Do we need more numbers to confirm the benefits of immigration?
We at MRN are skeptical of reducing immigration analyses to economic measurements, as this often often ends up legitimising implicit distinctions between “good” (productive, “skilled,” wealthy) and “bad” migrant. Our point is that migrants’ contribution to the UK go well beyond productivity, consumption or growth.
Nonetheless, the economic argument is a difficult one to dismiss as the government begins to sharpen its vision of post-Brexit immigration policy. Luckily, two new studies confirm what we have been saying for a while now – that immigration is a massive, positive boon for the UK economy.
From Peter Stubley at the Independent:
The fall in immigration since Brexit is already costing the UK more than £1bn a year, according to new analysis by an independent think tank.
Global Future, which promotes the benefits of openness, calculates that the loss to the public finances is the equivalent of more than 23,000 nurses or 18,000 doctors.
It also claims that meeting the government’s immigration target of “tens of thousands” will also cost Britain £12bn a year by 2023 – which represents 60 per cent of the funds promised to the NHS by Theresa May as part of a so-called “Brexit dividend“.
The figures are based on forecasts by the Office of Budget Responsibility (OBR) of the effects on net borrowing and debt under alternative scenarios of high and low migration.
Read the full piece here.
From McGill & Co solicitors:
The important contribution that migrants make to the current and future success of the UK economy has been highlighted in new research, which found that people from ethnic minority and immigrant backgrounds are twice as likely as their white British counterparts to be early-stage entrepreneurs.
The analysis of data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) by researchers at Aston University in Birmingham also found that women, people from ethnic minority communities and migrants are more likely to be motivated by creating ‘meaning’ – rather than just making money – when starting a business than white British men.
Read on here.
In a similar vein, you may wish to ask your MP to support Early-Day Motion 1526, which “calls on the Government to negotiate a post-Brexit agreement with the EU on student fee levels aimed at a reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship for UK students studying in the EU and EU students studying in the UK,” based on recognition of “the immense benefits to the UK of EU students studying at UK universities.” You may wish to use this tool to reach your MP and ask her/him to support the EDM.