Impact on UK politics of lower immigration post 1997?

[Basileus Giorgios]

Thought this was an interesting one to discuss, given immigration has consistently been cited as one of the public's major concerns over the past decade or more.

I'm not sure how you'd get this scenario working, exactly: perhaps a 1992-97 Kinnock Government followed by a Tory return to power? but whatever the case, I'm more interested in how levels of net immigration below 100,000 per year would impact more broadly on British economics, politics and society up until TTL's 2015.

Any takers?

 

[Julius Vogel]

Hmm. Well, an odd POD would be to get Gould as leader of the Labour Party, as he is a NZ born citizen and surely he may be open to a Commonwealth immigration process. I really have no idea whether Gould was a serious prospect though as I've only really heard his side.

Looks like 1997 is about the point where the rate started really going up

http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/long-term-international-migration-flows-and-uk

 

[Booster Gold]

Thought this was an interesting one to discuss, given immigration has consistently been cited as one of the public's major concerns over the past decade or more.

I'm not sure how you'd get this scenario working, exactly: perhaps a 1992-97 Kinnock Government followed by a Tory return to power? but whatever the case, I'm more interested in how levels of net immigration below 100,000 per year would impact more broadly on British economics, politics and society up until TTL's 2015.

Any takers?

The problem is the UK's economy and cultural exports plus London being the capital of the world made the place a global magnet. If you really want to cut immigration, you're going to have to make it a less attractive place to be.

That being said, putting up arbitrary barriers would make London uglier and the economy most likely worse (no one wants to invest in a place behind a wall), so maybe just a quota or something. You're really just cutting off your nose to spite your face though.

 

[tofer]

You would have to get an EU exit for maximum effect maybe if the Maastricht rebels got their way and toppled the Major government. This could have lead to a general election fought on the Maastricht issue, assuming the people were not in favour you could get Britain not signing or not ratifying. Not sure on the consequences of this but if there was no pool of eastern European labour from 2003 it would be interesting to see the results.

 

[oreocruncher]

You would have to get an EU exit for maximum effect maybe if the Maastricht rebels got their way and toppled the Major government. This could have lead to a general election fought on the Maastricht issue, assuming the people were not in favour you could get Britain not signing or not ratifying. Not sure on the consequences of this but if there was no pool of eastern European labour from 2003 it would be interesting to see the results.

Or at the very least agreeing to have quotas on Eastern European immigration, because I think the UK was one of the only countries who didn't...