The economic case for mass migration has finally collapsed
Rather than turbocharging growth, immigration is placing near-unbearable pressure on public services, housing and infrastructure
It was a delightful theory. Opening Britain’s borders would bring an influx of human capital that would leave the country richer, the tax burden lower, public services stronger and our culture enriched. And, as a theory, it had the great benefit of being all but impossible to falsify unless someone was daft enough to actually try it in practice.
Unfortunately, thanks to the Conservatives, this has now happened. And the resulting confrontation with reality has demolished a truly beautiful idea. Report after report, dataset after dataset, is hammering home a simple message: mass migration is not making Britain better off.
The latest entry in the list has taken a sledgehammer to the argument that immigration is desperately needed to prop up our crumbling public services.
As the Institute for Fiscal Studies argues, the “fiscal headroom” generated by immigration is largely illusory. Rather than the result of carefully selecting for high income, low-cost arrivals, it has rather more to do with the way the Office for Budget Responsibility comes up with its figures – plugging in spending plans that don’t account for the greater demands of a larger population. Once this is factored in, the migration dividend dissipates.
