The Scotsman
Consider but one of the many contradictions of the standard `no immigration` policy defended by all British governments since the Seventies. Tony Blair, favours the Nice Treaty and the enlargement of the European Union. Once that occurs, the citizens of Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and possibly Turkey will all have the automatic right of abode and work in the UK. But the Prime Minister has recently expended an extra Pounds 2 billion on the Immigration Service precisely to keep these folk from illegally entering the UK. It is a conundrum that typifies the ramshackle set of temporary solutions - vouchers, dispersal, detention camps, putting the onus on airlines and rail companies, etc - that passes as our national policy for dealing with those who wish to settle here. Only yesterday, a former prison at Dungavel was turned into a detention centre for 150 asylum seekers. But the UK receives around 100,000 asylum seekers every year - or 55 Dungavels every month. On top of that, as many as 200,000 illegal immigrants enter each year, making a combined equivalent of two Dundees every 12 months. This is stark proof that the policy of a defensive national perimeter against econ-omic migrants will not work. As suggested in today`s incisive report on the breakdown of UK immigration policy, from the Centre for Policy Studies, there is now the need for a complete rethink not more sticking-plaster solutions. The roots of the problem lie in the fear of British politicians of all parties, stretching back to Enoch Powell`s infamous `rivers of blood` speech in 1968, that the indigenous British population would not countenance anything but a zero immigration policy. The issue was hardly numbers: from 1961-1981, there was a net outward migration from the UK of over a million. Rather, it was a flawed calculation that incomers would provoke a racial backlash. A generation on, with full employment and a multicultural environment, we `lose` two Dundees of illegal immigrants every year without apparently noticing. What supposed racial frictions have appeared over the summer involved largely third generation Asian British youths in the areas where economic opportunities were weakest. What Britain now needs is a positive approach to economic inward migration. The CPS report points to the success of the American immigration policy of letting in an agreed number of workers every year by issuing quotas of work vouchers or green cards. Result: one in five Silicon Valley companies were founded by immigrants. Indian or Chinese chief executives run a quarter of the Valley`s high-tech firms. And for every immigrant to the Valley, four new local jobs are created for indigenous Americans. The other advantage of a green card system is that it will end the trade in human trafficking run by international criminal gangs. This will also make it much easier to stamp out forced prostitution and sweatshop labour by illegal immigrants. As the CPS report ends: `At present, the absence of policy, the absence of any responsible, pro-active and explicit decision about whom it is we can and will admit has not only fuelled racially-bigoted resentment, but created a vast criminal industry of people traffickers who prey on migrants and spread corruption. Thus money talks and fairness has no place`.
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