A great article by Bill Emmott, former editor of The Economist, in today’s Times (and not just because he very kindly quotes Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them). As he rightly says:
Immigration is an issue on which all three main British parties are on the defensive and hence illiberal.
This is an emerging tragedy for a country whose strength over the centuries has been so clearly based on trade, global business and openness to the free movement of people…
A liberal society like Britain ought to be proud of its long record of benefiting from immigration. If I were a political party, my manifesto would make immigration easier, not harder. Yes, I would want it to be orderly rather than utterly chaotic, but illegality comes from having overly rigid rules, not lax ones.
Highly recommended.