These can be visibly observed in the policy positions taken by the Treasury (principally) and centre-left MPs, and the stance taken by centre-right MPs who want a much tougher stance on immigration, lower taxes, and lower regulation.
It is perfectly clear that the Treasury favours a school of thought that GDP improves with higher net migration.
Put simply, their belief is the more people we have, the bigger the economy becomes.
To some extent this is true. But it certainly “gives in” to the request of those businesses who say they are unable to recruit within our internal labour market because they want access to cheaper labour…
Read more: The numbers are too high but with Labour there will be no immigration plan
But this school of thought is not only short-termism exemplified, it also betrays one of the core reasons many voted for Brexit (to deliver higher wages and a higher skills economy).
It is misleading too: we may have higher GDP overall, but the “dilution” of wealth per increased headcount means lower actual GDP (we are poorer per person) and it makes no assessment of any social impacts, which can be significant and costly.
We have an acute housing shortage which net increased migration aggravates as house building does not keep pace.
The PM, rightly in my view, wants to make maths a subject taught for more years in schools, but some very basic maths tells us that when we build only about 200,000 properties per year and we “control” net migration at levels in excess of 600,000 we need to understand where all are these people going to live?
How is this impacting house prices and rental prices?
The Renters Reform Bill will further aggravate the prospect for renters because of the reduction in the supply of homes to rent as landlords leave the market.
Sure, this might marginally increase home ownership – but not for those tenants who cannot afford to become owners (usually the reason they rent…) – where do they go?
Policies that increase net migration also put pressure on treasured Green Belt land. It is astonishing how the liberal elite who complain about construction in green spaces are the same people who advocate for greater immigration and think that the Rwanda Plan is abhorrent. Hypocrisy at its very best.
Increased populations also increase congestion, pollution, and pressure on public services; higher demand can also keep commodity and food prices higher thus impacting negatively on inflation.
Working-class areas suffer most from all these effects but one of the biggest and disproportionate effects, aside from housing, is on wages which are kept much lower than wages in affluent areas.
Red wall areas voted Conservative at the last general election to reverse these issues and they are thoroughly fed up with Ministerial narratives that “we need to bring immigration down”, “it is too high” when policy after policy delivers the exact opposite.
Who exactly set minimum wage standards for entry into the UK? Who decided that student dependents could enter the UK? Who decided not to introduce an immigration cap?
Voters will see through shallowness and will respond accordingly at the polls, and the time left to show delivery is fast running out.
