{"id":11299,"date":"2020-06-12T15:44:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-12T15:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=11299"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:31","slug":"mixed-messages-on-migration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2020\/06\/mixed-messages-on-migration\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed messages on migration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A pandemic is a long time in politics. So we should not be surprised that our notoriously inconsistent Prime Minister now urges EU citizens to come back to the UK.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only a few months ago, during the General Election campaign, he was accusing them of having treated the UK as though it were \u2018basically part of their own country\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps Boris Johnson should ask himself the question which many EU citizens will be asking themselves: why exactly should we \u2018come back\u2019 to the UK? Some of those who left at the start of the pandemic did so because they were scared by the way which the UK government did not appear to be taking seriously the evidence before its eyes of what was helping elsewhere in the world. I know of a number of people who chose to return \u2013 even to Italy \u2013 as soon as they could, because they thought that country was taking more drastic action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of those might well take some persuasion that the UK\u2019s way out of the lockdown is coherent and effective so that it is safe to return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even those who might not be so worried about coronavirus may well see the UK\u2019s confused response to the pandemic as evidence of a wider incompetence and failure at the heart of the Britain. The traditional image as a beacon of good governance and social cohesion is one which has been dramatically undermined in the years since Brexit \u2013 damage which I suspect may take a long time to repair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Free to move? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course, some EU citizens will still come to the UK during the rest of 2020, while they are still able to do so freely during the transition period. Some will still find the opportunity of higher earnings and a better life in the UK than they could have in their own state (although the differences are not so great in some countries as they were when the EU expanded in 2004). Others will have family or other personal reasons to move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But there will also be another factor which will deter people coming to the UK \u2013 the language of those politicians and media who still talk the language of the \u2018hostile environment\u2019 to migrants, whether from the EU or elsewhere in the world. You sometimes wonder if those who talk like that think that people in other countries don\u2019t use the internet, or read the newspapers \u2013 or, shock \u2013 actually understand English and can (and do) watch the BBC, even including parliamentary debates. But they can \u2013 and when they put the pleas to \u2018return to the UK\u2019 side by side with the Home Secretary\u2019s proud boast \u201cwe are ending freedom of movement\u201d, they are more likely to come to their own conclusion as to the likely trajectory of UK policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that reference to the Home Secretary\u2019s quote about the government\u2019s new immigration bill highlights the biggest reason why EU citizens will find it more difficult to come to the UK to live and work after the end of the transition period, along with others \u2013 because UK policy and laws will be designed to deter them from coming here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Change the language<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The mixed message from the UK government towards migration needs to change. Even without European freedom of movement, which realistically is not going to continue for the UK after the end of the transition period, there are many things which should be done to make the UK a \u2018welcoming\u2019 and not a \u2018hostile\u2019 environment towards immigrants, from whichever part of the world they choose to come. There is a long list of things that the UK needs need to do: I list a few of those which are particularly relevant to EU citizens, simply because that is the topic with which I am most familiar and the area in which I work and volunteer.  The government should:<\/p>\n\n\n\n