Carl Jackson: Tough talk misses the point over immigration fears

The protest that really rocked Whitehall, however, was Ukip’s local election triumph. As the dust settled and the post-match analysis began, the three main parties began to understand why one in four voters backed Nigel Farage. Forget saving the pound. Put to one side sluggish economic growth. Ukip’s 147 new councillors were swept into office on the back of fears about immigration.

No surprise then that tough new immigration rules topped the Bills in last week’s Queen’s Speech. However, while the attempts to crack down on illegal immigration are welcome, many of the Government’s latest proposals completely miss the point. A recent poll of Ukip voters showed that more than three-quarters of them listed immigration as their number one concern. In contrast, just over half voted Ukip because they wanted to leave the European Union. Of course, it is not just Ukip supporters who are worried about immigration. Three in five voters now rank immigration as one of the three most serious issues facing Britain. An overwhelming majority want it cut.

So what does the Government plan to do?

First, they will make it harder for foreign criminals to claim their “right to a family life” means they should not be deported. Tough action on this front is long overdue. Only last week, a Zimbabwean convicted for his role in the 2011 summer riots escaped deportation because he has a girlfriend here. Such decisions make a mockery of British justice and must be stopped. Second, illegal immigrants will no longer be able to get driving licences. I am frankly amazed that they ever could, and it should have been banned long ago. The plan to impose larger fines on employers who hire illegal workers also sends out the right message.

Less well thought-out are new rules to make landlords responsible for checking their tenants are living here legally. Call me old-fashioned, but I thought that was the UK Border Agency’s job? Broadly speaking, though, the Government looks set to take steps in the right direction as far as illegal immigration is concerned.

The problem is that all this talk of illegal immigrants misses the elephant in the room; the imminent – and totally legal – arrival of an unknown number of new migrants from Eastern Europe.

It is this prospect that formed the cornerstone of Ukip’s anti-immigration message, and the part that really registered with voters.

From January 1 next year, travel restrictions on Romanian and Bulgarian workers will be lifted – and many will head for the UK. Those who arrive on these shores will do so legitimately under the EU’s freedom of movement laws.

Voters remember being told in 2005 that only 13,000 Polish workers would come to Britain each year after they joined the EU. Just two years later, more than a quarter of a million had arrived. Tackling illegal immigration is welcome, but to allay voters’ fears the Government must show what it plans to do if hundreds of thousands of new migrants enter Britain in a short space of time.

Getting migrants to contribute to the cost of their NHS care, another measure announced in the Queen’s Speech, will not address this. Of course, we should control the cost of healthcare provided to foreign nationals. It is, after all, the National Health Service, not a global health service. However, this policy will have almost no impact on the numbers coming to Britain.

Bulgarians and Romanians 
will not come to these shores because they’ve heard good things about Leeds General Infirmary. They will come Britain to work because the average wage in their countries is one-third of the minimum wage here.

New restrictions on the benefits immigrants can receive are another crowd-pleaser. Migrants should not be able to claim out of work benefits indefinitely, nor claim Jobseeker’s Allowance if they are not looking for work. Again, though, this will not deter the vast majority of Eastern European migrants who will come to Britain in search of work.

So what should the Government do instead? The problem with EU immigration, of course, is that there is very little Ministers 
can do. That the Queen’s Speech got tough on illegal immigration but offered no barriers to Romanian and Bulgarian workers is not a sign of the Government’s lack of ambition, but of the limits of its power.

We cannot stop this next wave of immigration because “the free movement of peoples” is a fundamental tenet of European law. It is a good idea in principle, but it cannot work when one country has five times the average income of another one. This is obvious, but Europe is unable to reform itself to fix the problem.

The only way this will change is if Britain radically alters its relationship with Europe and we once again give ourselves the powers to fix our own future; a conclusion, I suspect, that Mr Farage will be only too keen to point out.