Eastern European migration to the UK is deplored by many Britons. Yet, argues Adrian Favell, comparing Britain’s experience with that of other member states shows just how well it has done out of freedom of movement. The UK has a flexible, well-educated migrant workforce at its disposal – unlike other countries, some of which have lost qualified workers or are struggling to deal with inflows from outside the EU

Favell, Adrian

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08/04/2016Compared to its neighbours, open migration to Britain hasbeen a success storyblogs.lse.ac.uk /brexit/2016/04/08/compared-to-its-neighbours-open-migration-to-britain-has-been-a-success-story/Eastern European migration to the UK is deplored by many Britons. Yet, argues Adrian Favell , comparingBritain’s experience with that of other member states shows just how well it has done out offreedom of movement. The UK has a flexible, well-educated migrant workforce at its disposal– unlike other countries, some of which have lost qualified workers or are struggling to dealwith inflows from outside the EU.Amid all the debate about the costs and benefits of open EU borders, and its crucial role in theBrexit vote, it is remarkable how little attention is paid to thinking comparatively about UKmigration trends in a European context.For all the negativity about the “immigration crisis” in the UK, and political calls for an “emergency brake” on EUmigrants, there is little to suggest that Britain is doing worse from the effects of this migration than any of its closeneighbours.The UK, as an island, is insulated from some of its most difficult consequences. It has nothing like the Romapopulation present, say, in France. The Syrian crisis is remote, and an exaggerated issue in the British imagination:the UK has received only around 30,000 Syrian refugees (less than 0.05% of its population), whereas Germany isstruggling with around 1 million asylum seekers (well over 1%). Meanwhile, probably the most significant stream ofunderquantified migrants in the UK – the Chinese – barely ever raises an eyebrow.For sure, British hostility is focused squarely on Eastern Europeans: lured to the UK, according to some governmentministers, because of the unparalleled generosity of the British welfare state. Amid austerity and budget cuts, thissounds a peculiar claim. It is true in one respect: as a universal system, newcomers in the UK are able to accessthe minimalist British safety net in benefits, as well as routine access to medical and public services, as soon asthey are resident; in Germany or France, access to many benefits is linked to employment and past contributions. Asresearch has consistently shown, though, EU migrants in the UK are more likely than natives to be in employmentand not claiming benefits, and are net contributors to the system.By the same token, were jobs available and the economy as buoyant elsewhere in Europe, Britain would hardly bethe top destination of choice for migrants pursuing strict economic logic. Britain has been by far the most open,welcoming and well-paying labour market for migrants in Europe looking for work. This has given it a profile of EUmigrants that is younger, better qualified, better matched to work, and more successful over time – i.e. a vastlybetter selection effect – than elsewhere, while also being more numerous.While this selection was left to employers and open competition it produced the most attractive and dynamic jobmarket in Europe at all levels of the economy; attempts by the current government to now regulate and wrap upeven EU migration in the restrictive bureaucratic control of visa regimes and quotas are anti-liberal and fly in theface of economic good sense. Ironically, too, it is also clear that the only way demand for foreign labour might besuppressed would be to implement higher levels of regulation and stricter wage and job protection on low end jobs –a social democratic argument, more like the German system, that is unlikely to appeal to Messrs Cameron andOsborne.The UK chose migrants – and migrants chose the UKThe period since the 2004 accession can be seen as a kind of natural experiment in migration policy towards the1/3East. Countries could choose between open doors or (time limited) barriers to full accession, set against differencesin labour market regulation and welfare state provision which would offer a variety of incentives and restrictions onmobility and protection in employment. Migrants then self-selected with their feet. In 2004, only the UK, Ireland andSweden opened their doors at first, and it was Britain’s globally open economy which received the overwhelmingmajority of Eastern European migrants; well over half a million recorded in the first two years. Sweden, in contrast,where restrictive union practices block access of foreigners to many sectors of employment, was a much lessattractive destination. Britain now has over two million foreign EU residents; only Germany has more.While Eastern European construction, household, care and hospitality sector employees and entrepreneurs readilyfound work and advanced in Britain, in France a negative debate raged over a phantasm of Polish plumbers, amidstfears of service sector liberalisation destroying labour market protection for French nationals. This directlycontributed to the 2005 vote against the EU constitution. At the same time, a flood of young and mobile French wereleaving the country for work in London’s booming banking, media, educational and creative sectors. One Frenchminister ruefully complained that free movement in the EU meant that Britain was sending France its ageing retireesand holiday makers, and receiving in return all its most educated and talented young workers.A woman begs outside the Sacre-Coeur cathedral in Paris, 2010. Photo: Zoetnet via a CC BY 2.0 licenceComparative welfare states and varieties of capitalism scholars often rate Britain’s liberal “anglo-saxon” economynegatively in comparison to the “organised” capitalism of the Netherlands and Germany, and the “social democratic”bastions of the Nordics. It is by no means sure, though, that to be a migrant in Denmark or the Netherlands ispreferable to the UK. These once progressive, tolerant countries have tarnished their reputations with strident anti-immigrant politics, led by openly racist politicians. Numbers of foreign EU residents in absolute and percentageterms are much less. In both, informal linguistic and cultural barriers make negotiating the labour market or publicservices very difficult. In Denmark, sectoral regulation which matches jobs to credentials renders foreignqualifications and experience illegible to employers. The joke is that you need a Danish degree and appropriateunion membership just to be able to grill hot dogs in a street food van.In contrast, strong implementation of EU norms of non-discrimination by nationality in the UK has seen Britishemployers readily employing better qualified, more motivated foreign workers, across a full range of employmentopportunities, in a much more competitive and mobile environment.Which leaves Germany: in reality, alongside the UK, the only other serious competitive large scale economic model.For many years after 2004, Germany kept its large Polish workforce out of the open labour market, exploiting them2/3through segmented, secondary status employment and temporary resident status. This has improved, withaccession barriers coming down, and a liberalisation of employment, towards a more “flexisecure” system. At thesame time it has maintained job and wage protection levels, and preserved manufacturing jobs. Germany has alsobecome more open to younger migrants from Southern Europe, and more positive to immigration generally which itsees as a solution to its longer term demographic decline. Yet it now faces the brunt of the refugee crisis in WesternEurope and its own resurfacing anti-immigrant demons.United States of BritainIn the light of these straightforward comparisons, it is perplexing why much of the British press and – it is assumed –British public has such a negative view of how well the country has absorbed and accepted intra-EU migration andfree movement accords. With open labour markets, high levels of in-migration, and a low but universally accessiblewelfare safety net, Britain boomed as an attractive migrant economy in Europe before 2008, and continued to dobetter than its neighbours in the years since. London and the South East have been transformed by itsEuropeanisation; on an everyday level, the “superdiversity” of these new migrations blends in to Britain’s well-established, and well-recognised, multiracial immigrant heritage.Ironically, the one comparison that anti-EU campaigners love to underline is how similar they think the UK is to theUS; and therefore how far it is from being “European”. It is true that in the 2000s Britain became more like the US asan economy and society driven and transformed by migration. London indeed matched New York from 2000-2005 interms of its incoming populations, their role in the labour market, and their effects on the city. America relies onimmigrants at every level of employment, in far greater numbers than anywhere in Europe. Closed borders and zeroimmigration, the fantasy of UKIP and others, would in fact remove these similarities.Migrant diversity and dynamism is what makes these two societies comparableThese comparative arguments are often lost because of the insularity of debates on Europe in the UK. Publicdebate, focused on the negatives of migration, and a narrow range of cost-benefit issues, is ignorant of what can belearned from the UK’s experience when compared to others. This is exacerbated by a lack of knowledge amongacademic specialists in Britain about the varieties of language, culture, economy and political system of even itsclosest neighbours. Britain is discussed as if it was a unique, exceptional case. Yet Britain is not unique in itsEuroscepticism; nor is it unique in its awkwardness towards the European project. By looking outwards it may learnto know itself better.This post represents the views of the author and not those of BrexitVote, nor the LSE.Adrian Favell is Chair in Sociology and Social Theory at the University of Leeds. He is an associate of the BaumanInstitute and CERS (Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies), and a member of the Leeds Migration ResearchNetwork.Copyright © 2015 London School of Economics3/3

Compared to its neighbours, open migration to Britain has been a success story

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