I confess. I’m a geographer with a geeky interest in demographics. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in the last few weeks. Why? Because the EU referendum debate has left me feeling that the leave campaigners could urgently do with a crash course in GCSE geography, with an hour of 20th century history thrown in.
I remember being sat in Mr Jones’s classes at Churchfields comprehensive in Swindon learning about migration, population pyramids, regional development and the unequal speed at which different countries have developed, and I loved it all. It helped me make sense of the TV images of my childhood and gave me answers to the questions my parents couldn’t answer – famine in Africa, the miners’ strikes, why were some people rich and some people poor?
If the last few months have confirmed anything, it’s that the leave campaign is obsessed with immigration. It is blamed for all of our ills. The housing crisis, overcrowded A&E departments, fractured communities and a loss of identity. Why is it that only one aspect of our demography gets all the attention? What about our ageing population and the growth of single-person households? We are living longer and our population is growing. As we age, we remain in our homes. More couples divorce; families are split, living in two properties instead of one. Do we have a housing crisis? Yes, absolutely. Is it all the fault of migrants? No.
Take the NHS. I’ve visited more hospitals in the past nine months than I have in my previous 40 years. Have I seen queues of migrants at the door of A&E? No. What have I seen? Emergency admission units and rehabilitation wards full of frail, older people, who end up in hospital because they’ve had a crisis and who can’t be discharged because the support is not available for them at home or in the community. Of course migration into, out of and within the UK has its impacts, but let’s not pretend that the failure of government to address one of the key public policy challenges of our time – our ageing population – does not have consequences too.
I was also taught at school that one of the founding principles of co-operation in Europe was to help our poorer neighbours to develop economically – to create a bigger market for our exports, to level out the inequalities on our continent which cause resentment and division.
I was taught in my geography lessons that migration had push factors as well as pull factors. And as I have grown up, I’ve known that had I not had the good fortune to be born in one of the richest countries in the world, I would have done whatever it took to create a better life for myself – and if that had meant moving to another country, I would have gone. I dare say Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson would have done the same.
If we want to see lower levels of immigration, surely we have a direct interest in strengthening the economies of our European neighbours and increasing the opportunities for their populations at home in their own countries? If we want lower levels of non-EU immigration too, surely we must remain committed to our wider overseas development programme and to international efforts to expand trading links and opportunities?
The answer to immigration is not to put up fences and build walls but to work together to create a more equal Europe and a more equal world. I am a Labour MP because this is what I believe. It is why my postal vote has already been despatched to stay within the EU, and it’s why I feel distressed and disillusioned by the one-sided, simplistic and at times sickening campaign of those who want us to leave.
I can’t bear the thought of waking up on 24 June to find us trying to turn back the clock to a time that has never existed. Families cross international borders like never before, business spans continents and not just countries. We must look to the future and not allow narrow nostalgia and blinkered policy prescriptions to dominate our national debate.
