One of the first battlegrounds for the referendum has been drawn up as immigration. It’s an interesting subject. Would leaving the EU make a difference to the swarms (the pro-European Cameron term) invading our country?
There are three general groups of people arriving in the UK. There are asylum seekers, there are EU migrants and there are non-EU migrants. An associate issue is how we would control our borders if we were to seek to reduce the number of immigrants.
Asylum Seekers
Typically 500,000 people arrive in the UK each year. Since the mid 2000’s the number of asylum seekers has been 20,000 to 40,000 averaging around 30,000. Many of the asylum seekers in the UK have historical links to the UK, for example the Indian sub-continent accounts for around 10% of asylum seekers over the last 15 years.
In 2015 (excluding December) 12 countries accounted for 75% of asylum seekers: Eritrea, Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Syrian Arab Rep., Afghanistan, Iraq, Albania, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh.
There are some surprising cases, for example the number of Canadians claiming asylum over the last few years has reached double figures (Australia just a few less than this), and the number from the USA now bumping along at around one a week.
The number of asylum seekers may vary with leaving the EU, but the links to the EU are limited and so the overall change in immigration related to asylum seekers is unlikely to change immigration by a significant factor.
EU migrants and non-EU migrants
ONS data is perhaps a little more telling. For example it suggests that around 2/3 of a million people arrived in the UK from abroad in the year to end June 2015, while 1/3 of a million left. The numbers arriving is increasing and the numbers of those leaving is decreasing. As a result there is an increase in the numbers coming to the UK, around half of the people arriving coming from the EU. Overall the number coming to the UK from Europe has been growing since around 2012, and the significant increase relates to Bulgaria and Romania (EU2).
There are two main reasons for people coming to the UK, one being education, the other being work. These account for around three quarters of the people coming to the UK long term.
Education
More than a quarter of the people coming to the UK came for education purposes, and this number has increased recently. This number is likely to link to the overall success of the UK. In other words, the more successful the UK is the more people will want to come her and be educated. There will be dubious cases within this, however the genuine increase in immigration for education is beneficial to the UK.
Leaving Europe could have an effect on these numbers by making it harder for EU based students to come to the UK to study, however the data suggests that 5/6 of students come from outside of the EU. The overall effect of leaving the EU would most likely be small when it comes to education.
Employment
Around half of the UK nationals in the country are in employment, while 2/3 of the EU immigrants are in employment. There are around 2M EU nationals employed in the UK, and 1.2M non-EU nationals employed in the UK. UK unemployment is around 1.7M. In addition there are around 0.7M vacancies in the UK.
Leaving the EU would most likely have little effect on the non-EU migrants, however the change in the number of EU immigrants here for work purposes would become subject to management through a visa system. This offers to be the biggest change to immigration numbers if Britain were to leave the EU.
There are around 1M more people in the UK job market than there are available jobs. Reducing the EU migrant workers by a million would offer the ability for full employment in the UK. However the number of current vacancies has remained constant for a while – suggesting that some jobs may not be very attractive to those unemployed. The reasoning behind this is obviously varied, but it is possible that there are a range of jobs available in the UK that are hard to fill because of a mixture of location and low pay. In addition to this inward control would be outward control, with just under 2M British nationals living elsewhere in Europe, however a lower percentage of these are likely to be workers, with a larger number not in the job market.
An interesting case study could be the recently high profile case of a factory in Derbyshire that employs a significant number of EU immigrants. A recent investigation from the BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-35604776 identified a number of major housing and social issues. The company in question are suggested to offer salary rates for workers equivalent (deductions for things like uniform cost taken into account) to between £3.75 and £6.80 an hour, with lower salaries less than £7000 a year. However a reasonable estimate for factory workers in this area is around £13000 according to reports of pay surveys. Rooms in the area cost from £2500 to £4000 a year, and a one bed house around £4500 to £5750 a year.
One question would then be whether jobs like this would be filled by anyone other than the EU2 immigrants who are prepared to live in difficult conditions, the potential solution would be an increase in the lower salaries of these workers, and a potential ripple effect on other salaries due to increasing prices. Overall, for the benefits to be realised there would probably be an associated improvement in the conditions of lower paid workers in the UK.
A second option would be for the jobs to follow the low paid workers, so if the lower paid workforce were only available in the EU the jobs would follow them. The likely outcome would be a mixture of these changes along with a number of other changes. Whether the net effect would be a benefit to the UK is hard to predict, but it is likely that some benefit would result to those UK nationals willing to replace the EU2 workers.
With respect to migration the question of whether Britain is in or out of the EU is unlikely to result in significant changes to most of society, but the benefits to lower paid workers could be reasonable.
Border Control
The other effect of controlling migration would be the need to enhance border controls.
Contrary to common belief an asylum seeker is not required to claim asylum in the first country they reach. This is an EU rule, and because of our geography effectively offers protection to the UK from large numbers of asylum seekers. If the UK were to join the Schengen area this protection would be enhanced. Asylum seekers should be free to cross borders to claim asylum. The border controls that the UK operates in France ensures that asylum seekers are in France when they present themselves at the UK border – avoiding the opportunity for them to claim asylum on UK territory. It is possible that the UK border controls would no longer be able to operate within France if the UK left the EU. While in theory this could lead to more asylum claims in the UK the need to control security for channel crossings would most likely prevent a significant increase.
In order to control the numbers from the EU2 coming to seek work in the UK there is likely to be the need for stricter entry controls, potentially even vacation visas. If these strict controls are not implemented there would be an associated cost in finding and returning over-stayers. In any case a visa system is likely to be the most effective means of managing a transition period. It would be a disaster to remove 2M employees at one time, many businesses would not be able to cope. As a result a system of short term work visas would be the most effective means of staggering the removal of these workers. The outcome would possibly be the introduction of vacation visas for British nationals visiting Europe even for vacation, and certainly for work.
Neither of these problems would seem to be too significant. The most significant issue for border control will be the land border with the EU, around 500km stretching across Ireland. There is a document describing how this border is expected to operate “Joint Statement Regarding Co-Operation on Measures to Secure the External Common Travel Area Border” produced in 2011. The concept is that there would be a common travel area between the two countries. This can exist while the two countries have the same immigration rules, but if the UK were to leave Europe and place controls on the immigration from states such as the EU2 this would require a review of this open border.
Summary
Overall a bid to restrict immigration is likely to have a small positive effect to people in some of the lowest paid work in the UK. However there would be a balancing effect of some British Nationals being unable to continue work in Europe.
The effect on asylum claims is likely to be minimal and, with the time to fully consider cases taking over a decade for some people, the number of asylum seekers living in the UK is likely to remain fairly constant.
The largest single effect of new immigration controls would come with our relationship to Ireland (and to a lesser extent Gibraltar) where we have a land border with another European state. The potential damage to the positive work carried out following the Good Friday agreement could be significant.