Earlier this month, Professor David Miles from Imperial College Business School intervened in the UK’s most contentious issue – immigration. In an essay published by the Common Good Foundation, Miles argued that ‘there are serious problems with the idea that [immigration-driven] faster population growth can consistently alleviate fiscal problems’. He urged the government to prioritise getting British people into work, rather than relying on migrants to solve the nation’s economic problems. 

For a long time, the conventional economic wisdom was the opposite – that immigration benefitted the economy. This argument would be routinely trotted out to justify denouncing anyone who questioned immigration levels as, at least, idiotic, probably ‘far right’ and certainly not worth debating.

Miles’s essay shows that the establishment is changing its views on immigration, thanks in large part to popular pressure. For far too long, successive governments have reduced what should be publicly debated political decisions – on the public finances, on infrastructure projects, on immigration and so much more – to technical economic questions. An honest public debate on immigration that breaks away from simplistic economic pros and cons is certainly long overdue. 

Read the full article here.