Don’t listen to the naysayers – immigration is the real Brexit success story

There is one area in which Britain is excelling, but it is an awkward one, writes Marie Le Conte

The weather may be bad and the taxes may be high, but you just can’t keep them away (Getty)

There is a reason why spinning is so important in politics. Parties may have aims and slogans, beliefs and goals, but everything doesn’t always go to plan. Reality often crashes into whatever it was you had planned, and you still need to find a way through that will mean you get to save face.

It isn’t lying, not exactly; merely a constant readjustment, always happening in the background and in public. Oh, you thought this is what we wanted? No, you see, that is what we were always going for, which is why the fact that this didn’t happen but that did is actually a victory for us – easy mistake to make! And so on.

Brexit has been especially tough to spin because, to be blunt, few unalloyed good things have happened so far. Because it cannot be outright lying, spinning needs at the very least a grain of truth to begin with, and there isn’t much great news to go around.

Well, there is one area in which Britain is excelling, but it is an awkward one. By June 2016, when the country voted to leave the European Union, annual net migration to Britain had risen to 336,000 a year. This, pundits and politicians agreed, was one of the main reasons why the referendum went the way it did.

Seven years on, the Office for National Statistics is now on the cusp of announcing that net migration has reached over double that figure, making it a record year. The people who arrived here in the past year weren’t, for the most part, refugees arriving on boats. They are migrants who came to Britain legally, from Afghanistan, Hong Kong, Ukraine and elsewhere.

They came because Britain was a safe haven, away from their war-torn or repressive countries. A large number of them also came to study in some of the world’s best universities. It should be seen as a success story. It is a success story.

The doomsters and gloomsters huffed and puffed and said that Britain would collapse after Brexit. They warned that the country was shutting itself off from the rest of the world and that it would be treated with scorn and concern by everyone else, and they were wrong. More people than ever are deciding to take a punt, move here and call the UK their home.

The weather may be bad and the taxes may be high, but you just can’t keep them away; Britain is where they want to be. It’s enough to make even my heart swell with patriotic pride, and I’m not even from here.

Of course, it is deeply ironic. Immigration is the one thing the Brexit vote was due to solve, and it is the one area in which the country is now thriving. Somewhere, in 2016, a monkey’s paw curled a finger, and here we are.

The government has predictably reacted by panicking and promising to get the numbers down again, but it doesn’t feel like the right approach. A good political class is one that seamlessly adapts to the hand it has been dealt, even if it isn’t the ideal one.

As successive Tory prime ministers found out, getting immigration down is easier said than done. Isn’t it time to try a different approach? We know from the past decade of polling that most people’s opinions on the topic are fairly malleable. Not too long ago, it’d fallen off the list of issues voters cared most about.

What would happen if this rise was spun as a great compliment paid to Britain by the world? What if it was seen as a sign that the UK actually is a brilliant place to live in?

Arguments should also be made about institutions like the NHS needing foreign workers to keep ticking along, but they won’t win hearts and minds. Being seen as a desirable country is far more flattering than knowing you desperately need new blood just to keep functioning.

Obviously, none of this will happen, at least not under this government. There is no point pretending otherwise. Still, isn’t it nice (if frustrating) to daydream about spin being used for good, for once? Isn’t it pleasant to picture a world in which immigration isn’t always treated as an embarrassing problem to be swept under the carpet?

Brexit has mostly been a failure so far but there is one way in which it has succeeded. Can’t that be celebrated?