The word “foreign” or “immigration” is almost an expletive now in the UK. Well, except in foreign investment. Some weeks ago, when the Office of National Statistics revealed that net immigration has reached a record high, the attention it generated was sufficient to knock the Eurocrisis threatening world economy off the headlines. Even when the economy is buoyant and the rate of unemployment is modest, immigration topics inflame negative passions and social insecurities. It is an occasion for demagoguery, paranoia, patriotism and disdain for evidence. Immigrants are spun more as pests not an economic force. The government promised to slice immigration to tens of thousands per year but this is not happening. Despite PIIGS immigrants coming in droves to stay and work as much as they like, it is at non-EU immigration accusing fingers are being pointed. The already punitive rules restricting non-EU immigrants would have been escalated to draconian heights had it not been the inconvenience of United States not belonging to the EU. The Americans are the biggest investors in the British economy. To limit them is to limit the inflow of foreign investments. American investments generated over 36,000 new jobs last year alone.
Also international students are contributing to the spike in immigration figures. But the government’s fiscal tightening ensures that universities and colleges look up to more international students to stay afloat. To slash their number is to tamper with over £12billion they annually add to the economy and to prepare to deal with the numerous jobs losses that would consequently follow.
Prime minster Cameron says his party is still the party of ‘start-ups, go-getters and risk-takers.’ To that end he is supporting the so-called Silicon Roundabout to rival Silicon Valley. But immigrants underwrite the success of Silicon Valley. And the entrepreneur/innovator visa created to enhance the inflow of non-EU tech wizards is an incompetent facility. Wizards don’t usually get fanciful degrees from grand universities. A Steve Jobs, Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg cannot qualify to come to the Silicon Roundabout to work their magic because they were school drop-outs. They won’t be able to prove they are highly skilled or a go-getter. I once met a counterfeit DVD vendor moonlighting as a software developer. He said it takes 17 months to walk from China to the UK. The British high commission in Beijing wouldn’t consider him for any visa since he has no degree or decent bank account and they won’t believe his claims of having talents that can work magic given the right environment. So he took matters in his own legs and walk to the UK. What more prove does one need that he is a go-getter?
Like the setting sun, the global economic centre of gravity is swinging from west to east. Hence the more go-getters a nation can attract the brighter for its economic future. Foreign investment which the British government desperately needs to tame unemployment is merely the economic department of immigration. It is not the presence of immigrants that is leading to a sharp rise in right-wing extremism; it is their misrepresentation as the onslaught of a plague.