Negative political externalities from migration to Britain?

Following up on my recent post, which suggested less skilled immigration into the UK has not been a disaster, the question has been raised about long-term negative political externalities.  Will not migrants enter the country and make electoral outcomes worse?  I would offer a few points in response:

1. If this is the argument, one needs to admit that immigration has gone well enough in the UK to date.  This argument is about the future, not the past.

2. The UK has indeed had a variety of poor leaders as of late.  It is very difficult to hold immigrants responsible for them, mostly it is the native white Brits who have been at fault.  You might not like how UK Muslims have shaped some of the Middle Eastern statements of Labour, but that is hardly a relevant factor behind the slowdown of the British economy, or of British gridlock.

3. There is a very real risk that Reform will win the next election and then implement bad economics policies, above and beyond whatever you think of their approach to immigration.  But if that is the real fear, it would be good to limit their popularity by talking up the positive side of immigration.  I am not suggesting that any of us should tell anything less than the full truth, but obviously there are many positive aspects of migration that even professional economists can get wrong.  Does immigration mean “higher home prices” or “capital gains for domestic homeowners”?  Well, both, but you hear much more about the former than the latter (even Gemini got that one wrong).  Let’s redress the balance, and lower the risk of future bad economic policy while we are at it.

4. Sometimes immigration weakens the demand for welfare state transfers, since the immigrants are viewed as outsiders.  In Britain, that would currently be a positive at current margins.  I recognize that is by no means the only political effect, but in any case do not assume that all of the political externalities are negative.

Above all else, it is difficult to paint immigrants as major villains for Britain’s troubles so far.  Just read through the original analysis again.  It has not been seriously countermanded, and do most of their problems are indeed the fault of the white people.

That all said, I would readily admit, and indeed stress, that a better set of migration policies could have put Britain in a much better position than it is today.