THe EU and Immigration

As Sky's Faisal Islam put it to the PM, promising control of immigration while being part of the EU's freedom of movement zone is oxymoronic - though some might say lose the "oxy". Good knock about stuff but, to the discomfort of the Remain camp, immigration has become perhaps the key issue in the campaign. The media seems to have gone into meltdown on the topic over the last few days, with "Leave" taking the lead in many polls, though I expect the margin for error is greater than in a General Election (and they weren't that good at that, last time!)

There are two main concerns on immigration. Firstly, setting aside political correctness and using the word David Cameron got into hot water for, whether we are getting "swamped", with associated concerns about the impacts on our culture and infrastructure, such as the NHS and schools. The occasional tabloid story, which I don't doubt is true, about schools where dozens of languages are spoken and no child has English as a native tongue fuel these concerns. And secondly, security. The debate here has focussed on whether we are more or less secure as members of the EU. Clearly, we would have more control if we exit which would probably, though not necessarily, make us more secure.

On the swamped theme, what is the trend? Migration Watch, the most reliable forecaster in recent years, predicts our 64M population will grow to nearly 77M by 2035. This is their "cautious estimate". And the UK is already the 3rd most densely populated major EU country (i.e. excluding places like Malta). But Scotland and parts of North England and Wales are lightly populated: if England were counted as a country it would have the 2nd highest population density, after the Netherlands, at 410 people per sq km. Germany's density is 229 and France's 121 (see http://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/356). This must feel a real issue, if not threat, in the south east of England.

Personally I am more worried about security than immigration per se. I'm sure many people are worried about whether we are keeping out the bad folks. And booting them out when they do get in: it's frustrating to read about our failure to expel criminals, even though there is a European agreement in place to send them home, meaning we don't pick up the bill for their detention. The Home Affairs Select Committee says 13,000 foreign criminals are in Britain currently, either in jail or having completed their sentence, some of the latter having resisted deportation. While 13,000 is a small number compared with the total of our home grown criminals, it's not a small number in absolute terms. Of the 9,895 in jail, 42% are from EU countries, costing us £150M a year to house.

Teresa May says that last year we removed a record number of foreign national offenders: 5,602. But not many were from from EU countries. In total only 402 EU prisoners have been sent home since 2007, a tiny proportion of those jailed. Not surprisingly, the Home Affairs Select Committee said that the Government has consistently failed on the shambolic system for expelling foreign criminals, to the point where the committee said it cast doubt on "the point of the UK remaining a member of the EU".

The Daily Mail jumped on this bandwagon with a full page of examples of egregious criminals who we can't appear to get rid of, including the Italian who stabbed headmaster Philip Lawrence to death in 1995. Having served his sentence, the High Court decided he did not meet the criteria for deportation, as he did not present a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat affecting one of the fundamental interests of society". Hmm, nothing in their about being an arsehole, then. The infamous Human Rights Act Article 8, the right to a family life, was also a consideration.

Now human rights legislation is not directly related to our membership of the EU, though hearsay has it that the European Court tends to tell us off for not meeting our supposed obligations. I don't know if we ever got to the bottom of whether we could substantially change our treaty obligations and remain in the EU, even if we wanted to. Another issue Cameron's government bottled.

Running it's own version of Project Fear, Vote Leave has majored on the implications of extending membership of the EU, particularly to Turkey. Mind this version of fear works for me as it seems axiomatic that admitting Turkey, with its borders to Syria, Iraq and Iran, poses a security threat when coupled with freedom of movement.

Cameron said Turkey was unlikely to join the EU until the year 3000. I doubt Mrs Merkel will be happy with this quote at a time when her agreement with Turkey stemming migration across the Aegean is at risk of collapse.

Being served by 2 perfectly pleasant and efficient shop assistants who I took to be immigrants (ooh, careful...)  at B&Q and the Co-op last week, one probably from the Phillipines and Kacper, who I took to be from eastern Europe, just reinforced how the country would grind to a halt without immigration. The problem for Cameron is he promised to achieve the impossible. And, from Osborne's point of view, a target that I'm sure he doesn't think at all sensible or appropriate for our economy.

The problem for us is a Remain camp who are in one form of denial, pretending there can be control when there can't and only just getting round to trying to defend any immigration as beneficial; and a Leave camp who are in a different form of denial, in which they tend to default to branding all immigration as harmful, when it is clearly needed to keep the economy (and the NHS) going.

No-one seems to be taking the middle ground and saying how we can make the most of the situation, whether we are in or out. By that I mean using every mechanism available to use to keep the bad folks out and send them home if we stay in, changing our own laws where we need to because of our apparently recalcitrant judges and their seemingly outrageously liberal interpretation of human rights. And if we stay out, saying how we will keep our economy moving by getting the people we ideally need and want. Yes, the Leave campaign talk about using an Aussie type points system to control the numbers coming in while securing the skills we need, but they've been totally silent on what form of bureaucracy would be deployed to decide that. Companies would be advised not to expect to get people to any manageable timescale. I'd bet many would give up; not good for growth or jobs - remember, when companies struggle and can't get key skills, existing workers suffer too.

At the moment I'm scoring this one as a scrappy, unsatisfying, low scoring win for Leave. Few really telling blows landed by either campaign, though Vote Leave's control of our borders theme plays strongly in the debate . There's time yet, but I suspect we'll get more heat than light, despite this being potentially the decisive issue.