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- guardian.co.uk, Sunday June 23 2002 03.18 BST
The Left is split. Pragmatists make concessions by warning that lack of social solidarity (code for too many non-whites) undermines the social democratic settlement; the willingness of the mass of people to pay the taxes that underpin a universal welfare state is threatened if they don't have cultural unity. Moreover, runs their argument, those extra immigrants are occupying jobs that our own unemployed or economically inactive should take. If we had full employment, this might be justified; with still large numbers of unemployed and economically inactive, it isn't.
Moreover, Britain is already densely populated. Those extra 183,000 immigrants not only add to the rate of population growth, but they have higher birth rates than the host population. Britain's population, now above 60 million, will rise towards 70 million by 2040 if current rates of net immigration continue. Where will they live? What about the extra infrastructure to support such a population? Leave aside charges of alleged racism and be rational say the pragmatists. We don't need more people, whatever their colour.
Here, pragmatic social democrats find common cause with the populist Right, who are suspicious of immigration as the cause of multiculturalism and the collapse in moral and ethical standards that it allegedly brings in its wake. In the US, the phenomenon is well established, with politicians of the Right as suspicious of liberal attitudes towards immigration as the American labour movement and the Democrat Left. Ranged against them is an equally odd coalition of business, libertarian republicans and liberal internationalists.
Yet if the left could avoid being so split, it could not only inject some rationality into the argument but lead a new mainstream coalition. For, scratch a little and below the surface of this new anti-immigration pragmatism lies a primitive view of how the labour market and economic growth operate, as an important exchange in this month's Prospect between the Times's Anthony Browne, unabashed voice of the new Left/Right pragmatism, and Nigel Harris, UCL's professor of economics, exposes. Indeed, dig deeper and what is at stake becomes the very idea of an open society.
For, as Harris says, the labour market is not as simple as the anti-immigrants argue. Immigrants arrive to make something of themselves because they despair of opportunity in their own country. They tend to do jobs either that the host population do not want to do or, as with Indian and Chinese restaurants, create an industry that did not exist before. In any case, the labour market is dynamic; as long as demand for labour is buoyant, the existence of a supply of immigrant labour at lower wage rates in some sectors will so boost their fortunes that, by increasing employment overall, incomes and output in aggregate will, in turn, be lifted through spending, begetting more spending in a classic Keynesian multiplier.
Providing there is a minimum wage, a solid social security system and a good educational infrastructure, the growth of immigrant labour acts in exactly the same way as ordinary population growth to accommodate and spur economic activity. The evidence that cheap immigrant labour is bad for the economy - or does more than create temporary problems in some low-wage sectors is at least contentious.
So what are the anti-immigrationists proposing? They want to create barriers to immigration, while at home, because there is unsatisfied demand for labour that now needs to be met internally, to coerce those unemployed or economically inactive to work in the jobs that immigrants would have taken. For example, south-east England relies mostly on immigrant cleaners; in their absence, if we are to take the anti-immigration argument at face value, unemployed and economically inactive native substitutes would be forced to do their jobs.
This is where the liberal Left must be cautious. This scale of coercion, and the repressive political narrative that supports it, is a direct threat to an open society. Furthermore, it threatens the prosperity that openness brings. It is impossible to justify crackdowns on immigration without implying that we don't want cultures other than our own in Britain and Europe, so decrying the achievements of our existing immigrant population and making a mockery of wider claims for open trade and open societies. We become the apostles of social and cultural closure.
It's worth reminding ourselves that many immigrants return home; for example, as peace returns to Afghanistan, the numbers of Afghanis seeking asylum has fallen. Moreover, some 150,000 British citizens emigrate every year. Do we expect them to receive the same cold welcome and rhetoric of repression in their adopted countries?
Openness is not just a cultural and democratic asset - it is also economically advantageous. London attracts inward investors, foreign students and tourists because of its multicultural energy and openness. It is also the chief reason why it is now the richest region in western Europe. If some sectors in the London economy have suffered from low-wage immigrant competition, the impact has been lost in the general boom.
The growth in its population is a necessary concomitant of that vitality. Nor has cultural diversity made Londoners any less committed to social democratic politics or willingness to pay taxes. Think London and much of the anti-immigrant case collapses.
That is not to deny that population growth demands an accompanying investment in infrastructure and higher density housing, but better this than economic stagnation and cultural closure. Beware scary projections for the population 40 years hence; the Government can't even forecast next year's tax revenues accurately. Nor is this an argument for an open-door policy; immigration must be orderly or it may justify some alarmist warnings.
But immigration is a good thing and we should welcome it.
