The Good, the Bad and the Undecided

(N.B. this post was initially published 30th May 2016 on tumblr)

I can’t stand being wrong.

There, I said it.

I’d rather say nothing at all than say something that turns out to be misinformed, and I’ve got no patience for things I’m not good at instantly: high school maths lessons used to reduce me to tears and to be honest they probably still would. Though no one is asking me to find the square-root of x anymore, I’ve never managed to shake the feeling.

So when someone says ‘What do you think about immigration? Well, what about nuclear power? Or fox hunting? War? Rape culture? Tories?! Come on, you’ve gotta have some kind of opinion.’ I shrug and say it’s complicated. And then cry if they shout at me.

Unfortunately a lot of things are left or right, in or out, pro or anti, blue or red. Pretty reductive, sure, but how else are we supposed to make sense of anything? This makes the middle ground feel like an ocean between two islands, rather than a sliding scale. I tread water um-ing and ah-ing until something bites my leg off or I drown quietly in other people’s opinions.

But maybe I’m just ignorant. Surely if I had all the facts I’d know which island I should swim for? So I’ll start with the basics. How many? What percentage? More or less then another point in time? Numbers are objective. I have five apples or I don’t have five apples. Easy. I’ve got this.

Take immigration:

The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimate that about 320,000 people migrated to the UK in the year ending September 2015 – that’s the net migration rate, where the number of immigrants is offset by the number of emigrants. This figure is 31,000 higher than the previous year.

This means immigration is on the rise, right?

Well, no.

The ONS folks say that this difference is mostly the result of a decrease in emigration, not an increase in immigration. The immigration rate – the number of people entering the UK from the rest of the world with the intention of living here – actually only increased by 2,000 from the previous year. Arguably it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other because it all amounts to the same thing – a population increase – but the distinction seems important to me.

Migrant crisis? What migrant crisis?

The problem is that numbers don’t mean anything on their own. So we get 300,000 extra people each year. So what? This fact (if we can even call it that) needs to be interpreted and contextualised, and this is where things get sketchy.

These stats don’t take into account the larger picture of migration in Europe and, as the anti-immigration lot are keen to emphasise, we’ve got no idea how many more people have entered the UK undetected because – well – they’re undetected. 

The 300k figure is based on data from the International Passenger Survey, which gets its info from ‘passengers travelling through the main entry and exit points from the UK including airports, seaports and the Channel Tunnel’. The ONS makes ‘adjustments’ for ‘asylum seekers, non-asylum enforced removals, visitor and migrant switchers and flows to and from Northern Ireland’, but what these adjustments are, I have no idea. If the ONS’s report specifies, I missed it.

Their report also admits they probably underestimated the total net migration to the UK between 2001 and 2011 by about 346,000. I don’t think an inconsistency of 34,600 people per year (on average) is catastrophic, in the grand scheme of things, but it does cultivate a lack of trust in official statistics.

Suddenly numbers don’t seem so infallible after all.

But there’s another, even bigger consideration which is virtually impossible to quantify: what’s the impact of a growing population on the UK? We can measure employment rates, educational achievement, household incomes, crime rates, and a billion other things – which is what the ONS does – but the only things that can demonstrate are trends. We get X is directly proportional to Y, and that’s not the same as establishing cause and effect.

To borrow an example from my A Level Psychology teacher: both the number of drownings and the number of ice creams bought increases in June, July and August. Does that mean there’s a cause and effect relationship between frozen dairy products and water-based death? Unlikely.

Numbers also have nothing to contribute to the moral dilemmas at work. Do we, as a people, owe something to the world simply by virtue of being born into one of the richest countries going? Does our part in Middle Eastern conflicts make us liable for the people those conflicts have displaced? Don’t people have right to move elsewhere in search of better opportunities? Wouldn’t we do the same if we had to? Is a degree of self-interest essential for us to function as people and as a country? How do we choose who gets into the UK and who doesn’t, and what gives us the right to choose in the first place? Is it fairer to let no one in than to only let in a few?

Above all, numbers are emotionally reductive: one death is a tragedy and a thousand is a statistic. That’s why the pro-immigration lot like to tell the stories of individual migrants and the anti’s prefer faceless figures. I’ll admit to being swayed towards the former, but maybe that’s just a sign that their rhetoric is better executed.

Maybe that’s a cynical attitude to have, and maybe I’d do well to remember there are real people on the receiving end of the numbers I’ve been talking about, and it’s all well and good for me to enjoy my comfortable middle-class lifestyle while others can’t afford to feed their families. 

But here’s what makes me want to tear my hair out: picking a side forces us to be selective about which parts of the narrative we listen to – because that’s what the immigration debate is: a narrative – and it doesn’t feel right.

The pro-immigration brigade have a point: the answer isn’t keeping everyone out. It’s not fair and doesn’t get to the root of the problem.

The anti-immigration brigade have just as valid a point: the answer isn’t it letting everyone in. It’s not practical and doesn’t get to the root of the problem either.

I don’t make claims to objectivity because I don’t think there’s any such thing (one of the few strong opinions you’ll get out of me, for the record). I think there’s merit in both sides, but neither will take yes and no for an answer.