Three months ago, Home Secretary Theresa May told 420 guests at Hasmonean High School’s annual fundraising dinner that Britain was better off for immigrants - in fact, that diversity was the very reason for our success as a nation.
Speaking with pride and certainty, she declared: “Britain is an amazing country, a thriving liberal country precisely because of the cooperation between peoples of different faiths and backgrounds.
“It is at the heart of what makes this country such a great place to live, and is something we must always work hard to protect.”
This contrasts sharply with the speech she made on the third day of the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester this week.
She said: “When immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society.”
She didn’t specify what “too high” or “too fast” entailed, but her language was troubling.
“Impossible,” she said about mass migration. And yet, 200,000 Jews moved from eastern Europe to east London at the turn of the century, when 50,000 served with the British forces in the First World War and 30,000 in the Second World War, when the Jewish community flourished throughout the 20th and 21st centuries in a variety of fields. Was that not part of a cohesive society?
She continued: “Of course, immigrants plug skills shortages and it’s right that we should try to attract the best talent in the world, but not every person coming to Britain right now is a skilled electrician, engineer or doctor.”
No. Of course they’re not. Not every eastern European Jewish immigrant was either. But just like back then, Britain needs people for so-called low-skilled work.
We need nurses, carers and cleaners to do the jobs which those already living here don’t want to do - 140,000 every year, according to Stephen Nickell at the Office for Budget Responsibility, who said the NHS would be in a “dire” situation without immigrants.
As has also been mentioned repeatedly but seemingly not enough, Mr Nickell said that Britain has “masses of room” for refugees and migrants, a statement backed up by the fact that our country is 6.8 per cent urban.
The director generals of both the Institute of Directors and the Confederation of British Industry have condemned the speech, with the IoD’s Simon Walker calling it “irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment,” while CBI head John Cridland told BBC Radio 4 that it would negatively affect workers who “add hugely to the collective economic strength of the economy”.
Mrs May also said that “for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.”
As the Telegraph’s James Kirkup has pointed out, an analytical review of the evidence by Mrs May’s department found that “there is relatively little evidence that migration has caused statistically significant displacement of UK natives from the labour market”.
Even when native workers are affected, the report continues, the effect is not permanent: “The evidence also suggests that where there has been a displacement effect from a particular cohort of migrants, this dissipates over time”.
It is one thing for a politician to spin statistics or make statements to pander to certain sections of their party. But when it affects people in tangible, negative ways, we should not be silent.
In July, Mrs May called Hasmonean a “remarkable” institution because it proved that “you can be a proud Orthodox Jew and a contributing member of British society.”
In which case, it figures that other races, religions and cultures are capable of achieving similar integration and similar usefulness to society.
As she told the assorted teachers, students, parents and donors: “No-one should live in fear because of who they are.”
And that goes for everyone.
