaving the EU is the answer to all our woes - and are content to rely on that before we start to solve our problems - will be sorely disappointed.
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