Ignore the xenophobes: we should welcome this wave of immigration

Gordon Brown – and the rest of us – ought to be pleased. The latest figures for asylum applications show an 11 per cent rise in the quarter to September. That means the British economy is still exceptionally strong, and still exerting its pull in the global labour market.

It is true, as the xenophobes allege, that many people who claim asylum are not genuine refugees. But that does not mean we should regard them with hostile suspicion as scroungers. Instead we should recognise that, overwhelmingly, they have a great deal to offer this country.

Many immigrants may not suffer persecution in their home country, but their circumstances are often difficult, and those with the determination to seek a better life here should be welcomed. The response should not be to promise ever "tougher" measures, or to fiddle around with categories and definitions, but to find ways in which larger numbers of people can come to this country, legally and without resort to dishonesty, to work.

Far from Britain being unable to afford immigration, the country cannot afford to stop it. Some authoritarian newspapers are trying to create an aggressive xenophobic culture. But even their readers and writers rely on immigrants to staff the NHS, teach in schools, drive minicabs and look after their children.

Yet the Labour government has been craven in the face of a vicious and misleading campaign by these pulpiteers of intolerance. It has colluded in the depiction of the issue as one of Us keeping Them out, which is to concede far too much to the view that this country is in danger of being swamped by an inexorable tide of needy humanity.

It is the reverse of the truth. Britain needs more highly motivated workers. There are chronic shortages in almost all public-service jobs (apart from firefighters). Some opponents of immigration may be reluctantly willing to concede the case for importing skilled staff such as teachers, nurses or doctors. But, welcome as they are as individuals, they should not be encouraged as public policy. As has been highlighted this week, Britain is engaged in asset-stripping the human resources of the developing world on a morally questionable scale. In fact, then, the strongest case can be made for inviting the relatively unskilled but hard-working to come and lend us their enterprise and drive – precisely the category most likely to be demonised as "bogus asylum-seekers".

The Government should regain control of the asylum system by granting an amnesty to anyone already in the country. This might allow the speeding-up of the processing of applications, which has certainly occurred, to catch up with the number of arrivals.

At the same time, David Blunkett should try harder to separate asylum-seeking from economic migration. He should expand the work permit scheme to allow significant numbers of people to settle here, perhaps undertaking not to draw social security benefits for the first few years – although they would of course be entitled to use the health and education services.

Instead, Mr Blunkett has been panicked by the new figures into joining in the vilification of the very people this country should be welcoming most. It is true that "exceptional leave to remain" has become a misnomer, as it is the most common outcome of an application for refugee status, but to replace it with a "humanitarian protection" remains too narrow.

This is one of those cases in which national self-interest coincides with moral principle. Yet again, this Government has missed an opportunity to secure an unambiguous benefit for the country – and at the same time to do what is morally right.