BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: How Migration Really Works
By Hein de Haas
Published by Penguin, £10.99
REVIEW BY TIM BARTON
In the current divisive cultural climate, this book is a great curative to what the author describes as ‘21 myths’ about migration.
He tackles, first, the right-wing propaganda that migration is at an all-time high. Noting that current international migration figures as a percentage of the population are little different to those found 50 years ago, remaining relatively low and stable, he points out that most migrate short distances too. In our country a continual fire is kept burning by tabloids such as the Mail, and the Trollosphere, claiming numbers coming here to claim asylum are disproportionate and pushed here by the EU. It is useful to note that those coming from, say, Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan almost all stop in neighbouring states.
As a percentage of world population, 0.3% are refugees, and 3.3% are ‘international migrants’. Now, the UK last year did have a large number of immigrants, but under 10% were asylum seeking, and a small percentage of those came ‘by boats in the Channel’. The bulk of our immigrants have been workers and students, the former primarily to take shortage area skilled work, and the latter paying high fees to our colleges and universities. It’s worth noting that international student applications are down considerably, which is an economic issue for higher education establishments.
‘ILLEGAL’ MIGRATION FIGURES A FIFTH OF WHAT THEY WERE
Those migrating to the UK for work are more visible than those we booted out over Brexit, by dint of being darker skinned, but there are arguably few more (possibly less, even, though growing) than have left – there is an employment crisis in a number of sectors, and ironically some of these sectors do not offer sufficient salary for our EU neighbours to be replaced, under current income restrictions, by migrants from further afield. Thus, as de Haas puts it, ‘most immigration stems from active labour recruitment’.
As to ‘illegal’ migration, the bulk of the numbers, by far, have been into Greece, followed by Italy and Malta, and these figures are a fifth of what they were 10 years ago (Spain is currently experiencing the largest numbers, but they are still relatively low). You don’t read that in the Mail, now do you? It doesn’t suit the narrative.
De Haas notes, too, that in fact there is ‘no evidence of a rise in ‘bogus’ asylum claims’, most asylum seekers are fleeing oppression and war, often from countries destabilised by US and UK foreign policy, both historically and today. Warfare is the primary driver of asylum-seeking migration. And overall, the world is more peaceful than in the past – the takeaway here is that the refugee ‘crisis’ is actually a ‘political crisis’.
DIVERSITY IS NO THREAT TO SOCIAL COHESION AND NATIONAL IDENTITY
‘The data clearly defies the widespread belief that the West is besieged by a rising tide of refugees’, and we know who spreads this toxic opinion. The fact that our asylum process in the UK is beyond capacity is, too, a politically created crisis, as the outgoing administration deliberately bottle-necked the bureaucracy, in part to keep the numbers granted legitimate asylum down so as not to annoy a far-right they increasingly relied upon to retain power. And he illustrates how ‘Brexit accelerated immigration’, in a chapter on how closing borders doesn’t work unless your goal is to create a public obsession with immigration!
As with so many issues, such as Cameron’s ‘Brexit’, an education system designed to discourage critical thinking, a culture designed to ‘divide and conquer’ thus not interested in teaching citizenship or ensuring social cohesion, this short-termist refusal to process asylum applications in a timely fashion has come back to bite our elites on the proverbial arse. The author notes that, globally, cultures have been becoming more homogeneous. I think it is clear that, in Europe and America, there is a backlash against diversity which, again, can only be a largely manufactured ‘crisis’, and those pouring petrol on the flames they also sparked in the first place are known to us. Overall, ‘diversity is no threat to social cohesion and national identity’.
This conclusion may surprise some readers, but the UK since the Tories took power has gone out of its way to stop education of those granted asylum for integration by cancelling English and Citizenship programmes once delivered by every FE college. These cuts cost jobs locally to many Hastings teachers, whilst also ensuring integration be made more difficult. Again, a politically motivated and created ‘crisis’.
ABSORB THE LESSONS OF THE REALITY OF MIGRATION
On the other hand, de Haas notes that despite war being a primary driver, migration is often about investing in a better future. As noted above, much of our inward migration is for work and is encouraged by our government. Important skilled jobs can be filled, that our own population is insufficient for, thus ‘migration is an investment in a better future’ for both migrant and Britain. Just ask the NHS, for example, where we’d be without it. Obviously, if our own education system was better at creating career aspiration amongst our children we may end up with more nurses, doctors, engineers, etc… but again, the Tories were the ones who cut processes such as Aim Higher, and careers advice in schools has always been appalling.
This book is an important tool in countering many more myths around migration. These include the beliefs that ‘immigrants steal jobs and drive down wages’, ‘undermine the welfare state’, ‘produce mass segregation’, ‘send crime rates soaring’, amongst other things that can be proven wrong by use of, erm, FACTS! Conversely, he shows how ‘we need migrants to fix the problems of ageing societies’ is a myth. And, as shown on our very own streets so recently, the book gives a factually rigorous proof that ‘public opinion has turned against immigration’ is also a myth. De Haas rounds his book off with a call to both left-wing and right-wing to absorb the lessons of the reality of migration and thus help make future decisions by politicians and opinion amongst the public more nuanced and helpful.
How Migration Really Works is available from Bookbuster, 39 Queens Road, Hastings TN34 1RE
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