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Letter: on Labour’s immigration policy - Give facts, not anecdotes
Your correspondent Peterborough Trades Union head honcho Ron Graves, in extolling the virtues of Labour’s policy of mass, uncontrolled immigration (ET Letters, February 7), not only shows why he and his party were so resoundingly defeated at the last General Election, but, regrettably, substitutes anecdote and bombast for proven facts.
For people such as Ron Graves, any reasonable person who objects to Labour’s failed policy is to be decried as a “racist” or “xenophobe”.
Such arrogance is why his party is languishing in the polls, directionless and irrelevant.
For what it’s worth, Cllr Wayne Fitzgerald is a lot closer to the views of most people in Peterborough than Mr Graves and his sidekick, Cllr Ed Murphy.
The policy of mass immigration not only pushed a generation of low-skilled British workers into welfare dependency, but also put huge strains on the delivery of public services, which is, no doubt, why studies into the impact of immigration, commissioned by the former Labour Government, were “buried” and remained unpublished.
Not surprisingly, as one report found that: “ ... there is some evidence that suggests immigration has had a significant, but small, impact on wages of previous waves of lower-skilled migrant workers, and that when the occupational structure of the UK workforce is taken into account, there is a negative impact on the wages of UK workers at the bottom of the occupational distribution.”
In 2008, the report of the Economic Affairs Committee of the House of Lords found that: “The overall conclusion from existing evidence is that immigration has very small impacts on GDP per capita, whether these impacts are positive or negative.” This conclusion is in line with findings of studies of the economic impacts of immigration in other countries including the US.”
Even an (unusually) contrite Ed Balls, now Shadow Chancellor, admitted in 2010: “There has also been a direct impact on the wages, terms and conditions of too many people across our country – in communities ill-prepared to deal with the reality of globalisation, including the one I represent.”
Unfortunately, Ron Graves is unable to be straight with people, even if senior members of his own party are, but he should try not to insult the intelligence of the residents of Peterborough who tend to judge things that they see with their own eyes.
Stewart Jackson MP
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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