From the Particular to the General

There is an easy way to score points in a debate. It's lazy, almost corrupt, and easily contradicted, but in the emotion of the moment the argument will have got traction before the refutation has its trousers on. The particular gripe I have this afternoon is people arguing from the particular to the general. I was prompted to write this by the especially loathsome Robert Jenrick MP, who recently resigned as Immigration Minister because we aren't prosecuting our new laws on illegal immigration fast enough.

Now I don't think Jenrick is ignorant in what he is doing but let's start there. He argued that the presence of anti-semites on a peace-in-Palestine march demonstrated that the integration of immigrants and asylum seekers in this country had failed.

I will write this next bit slowly.

When violent crime is reducing people still get mugged.

When worldwide conflicts are at the lowest in modern history there are still wars.

Fatal road accidents are rare now but people still die in them.

It follows that, even though we had (it is currently massively under-resourced) a hugely successful system in the UK for welcoming and integrating immigrants and asylum seekers, some choose not to integrate. In extreme cases a very few dangerous people sneak through the system. 

And what percentage of immigrants arrive in this country on small boats? To be a government priority it would have to be massive you'd have thought. But currently it is 22,000 out of a total of 1.2 million. Less than 2%.

If Jenrick doesn't know this he needs educating, fast.

If Jenrick does know this he is deliberately waving a blue rag at his ever-decreasing support.

Back in 2016, when we didn't think there would ever be a President Trump,  I overheard a debate from Illinois which went something like this:

Republican: Of course people are very concerned about rising crime figures.

Democrat: Actually crime has been falling every year for the last eight during Obama's presidency.

Republican: Not in Chicago it isn't.

Democrat: (well briefed) Actually there has been a slight increase in violent crime recently in Chicago but the overall crime figures are still down.

Republican: People don't feel the figures are down.

And there you have it. The scandal of particularity incarnate. Some people don't feel those facts are true therefore they are false.

The great challenge of our time is that a political debate which used to be about hearts and minds is now almost entirely about hearts. It's not about what you know but how you feel. I hate that. I am not equipped to argue with people who need a change of heart but won't listen to reason. Robert Jenrick wants you to feel bad about immigration. I don't think he cares how he does it but I don't think he's ignorant. If you believe him you are having your heartstrings tugged in the wrong direction. Expect a twang sooner or later.

A Sensible Conversation about Immigration

I ask hesitantly but do you think we might be about to have a sensible conversation about immigration? The rhetoric about the subject has been appalling for a long time but I notice that today, with the figures for immigration just published and showing a record level, the Daily Mail led with a piece about 'attention-seeking eco-warriors' ruining the Chelsea Flower Show. I don't have any eco-warrior chums but if I did I'm sure they'd be grateful for the attention they sought.

In 2016 there were a couple of pro-Brexit arguments that turned my head. One was the economist Paul Mason arguing that Brexit would give an opportunity for a socialist, renationalising regime to rule unencumbered by EU economic pressure. See The Leftwing Case for Brexit (one day) in the Guardian, May 2016. We came close in 2017. Mason himself voted remain because he couldn't see this happening.

The other was Giles Fraser arguing that the EU made us more generous to refugees and asylum seekers from Europe than the rest of the world and this was unfair. He had further reasons for wanting to leave but he hoped that post-Brexit we would be generous with our borders over which we now had control. It seems as if this is now what has happened although the nature of our recent governments is that it has happened through their inadequately applying their own policies, not through welcome and hospitality to the alien and stranger. Which is, of course, why the immigration figures are not on page one of the Mail. We have '...a regime that neither displays compassion towards those seeking refuge nor gives voters confidence that the government has migration under control' (Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer 28/11/21).

And it is about this that I want to talk.

Surveys of the people of Britain end up with a clear majority for reducing immigration. Take the survey one issue at a time and we find people in favour of more immigration for NHS staff, fruit-pickers, genuine refugees and to buy the wonderful education product at our universities. The treasury keeps quiet because it loves increases in tax-paying immigrants at a time when there are more jobs than people. So our survey shows that people want to reduce immigration but few of the individual examples of it.

Incidentally this theory holds good for tax as well. People are in favour of reducing tax in general but increasing expenditure in particular (NHS, education, defence, pensions).

And so we have an interesting opportunity for a discussion. Neither of the major parties will currently sponsor it because they are both wooing the racist vote, without which they cannot form a majority. Racists don't want any immigration but if they have to have some they would rather it was coloured white. At the 'New Conservatives' conference last weekend Danny Kruger said the Prime Minister '...has the opportunity to win big if he leans into the realignment of politics that happened at the last election' (quoted in the iPaper 22/5/23). I think that's a call for policies to support white, working-class Brits, isn't it? If carried out there would be quite a risk that more reasonably-minded people would find someone else to vote for.

But good questions to be asking now are:

• What is the ideal population size for the UK?
• Do we want to be hospitable and welcoming to the alien and the stranger?
• And, because this is at the heart of the British character, I think - what would be the fair thing to do?

Guest Economist

We welcome back our occasional visitor Sir Bob Cashless:

St. Sir Bob, the people have voted to reduce immigration so we wonder what the economic impact of that will be?

SB. Have they? I couldn't have been paying attention.

St. Yes, we had a referendum back in June.

SB. Ah. the one where we voted 52-48 to leave the EU?

St. That's right.

SB. It is very clever of you to know what reasoning all those people used for voting Brexit.

St. Well public opinion seems very down on immigration.

SB. Public opinion is an idiot. Are you expecting a pension?

St. Yes. In about five years.

SB. Well you may be lucky. But us younger folk won't be. We need masses more workers in this country so immigration is one of only a few solutions.

St What are the others?

SB. Well we could under-invest in the NHS so people die a lot sooner. Or we could hike up taxes on young people by making them pay for their education. Or we could pull back from all our healthy eating campaigns and have people gorge themselves to an early grave. Hmm. Come to think of it...

St. What?

SB. This government's brighter than I thought. Got any more of those sausage rolls?

Sir Bob will be back next time he needs a few quid. Talking of which, Harry Backhand will be here later in the week to take your questions about football.

Dr Spin

Mustard Seed Shavings welcomes Dr Spin, a new member of the team who will help us through the tricky business of the day's immigration debate. Welcome doc:

Dr Spin

Thank you. How can I help? 

MSS

Well it seems immigration is up. 

Dr Spin

Who told you that? 

MSS

The BBC 

Dr Spin

Ah, no they didn't. 

MSS

But I heard them say net migration is up 20%.

Dr Spin

See? 

MSS

See what? 

Dr Spin

Net migration is what you get by subtracting the number who go out (emigration) from the number who come in, immigration. What we have here is a steady rate of immigration and a lowering of the number who left the country. Immigration is actually down. 

MSS

Why are fewer people leaving the country? 

Dr Spin

Well if I was spinning this answer I'd say it's clear Britain isn't quite as broken as some people say it is, but the truth is a bit more complex. 

MSS

And that is? 

Dr Spin

The number of non-British citizens leaving the country stayed about the same - it dropped a bit - but there was significant drop in the number of Brits leaving. By the way some of the immigrants were returning Brits. 

MSS

So immigration is down and the number of people who previously immigrated now emigrating is roughly the same. 

Dr Spin

Yup. 

MSS

There was a lot of fuss over the last few years about seasonal and migrant workers coming here to gut fish and pick fruit. 

Dr Spin

Yeah, apparently back in the day you could get paid more for gutting fish in Scotland than being a doctor in Budapest. That's no longer true but it's still hard to persuade people to gut fish for a living. 

MSS

OK, so what about this massive rise in overseas students when our young people can't get to university with 4 A* grades? 

Dr Spin

Our universities are quite good and attract foreign students. These students have to pay and so setting the budget for a university involves taking into account as much foreign money as you can get in. It does actually make life easier for our own students, the places for whom are fixed by the government so no-one has 'taken their places.' 

MSS

So no need to panic? 

Dr Spin

Oh plenty of other reasons not to do with immigration, but no need for headlines such as this on the Sunday Sun web-site. It's scaremongering spin of the worst sort:

'Net immigration rose by 20% in 2009'