Deborah Orr: Our hypocritical immigration debate

The Confederation of British Industry has long been a supporter of the Government's policies on immigration. During the boom, businesses wanted to be free to recruit whoever they wanted, from anywhere in the world. Sometimes, it was argued that an open-door policy was needed because Britain was not producing enough highly-skilled workers for its sophisticated post-industrial economy.

Sometimes it was argued that such a policy was necessary because British people no longer wanted the poorly skilled and poorly paid jobs that remained curiously abundant in that brave new world. But the boom is over now, and yesterday, at a CBI event on immigration, Trevor Phillips, the chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, warned that unless Britain helped its white working-class to weather the recession, by employing "positive discrimination", it risked a surge in right-wing extremism.

There can be no denying that there is much truth in Phillips's observation. Even when the economy was expanding, the drift rightwards, and not just among the disadvantaged, had been noted. Margaret Hodge spoke in the run-up to the 2006 local elections about her belief that up to eight out of 10 working-class voters in her Barking constituency might be tempted to vote for the British National Party. She was condemned for her remarks, and even blamed when the BNP did, in fact, win 12 of the 13 seats they contested.

Yet Hodge's central suggestion, that the white working-classes ought to be given priority in the allocation of social housing, does not seem out of kilter with the broader sweep of Phillips's message of "positive discrimination" yesterday. Nor was Gordon Brown's odd rhetoric, early in his odd premiership, when he told the TUC Conference that he championed "British jobs for British workers". And nor, in fact, is the Labour Party's recent policy on immigration, which involved adopting a points system – based on the famously stringent Australian immigration rules – which ensures that only non-EU applicants with scarce and in-demand skills would gain entry to this country.

All that now distinguishes the immigration policies of the two main parties are Conservative arguments that an actual number ought to restrict immigration. Phillips agrees with the government that a cap is not workable, given that within the EU free movement of workers is guaranteed.

Recession appears to be ridding Britain of its supposedly problematic ability to attract EU workers anyway, and despite widespread warnings about the destabilising effects of the "influx", not everyone is happy to see Eastern Europeans heading home.

In Aberdeenshire, hardly a part of the country that struggles to justify the existence of its expanding, cosmopolitan, multi-ethnic melting pot, there are concerns that the exodus could cause small businesses even greater problems than the credit crunch.

Chris Ritchie, who runs Fresh Catch, a fish-processing plant in Peterhead, relies on eastern Europeans to form 90 per cent of his workforce. He explained this week that without them his business would be "up the creek". He says that the difference between the Eastern Europeans and the locals is "that they actually want to work".

The real difference, of course, is that many migrants don't actually want to make a life here, but are willing instead to subsist very frugally until they have saved enough either to return home and start their real lives in their own countries, or to decide that even a very modest existence in this country is an improvement on the standard of living they might achieve back there.

Obviously, the "white working-class" don't have the former choice at all, while the latter choice could only ever be made in the abstract, in the time-honoured yet practically hopeless vein that exhorts the parents of picky British children to "think about the starving children in Africa". There is a problem, in an economy that continues to emphasise the importance of keeping unskilled wages very low, with the management of expectation.

There was an interesting segment in Muddle-Class Britain, the otherwise awful (so far) television series that follows John Prescott as he "explores" the British class system. Prescott was introduced to a group of young girls described as "chavs", one of whom, somewhat inappropriately, told her black-British friend that she vaguely liked the sound of the BNP. She had been unable to find work since leaving school with nothing but an assault on the deputy head to show for it. But she declared that she was willing to work anywhere, even at Sainsbury's.

Were he confronted with a middle-class child who showed disdain for the idea of Sainsbury's as an employer, Prescott most probably would denounce her as a snob. Yet he accepted the analysis at face value from this young woman, and professed his admiration of her plucky spirit in proclaiming herself willing to work there, if only she could secure a position. This girl is surely the kind of "working-class white" who may fall prey to extremist beliefs without the help of "positive discrimination". Yet I'm not sure how "positive discrimination" would help her. Certainly, it might deliver the job in Sainsbury's that she considers as both beneath her and beyond her reach. But the chances are that the positive discrimination would have to continue, and allowances might have to be made by her employers in order that she could hold on to the work.

This seems like quite a change from the "business first" approach that the Government has fostered, and which made it so easy for employers to discount the very idea of giving positions to all but the most compliant workers. History suggests, on the contrary, that Government support for the needs and wants of employers is likely to intensify rather than subside as recession bites. The sad and ugly reality is that certain jobs, especially in the South, are now seen as "only good enough" for migrant workers, who are despised, all the same, for taking them. Appeals to populist resentment, one fears, can only worsen this grim situation, in which the least skilled are encouraged to blame "outsiders", when the idea was to place them in direct competition with each other. "Divide and rule", I think it's called.

d.orr@independent.co.uk

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