Unconservative immigration quotas

The official Conservative Party policy statement on immigration reads:

Immigration can be a real benefit to the UK, but only if it is properly controlled with its impact on the economy, public services and social cohesion taken into account.

Talk about immigration controls sounds promising to the vast majority of people worried about mass immigration, but the caveats are very wide. The statement goes on: "The first stage is making eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy" and "The second stage is an annual limit to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society and the provision of public services" .

Immigration issue is reduced to another area of economic management, with a very vague nod to non-economic "wider effects" and a slightly more specific reference to the policy wonk territory of service provision. They avoid committing to the basic democratic principle that the people of this country have a right to determine who comes into their country. Immigration quotas will be set by policy makers in Whitehall, based on "pragmatic" - i.e., expedient reasons. In better economic times, they could be very high and the number won't include dependents. The "what works" mantra really means that the all-knowing bureaucracy will make the decisions for you based on their perfect knowledge of the situation, no choice being allowed to the people on the direction of policy.

It opens the way to a thorough-going managerialism. The quotas will be a similar type of decision to setting the level of interest rates, taxation or public spending. According to this logic, immigration numbers may as well be be set by the Bank of England. They wouldn't dare give it to the Bank of England of course, but it will be some government appointee, acting in the same way.

The annual limit sounds like it is changeable according to economic circumstances. Do they really think they will be able to know what the optimum number will be, even within a margin of a hundred thousand people? Where will they live? Conservatives are supposed to believe that this kind of management is futile, that's one of the things that differentiates them from socialists.

The justice of the quotas idea also assumes that the motives of Government are pure. Conservatives are supposed to be sceptical about that one too. Realistically, business interests will strongly influence decisions about the right number of immigrant considered of "real benefit" to our economy. They gain from the low wages. Knowing that the government will oblige with more immigrant workers, many companies and organisations will advertise jobs at a wages that British people can not afford to take. This will then justify more immigrants to fill all those jobs "British people don't want to do". Companies that don't follow suit will be disadvantaged. The low-wage, exploitative flexible, immigration-based economy with all the attendant inequalities will continue. Migration Watch say that a 10% increase in the proportion of immigrants leads to a 5% reduction in pay for semi-skilled and unskilled workers. Many of these will have a family, or want to start a family.

On the Radio 4 Any Questions programme, which for some reason is unavailable at time of writing (so I can't quote him), Philip Hammond emphasised the economic benefits, as I recall. The implications I am drawing were even more obvious from his phrase. Let's hope the media grill them on this, if only to expose their equivocations. It fits with everything that Peter Hitchens has been saying.