The headline, now increasing in pitch, capital letters and exclamation marks, is that net migration is off the charts. It is soaring. It is at an all-time high. So high that we ask, how did it come to this? The answer is, it came to this predictably and, in fact, inevitably. The way immigration numbers are reported is a sort of classification error, one forced by the overriding, unquestioned presumption that immigration is bad, that it must come down, and that politicians are in some duel with “hordes” of immigrants who are making their way into the country, managing somehow to vanquish one of the harshest immigration systems in the world.
More accurate headlines might be “UK skilled worker shortage intensifies”, “Loss of European Union research funding renders British universities increasingly dependent on overseas students”, “Business leaders call for expansion of shortage occupations due to post-Brexit recruitment challenges”, or “Funding cuts to nurse training result in staffing crisis”. Because these apparently vexingly high numbers are, to a large extent, the outcome of economic and political decisions that mean we invite immigrants to fill labour gaps that policymakers either did not anticipate, or ignored warnings about.
