The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia):
John Newton: Labour set to remain tarnished an divided while newly enthroned May will be mistress of all she surveys
6 June 2017
Mrs May still seems to suggest that immigration should be kept under 100,000 a year while being just about the only person in the country who thinks that number should include students. Damage to university numbers is inevitable. Student admission rates are already lower this year. Her incapacity to deliver on such a KPI when Home Secretary adds the accusation of incompetence to that of pigheadedness. And is this a wise policy anyway? Recent research suggests that hitting a target of 100,000 will mean a fiscal deficit 30 per cent higher by 2066. Immigrants are regularly proven to add value and are not the burden on the state that many believe them to be. A recent report from the Centre for Economic Performance correlates the drop in immigrant numbers to falls, not rises, in living standards.
Related publications
‘Brexit and the Impact of Immigration on the UK’, Swati Dhingra, Gianmarco Ottaviano, John Van Reenen and Jonathan Wadsworth, CEP Brexit Analysis Paper No.5, May 2016