{"id":106,"date":"2016-04-09T11:33:44","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T10:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/?p=106"},"modified":"2016-07-22T15:11:01","modified_gmt":"2016-07-22T14:11:01","slug":"the-other-side-of-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markargent.com\/blog\/the-other-side-of-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"The other side of migration"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"ImmigrantSpirit.com
ImmigrantSpirit.com home page<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today\u2019s tranche of emails included one from Immigrant Spirit<\/a>, which highlights the other side of this. It quotes Andreas Meyer-Falcke, Commissioner of Human Resources for the City of D\u00fcsseldorf, saying that in the next five years one third of his employees will retire. Thousands of jobs will become available. It asks: \u201cHow could expatriates benefit?\u201d<\/p>\n

The free movement of people means that, provided we vote to remain in the EU, I could respond to this by applying for one of those jobs in D\u00fcsseldorf, or anywhere else in the EU.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some close friends in Singapore keep suggesting I move there. Also a lovely place. But the Ministry of Manpower there have been tightening requirements for work permits. Moving to somewhere else in the EU is vastly easier.<\/p>\n

One of the surprises of the 2015 General Election campaign was when the Economist<\/em> ran an article mapping fear of immigrants in the UK. The places of greatest fear were the places with the lowest proportion of immigrants.<\/p>\n

Standing for Parliament in North West Leicestershire put flesh on the bones of this. The visceral fear of immigrants was strongest on the lips of people for whom immigrants are an invisible \u201cother\u201d, a \u201cthem\u201d who are taking \u201cour jobs\u201d. This was not about real people.<\/p>\n

In fact the saddest conversations were with people hit hard by austerity, who were proposing to vote Conservative. Austerity was named and \u201cimmigrants\u201d were blamed. So the plan was to vote Conservative because they were seen as anti-immigrant. So, the people hit hard by austerity were proposing to vote for the party advocating austerity, because it had neatly put the blame on \u201cimmigrants\u201d.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, some brilliant editing at the BBC meant I kept hearing scare stories about immigration followed immediately by news stories on (say) the numbers of nurses we were needing to bring into the UK because of shortages in the NHS.<\/p>\n

Our European colleagues stress free movement of people. They are right to do this, for two very strong reasons:<\/p>\n