Enough with 'legitimate concerns'. There's a much better way to talk about immigration

Almost everyone can agree that the violence was wrong. The disorder around Britain had very little link to the grief of Southport. The tragic murders became the pretext for a senseless campaign of violence and intimidation – targeting asylum seekers and Muslims in particular, and attacking the police for protecting them. This was thuggish racist violence, not political protest. It was an orgy of illegitimate concerns. 

But what about the argument that those protesting also reflect public concerns about immigration and integration?  

“If we’re going to pretend this is about the far-right, rather than this groundswell of opposition on issues where the British people have been lied to, then this is going to escalate,” professor Matthew Goodwin told GB News. That sounds rather like a ransom demand – arguing that disorder will escalate unless those in the streets are given what they want. The ugly scenes of disorder dominating the headlines involve fewer than one in a thousand people. 

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In themselves, they reveal little or nothing about how most people think about these issues. It is hardly plausible that the angriest fringes are amenable to the real-world policies that governments could or should actually implement.  

Yet getting this distinction right – between legitimate and illegitimate concerns – does matter in principle and practice. It is important to show that there is scope for democratic scrutiny, including to set firmer boundaries that exclude hate and prejudice from the debate. But the debate about how to recognise legitimate concerns is too often based on a simplistic caricature of how people think about these issues. 

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Nigel Farage had declared the last election “the immigration election”. A quarter of people saw it that way. Immigration was the number one issue for those who voted Reform. For most people, it was better described as a “cost of living election”, or “an NHS waiting lists election” – or simply a “change the government election”. 

On immigration itself, a quarter of people found Nigel Farage’s agenda and voice resonated. What gets overlooked is that another quarter of the public strongly prefer the much more liberal view of immigration voiced by the Greens and Liberal Democrats. British Future’s research found that all parties secured for broad trust on this issue – but that Labour’s effort to offer a centrist voice was preferred, overall, to either the Conservative record or the Farage manifesto.  

Goodwin’s own demands include leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and ending non-essential immigration, to bring net migration close to zero. That agenda was on the ballot paper at the last election by the Reform party. Its 14% of the vote gives Reform five MPs to pursue these arguments in parliament. The majority of MPs and people who oppose leaving the ECHR have no need to concede those arguments now to protest politics. 

Most people are balancers on immigration, recognising both pressures and gains when immigration is high. Increasing the confidence of the balancer middle is very different to engaging with those who reject migration and diversity in principle. The balancers are interested in overall numbers – and the pace of change – but just as much in how we decide who is coming to contribute. There are concerns about the potential pressures on public services – and an understanding that the NHS depends on migration too.  

Constructive engagement with actual legitimate concerns would recognise that managing immigration well is a two-way street: that we need to be fair both to those who join our society and the communities they join. A polarised and binary choice about whether to be fair to “them” or “us” – the incomers versus the indigenous Brits – misses the foundational point that migration works in the long run when migrants and their children do feel fully part of the “us” too.  

Immigration is currently exceptionally high due to both circumstance and choice. The crisis response to Ukraine and Hong Kong bringing exceptionally large numbers of people was seen as right. The government also chose high immigration after Brexit. That reflects the dilemmas of control. 

Half of the public would like to see overall numbers drop – but not by cutting visas for the NHS, social care or international students. The Treasury supported high net migration due to its economic contribution. Yet it cut public spending at a time of rising population that will not feel fair – despite the positive net contribution of migrants to the public finances.  

A new government should air those trade-offs to make immigration a more normal issue, like taxation and public spending. An annual moment, like the budget, could set out its choices and plans for visas and refugee policies.

That should involve a plan to address local impacts of population change, and enable MPs to scrutinise whether tax receipts are being used to manage public service and housing pressures in areas of rising population. This would manage migration fairly for those who come to Britain and the places where they live. 

So let us show how democracy can meet legitimate concerns about what makes immigration work – as long as we are clear about the difference between legitimate and illegitimate concerns too. 

Sunder Katwala is the director of British Future, a UK-based think tank.

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