HazeGe wrote:Theresa May is planning to cut net migration to 100,000 as a result her new control on immigration.
I think this is a very bad idea, primarily because of economic reasons.
Any thoughts?
Intra-European migration has worked remarkably well for over half a century. Germany during the 60s and 70s had nearly 14 million guest-workers, mostly from the South of Europe. They helped to create the economic miracle in the North and increased living standards in the South. That is the reason we can have free-movement of people and open borders in Europe and don't need to build a wall like the one Trump wants to build between the US and Mexico.
Open borders increase the quality of life of citizens, strengthen democracy and the rule of law across Europe and help to spread prosperity across the continent.
The only problem in this scenario is the irrationality of British politics. And since the Brits aren't about to change any time soon, the only solution is Brexit. Brexit will reduce the rights of British citizens and make them poorer. The number of immigrants to the UK will decline because the country will become poorer since it can not longer profit from the EU.
In many respects, for the UK, Brexit happens at the worst possible moment. Living standards in Eastern Europe are rapidly increasing, reducing immigration-pressure for low-wage jobs in the UK. Even in the poorest parts of the EU, farm laborers are now imported from as Far as Bangladesh, Pakistan or Thailand, because Poles or Bulgarians no longer want to do those jobs. It goes without saying that the Brits won't want to to those jobs either. Thus, like with Italian guest-workers to Germany, the issue of East European guest-workers to the UK would have been resolved to the mutual benefit. So what did the UK gain by replacing Polish workers with Pakistani workers at a time that shift would have happened anyways? To cut yourself from the most important market in the world is certainly a price too high to pay.
I won't go into why the timing of Brexit is even worse in other respects for the UK, since this is about immigration.