Lede
“Go back to your country” is not a policy. It is a distraction.

What does not make sense

• Every front page screams migrants while the real drains are elsewhere.
• Years after Brexit, we blame newcomers for low pay and empty shelves when the structural hit was baked in.
• Smart people repeat the line that immigrants steal jobs and benefits. Evidence says the effects on UK wages and employment are small.
• Adults who hire, fire, and set pay pretend they are powerless, then point at the dinghy.
• Talk of “protecting our way of life” while the richest corners keep the accountant busy and the state counts a tax gap in the tens of billions.

Sense check

If migration headlines solved anything, Britain would be a paradise by now. The numbers say otherwise. The economy has carried a long-run productivity hit since leaving the single market. Food costs rose as borders thickened. Living standards for the poorest are projected to fall further. None of that is fixed by shouting at people who came here to study, care, build, and pay tax.

The numbers worth learning by heart

• Immigration’s impact on UK-born workers’ wages and jobs is generally small.
• The OBR still assumes long-run productivity around 4% lower than if we had stayed in the EU, driven by weaker trade intensity.
• Brexit-related frictions raised food prices, with low-income households hit hardest.
• The official tax gap sits around £46.8bn a year. Even critics who think that is understated agree it is big.
• Living standards for those on very low incomes are projected to be 8% lower by the end of the decade than pre-pandemic levels.

What is really going on

The scapegoat is a shield. It keeps attention away from the quiet choices that hurt people most. Choices about trade, skills, housing, enforcement, and fair tax. Choices that take work and time, so we are offered theatre instead. It is easier to sell a slogan than to rebuild growth and dignity.

What to watch, not the show

• Ministers who obsess over small boats while ducking skills, planning, and productivity.
• Editors who run daily outrage and skip the budget tables.
• Policies that make legal migration chaotic, then complain about chaos.
• Rules on pay and safety ignored where cheap labour is convenient.
• Tax and enforcement that go soft at the top and hard at the bottom.

The Hermit take

Stop shouting at the door. Fix the house. Count the money. Build wages with skills and investment. Police abuse where it happens. Treat people as people, not props.

Keep or toss

Toss the scapegoats. Keep the facts, the receipts, and the fixes.

---

Sources

• Migration Observatory, University of Oxford. Labour market effects of immigration and migrants in the UK labour market. https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/ and https://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/migrants-in-the-uk-labour-market-an-overview/
• Office for Budget Responsibility. Brexit analysis and trade assumptions: 4% long-run productivity hit. https://obr.uk/forecasts-in-depth/the-economy-forecast/brexit-analysis/ and https://obr.uk/box/how-are-our-brexit-trade-forecast-assumptions-performing/
• LSE Centre for Economic Performance. Brexit and consumer food prices; non-tariff barriers and inflation. https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/brexit18.pdf and https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp1888.pdf
• HMRC. Measuring the UK tax gap 2023–24. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/measuring-tax-gaps/1-tax-gaps-summary
• Resolution Foundation. Living Standards Outlook 2025. https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/the-living-standards-outlook-2025/
• Reuters Institute. Digital News Report 2024 and research on immigration news dynamics. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2024/dnr-executive-summary and https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/public-opinion-party-politics-policy-and-immigration-news-united-kingdom