A Simple Test To See How Much You Care About Immigration

The Great Wall of Calais probably won't be this big

The news this morning is that £2M is to be spent building a wall around the terminal at Calais to keep migrants out.  I am not sure how much wall you get for that.  Presumably it will stop some of the gaps by which migrants get into the UK.  But it won't stop them all, so we can be pretty sure that people will still be arriving in the UKwho nobody has invited in.


There has of course been illegal immigration since it became illegal.  It was always a problem, but not maybe a  huge one.  And the people it gave most inconvenience to were the working classes.  It is a part of the UK's unwritten constitution that problems for the working classes are treated as less serious than those for other classes, even by the working classes themselves.

But times change and the numbers trying to get into the UK are growing.  The trend seems to be the result of a combination of the facts.   Mobile technology making information on how to do get here more available.  Inequality globally is rising even though poverty is going down.  Migrants seem in any case to be hard up rather than destitute, so maybe inequality is the driver rather than poverty.  And although conflict has gone down worldwide there is a lot of conflict in the eastern Mediterranean area.  So it is happening right on our doorsteps.

Nothing lasts forever of course and no doubt the current wave will subside.  Whether that will be next year or next century I don't know.  But for now there is a problem.  But there is an interesting question.  Why is the UK such a popular destination for illegal migration?  After all, Calais is not a dangerous place to be.  In fact I have been there quite often and it is quite a nice town.  Why are the migrants risking so much to get out of France and into the UK?

The answer is blindingly obvious but rarely discussed.  In France, and most of the rest of the EU, there is an identity card system in place which makes it hard for illegal immigrants to get a job.  It isn't easy to get one in the UK, but at least that one big barrier isn't there.  If you make it here there is a sporting chance you'll be able to make a living once you get here.

Identity cards are not cheap of course.  A system of ID cards will cost a heck of a lot more than a wall in Calais.   And once put in place they will only deter illegal migrants once they have been demonstrated to be effective.  That means hiring staff to go around checking on the status of people in employment and deporting those who don't have the right credentials.  It will be a tough job for the people enforcing it and  will throw up heart rending stories of otherwise noble human beings being thrown out of a country that they have contributed great things to.

I genuinely don't know whether or not the scale of the problem justifies such a drastic solution.  I do know that it is not something to be undertaken lightly.  But equally, there would be a level of illegal immigration that would make it necessary.

But the interesting thing about this is that as far as I can imagine, it is the only policy that actually allows the UK to control immigration with any chance of success.  So you can say with confidence that anybody who rejects it out of hand is not concerned about immigration.  It isn't surprising to find Nick Clegg in this camp, and I am sure he would be quite proud to locate himself there.  Liberals after all believe in freedom and restricting free movement across the planet is pretty much not promoting freedom.  It isn't particularly out of character to see the last Labour government taking the first steps towards introducing ID cards.  Blair can probably be blamed for contributing to the problem via his policies in the Middle East.  He was also very relaxed about legal EU immigration.  That he was prepared to take action to control illegal immigration might in some people's eyes redeem him for those errors.  (Or not.  Forgiveness for Blair doesn't seem to be very available at the moment.)  At the very least you have to accept it was a coherent policy and it is very easy to imagine Blairite home secretary announcing a clampdown on illegal immigrants to applause from the media.

So far so obvious.  But the surprise comes with Mr Farage.  He made a big deal of how membership of the EU made it impossible to prevent legal migration from other EU countries.  He was correct in this of course, but that is another discussion.  So it would only be logical that he would also be in favour of ID cards.  After all if legal immigration is a big enough problem to pull out  of the EU then surely he would support a much less difficult policy against illegal immigration.

And yet it turns out that his opinion in ID cards is "we don't need them and we don't want them".  For all his cheeky chappy man of the people bonhomie I find that rather suspicious.  I have never really bought the idea that he is a closet racist or undercover fascist.  I think his real dark secret is that he is actually a liberal.