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Given the recent political history of immigration in Britain, is it surprising that the issue now tops the political agenda and that public trust in politicians on this issue is so low? Throughout the 2000s, with looser policies on non-EU migration and EU enlargement to eastern Europe taking effect, net immigration to the UK increased from the tens of thousands to well over 200,000 a year. According to Ipsos-Mori’s issues tracker, just 10% of the British electorate considered immigration to be the most important issue facing the country in the late 1990s. By the mid-2000s, the share of people saying it was the most important issue steadily increased to 40%, and by May 2015 it reached 50%.
The relaxation of restrictions on non-EU migration in the late 1990s was not preceded by a lengthy public debate about the economic need (or otherwise) for greater levels of immigration. In contrast to countries such as Germany, where migration has been widely debated as part of a solution to its ageing demography, no such groundwork was laid by Tony Blair’s Labour government. The numbers of eastern European migrants that would arrive after the EU’s enlargement and the UK’s decision to open its labour market in 2004, while the vast majority of other western European states did not, were also wildly underestimated. Meanwhile, in response to public anxiety about immigration, David Cameron has stuck to a pledge to reduce immigration to the “tens of thousands” that few believe is possible to meet. The net immigration target has simply become a quarterly reminder of the government’s inability to deliver on its promises, which can only add fuel to the fire.
