“An important contribution to the immigration debate”? The poisonous rhetoric of Cameron’s Lords nominee

Andrew Green has been nominated by David Cameron to be a cross-bench peer in the House of Lords. Previously an ambassador to Syria and Saudi Arabia, and former Chairperson of Medical Aid for Palestinians – it would seem that Green is a relatively uninteresting appointment. That is, until you spot the last (and current) job on his CV: founding chairperson of MigrationWatch.

MigrationWatch describes itself as an ‘independent and non-political think tank‘. But the  group – which on its website declares itself as “concerned about the present scale of immigration into the UK” – has been widely criticised on numerous occasions for presenting negatively skewed data on migration.

Yet, a senior source told the Guardian that the Government want to give Green a peerage, in part, because he has”made an important contribution to the immigration debate.” What exactly is this contribution?

Firstly, Green has raised concerns about migrants with HIV coming to the UK (sounds familiar doesn’t it?). Couching his argument in faux-logic, he says that “African immigrants account for such a large proportion of British Aids cases” and people coming to live in this country from abroad should thus be tested upon before entering the UK. This would mean he says, that not all immigrants who test positive for HIV would be barred from living here but only “for example, students with HIV should be refused as a potential danger to public health”. Well that’s ok, then. In actual fact, Green’s comments demonise and stigmatise people with HIV unnecessarily, and shows that he fails to realise that immigration here is not the issue, but treatment is.

He has also written numerous articles criticising immigration, doused in Daily Mailesque exaggeration, here are a couple of highlights from his portfolio: Immigration is making matters worse, Hold back the immigration flood, and Little to show from the tide of migration. As always, when these kinds of biblical images of foreboding are used, the facts don’t match the words.

For example, before employment restrictions were removed for Romanians and Bulgarians who wanted to come to live in the UK, Migration Watch, once again showed themselves as Ukip’s bedfellows. They predicted that there would be 50,000 people coming from these countries a year, despite all evidence suggesting contrary. And even when statistics suggested they were wrong, Green remained adamant he would be proved right.

When it comes to immigration Green is worried about ‘culture’ as well. In 2005, he wrote a letter (one of his many), declaring that immigration “should be a matter for national debate, free of accusations of racism”. However, in 2005, when there was an influx of migrants from Poland he said “we have no problem with immigration from Poland, which is valuable to all sides…The government must make a reduction in numbers from elsewhere. What they could do is reduce the number of work permits for the rest of the world.”

What does this mean?

Although he’d most likely claim his concern is rooted in economic reasons, we only need take a look at Greens musings to hazard a guess as to which places in the ‘rest of the world’ he means – and why. In a letter to the Sunday Times (£), Green wrote on integrating immigrants in the UK:

“How can we integrate people at this pace, especially as 70% of the net inflow of foreign citizens are from the distant cultures of Asia and Africa?”

The ‘problem’ of immigrants coming from ‘Asia and Africa’ Green suggests is not just economic but a lack of ‘cultural’ cohesion. Even if that argument were to stand up (which recent evidence shows that it does not), Green’s use of ‘distant’ is undeniably racialised; ‘othering’ people from countries on the Asian and African continents as fundamentally different from those in Europe.

So when Cameron says Green’s peerage is because the Government values his contribution to the immigration debate – is that demonising people with HIV, spreading inaccurate stats, or using racially charged rhetoric masquerading as reason?

Although Green’s is a non-party appointment, this is obviously another of Cameron’s poor and increasingly depressing efforts to ‘take on’ Ukip. But it’s also a worrying indicator of whose voices are valued in our political debates and indicates the dangerous direction in which this very debate is headed…