Philippe Legrain

In last year’s UK general election, Labour lambasted the Conservatives for plastering posters all over the country declaring that "It’s not racist to impose limits on immigration". But now John Reid, the home secretary, has started sounding a lot like Michael Howard.

He says he wants to end the "daft, so-called politically correct notion that anybody who talks about immigration is somehow a racist", and he plans to set up an independent advisory committee that would help "tell us the optimum level of immigration … beneficial in terms of enhancing the economy and commensurate with our social stability".

At one level, of course, Reid is right: one can talk about immigration
without being a racist. Indeed, one can support immigration controls
for non-racist reasons: greens may fear that an extra influx of people
would put a strain on the environment, for instance, while trade
unionists may worry about the impact on the jobs of their members,
black and white.

The people who believe these things may or may not be
racists; but those beliefs in themselves are not racist.

But that is not the real issue here. By attacking the straw man that
"anybody who talks about immigration is somehow a racist", Reid is
signalling to people who are opposed to immigration – for racist or
non-racist reasons – that he shares their concerns. In effect, he is
saying "whether the true motivation for your hostility to immigration
is racist or not, so long as you can justify it in non-racist terms, it
is acceptable – and I share your worries".

As for the notion that a committee, let alone one set up by an agency
as incompetent as the Home Office, could determine an "optimum level of
immigration", this is utterly fanciful. For a start, the "optimum
level" depends on a host of subjective factors: some people may think
that even a few immigrants are a threat to "social stability", while
Londoners may believe that a high level of immigration enhances
society.

What’s more, no committee has enough information or foresight
to decide how many foreign workers the British economy needs. How
exactly is it supposed to determine precisely how many immigrants are
needed in which occupations, let alone how this will change over time?

Imagine if such a system operated within Britain: a committee would
decide how many plasterers were needed in Liverpool, set limits on how
many waiters could move to London, or decree that Llandudno should
receive exactly 532 workers from outside Wales.

Such manpower planning
was a hallmark of the Soviet Union – and look how that ended up.
However wise or insightful Reid’s proposed committee might turn out to
be, it cannot hope to second-guess the ever-changing decisions made by
millions of employers and workers as to who should be employed doing
what and where.

In truth, John Reid’s real aim is not to frame an immigration policy
that is optimal for the economy, or society at large. It is to show
that he has got a grip on the immigration dossier that has bedevilled
his predecessors. He may succeed – but only by placing the government’s
short-term political interests ahead of the country’s long-term
economic interests.

Playing to the racist gallery and fostering the
illusion that the government can set an optimal level of immigration is
no way to run a sensible immigration policy.