October 17, 2023 - 7:30am
As the crisis in Israel escalates and regional tensions rise, masses of Palestinians are being displaced from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south. It is well-known that this situation is unsustainable and it seems only a matter of time before they flood into Egypt. If this occurs, or if the conflict broadens across the region, it could have enormous implications for immigration into Europe.
This is one factor absent from a new study, widely reported in the media, that claims that immigration levels into the UK are in the process of falling dramatically. The study by the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford predicts that immigration will fall from its current high of 606,000 people to around 250,000-350,000 by 2030. It is an impressive piece of work, and the methodology is as thorough as it comes, but like all modelling exercises, the devil lies in the detail.
In many ways, the study’s assumptions are quite modest. The authors assume that, apart from the inflows of Ukrainians we have seen due to the war, inward migration will remain at current levels. The study stipulates that immigration will fall from a peak of 955,000 in 2022 to around 780,000 by 2025 and stay there. Meanwhile in the coming years, emigration will rise significantly from 229,000 in 2022 to 447,000 by 2030.
The rationale for this assumption is very straightforward: by looking at the past “stay rates” among the current groups of immigrants, the authors can predict future stay rates and hence future levels of migration. In other words, outward emigration rates have not yet caught up with the large surge in inward immigration over the last few years. At some point, however, some of the new immigrants will leave as, say, their work or study visas expire.
Economists typically refer to a “base case scenario” — that is, a conservative case made on a minimum of assumptions. On this measure, the Migration Observatory’s work is perfectly robust. The present levels of migration are mechanically unsustainable because the rate of emigration has not yet adjusted to consider the higher immigration. But does this tell the whole story?
The first point to make is that the recent spike in immigration to Britain is strongly correlated with the tightness of the labour market. As the chart below shows, net migration — that is, the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants — has risen as the amount of unemployed people per job vacancy has fallen. This is a fairly reliable correlation.
With the housing market currently collapsing in the face of higher interest rates, and housing construction investment drying up, it seems very likely that Britain will fall into recession in the coming six to 18 months. When it does, unemployment will rise, and net migration should fall. Many of the immigrants coming to Britain work in the construction sector, so if the housing market collapses, this effect should be felt quite quickly. This drop-off may have a deterrent effect on any prospective UK immigrants.
Working on the other side of the equation, however, is the crisis developing in the Middle East. The population of the Gaza Strip is around 2.1 million people, and they are under intense fire by the Israeli Defence Forces. Currently the plan is to allow only people with foreign passports through the checkpoint into Egypt, but this feels like an accident waiting to happen as desperate people line up to try to force their way through if need be.
The Arab countries have no interest, and few incentives, to take in the Palestinians, so it seems perfectly plausible that they will make their way to Europe. Indeed, the Greek migration minister Dimitris Keridis warned about this scenario just last week. The 2015 migration crisis in Europe was triggered by 1.3 million people fleeing the region after the collapse of the Libyan government. With anywhere up to 2.1 million Palestinians being made homeless, and a real possibility that the conflict could spread, the crisis in the Gaza Strip could easily trigger another wave.
So while a recession may have a depressionary effect on immigration, a far larger crisis — caused in the Middle East — could trigger something far more severe in the opposite direction.
Philip Pilkington is a macroeconomist and investment professional, and the author of The Reformation in Economics
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SubscribeWhy don’t Arab countries want to accept fellow Arabs as new citizens?
I was wondering that myself.
Exactly.
The Palestinians are Arabic speaking Sunni Muslims. They would not be too hard to integrate into nearby Arab countries.
There are large, populous, wealthy countries in the area.
Why haven’t Egypt, KSA and the rest taken them, any time since 1948?
Ask the Jordanians about integrating Palestinians into their society. Or the Lebanese, if you can still find any. No one wants the Palestinians, but even more, no one wants their leadership class. Who can blame them?
Remember the Kuwaiti refusal to take Syrian refugees during crisis of 2015?
Kuwaiti political commentator Fahd al-Shelaimi said in an interview with France 24 Arabic:
Actually, we in the West are expected to accept the world and it’s trauma – no matter how high our cost of living!
The Iranians know v well that if this triggers an immigration crisis for Europe or Sunni Arab nations that suits them and will have been part of the calculus. They saw how Assad used that.
One theory as to why the Hamas attack now is that Iran pressed for it to prevent what seemed an emerging potential deal whereby Saudi and Egyptian peace keeping force helped police Gaza zone as part of a deal whereby Israel relaxed certain constraints – such as flights into and out of Gaza. The Iranians have certainly scuppered that for now, although one can deduce it’s what Blinken is trying to get the Israeli’s to keep on the table.
As regards a human route to Europe for displaced Palestinians – not so easy as have to travel through Israel. But undoubtedly traffickers in due course will seek a way. Thus why we need to get behind the sort of deal that was emerging before the attack.
A game of chess to lofty armchair strategists such as yourself. I guess a visceral reaction would be too vulgar and tabloidish.
Not entirely Sats. Daughter on Warship in eastern Med. Can’t tell me exactly what they are doing there of course, but highly likely counter threat to Hezbollah launching missiles at Israel.
Having served myself I’ve had the visceral reaction to scenes of utter carnage. Never leaves you but rarely alone solves anything.
Why don’t we want to accept fellow Europeans in Britain?
You are out of luck in pursuing this line. King Abdullah said this morning that the red line for Egypt and Jordan is refugees. Not going to happen whatever argument you think you have here.
‘Why don’t we want to accept fellow Europeans in Britain?’
What are you on about?
We have Ukrainian refugees in Britain. Polish is the second most spoken language in England. There are 300,000 French people in London….
Do you think people will be as welcoming of Palestinian refugees as they are of Ukrainian refugees?
Perhaps the best outcome would be for the Gaza strip to be completely cleared of Palestinians and handed over to Israeli settlers. Let the Muslim nations absorb the Palestinians – the more thinly spread the better. We definitely do not want them and their historic grievances in Europe. The idea that we owe them sanctuary is on a par with that post colonial con, that we owe every third-worlder a better life.
What gives us the right to dictate to other Muslim nations that they must absorb refugees?
It is that sort of ‘colonial’, as you put it, attitude that caused the problems in the first place. It’s a hard ‘no’ on that from Egypt and Jordan. Should we coerce them?
No absolutely not.
They are Sunni Muslims for a start so why would they want to come to this country
The Palestinians caused a literal civil war in Jordan, created a terrorist group in Lebanon, suicide bombed Egypt and supported the Muslim brotherhood and supported Iraqs invasion of Kuwait. They’ve brought destruction and violence into every Arab nation that’s attempted to house them.
Many years ago it was posited that the Arab countries want to maintain the situation in Israel to use to their advantage when necessary.
Because they know very well that they would destablise the host nation. That’s just the majority – a few will be Hamas terrorists interested only in spreading slaughter wherever they go. and there is no way of knowing who they are.
Because if there weren’t a permanent group of oppressed people clamouring for land and justice, there wouldn’t be a reason to oppose Israel’s existence, would there?
Jordan doesn’t want Palestinians refugees because the PLO sparked a civil war there in 1970. Egypt does not want Palestinians because of an Islamist insurgency in northern Sinai in 2013. It wants to prevent infiltration by militants from Hamas – which shares an ideology with the Muslim Brotherhood, a group outlawed in Egypt. Iran doesn’t want them because they are Sunni. In fact Iran, would never tolerate Palestinians in its own country.
Half of Jordans population is Palestinian refugee descended. They’ve also got hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Turkey has millions. It’s just not correct to say that they don’t take any refugees
The PLO and a massive wave of refugees also sparked a civil war in 1970. There’s a reason Jordan will not accept Palestinian refugees.
Frickin censors at Unherd are a joke. There is a good reason for this but two of my comments have been booted by the thugs that run this operation.
My whole thread disappeared a couple of hours ago. It wasn’t very popular.
Lots of reasons, none of which seem to have entered the consciousness of our own open borders enthusiasts.
Palestinian refugees would be trouble, not simply an economic burden. Why would Sunni Saudi Arabia want to import thousands of Iranian-backed Hamas fighters? Likewise Jordan and Egypt.
Equally, keeping Gaza as a bubbling cauldron of unrest suits the Arab world as it keeps Israel on the back foot and requires massive military spending from them. The Palestinians could have been assimilated into the surrounding countries at any time in the past 60 years but it suits the Arab states to keep them where they are. It’s only in the West that diversity is seen as strength.
Anyway, who’d want to go and live as a second class citizen in Saudi when you can come to Europe and be fed, watered and housed for free?
Only white people are stupid enough to fall for the idea that massive amounts of immigration is a good idea.
Exactly!!! No other country would allow the native population to be completely overrun like this.
They don’t want them and also don’t have politicians who get rewarded for virtue signaling about letting them in.
Arab countries are very tribal. They do not want other “tribes” setting up their tents in their localities.
I’m sure the usual suspects are already constructing the narrative.
“Unprovoked, colonialist Israel caused this problem, and we have to step up and help solve the humanitarian crisis by opening our doors to Palestinians in huge numbers. After all, previous waves of Muslim immigrants have been an unmitigated boon for the UK!”
Hit the nail on the head!
Lets be clear about this. If this happens the UK will be flooded by a large number of peope who are either members of Hamas or supporters of Hamas.
The reality is that the vast majority of Gazans support the aims of Hamas in terms of the destruction of Israel even if they dont always approve of its methods
Don’t worry everyone, with the help of UK based Muslim charities, Palestinian groups have long been establishing illegal settlements in Northern Syria (Western Kurdistan/Rojava), over the top of Kurdish towns that were destroyed by ISIS and ethnically cleansed through Turkey’s subsequent invasion and ongoing occupation of Kurdish territories.
Thousands of Kurdish families were murdered and forcibly displaced from towns like Afrin, which are now little more than jihadist training grounds for Turkish backed Islamist groups and such brave Palestinian decolonisers.
There is a long and shameful history of prominent Palestinians cheering for the genocidal campaigns against Kurdish people by their brutal occupiers. Arafat personally visited Saddam Hussein to congratulate him on the ‘Anfal’ campaign, which – in a matter of months – massacred 170,000 Kurdish civilians in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan under the supervision of Saddam’s cousin, ‘Chemical Ali’. I see so many prominent second generation Palestinian activists in the West, these anti-colonial darlings of the left, boasting even now of genocidal Baathist dictators that would make Netanyahu be the greatest ally to Palestinian ‘decolonisation’ by comparison. The shameless dissonance and hypocrisy of these people is astounding.
https://www.globalissues.org/news/2023/07/18/34276
How about the international community forcefully suggesting that the surrounding Arab states should shoulder the burden and offer shelter to their co-religionists? Making the point that if they choose not to then they give up any moral right to ever criticise Israel or blame the West for the palestinian cause.
I think Europe’s Jewish population is scarred and haunted enough without letting in thousands of people who are, by every metric and piece of polling data, virulently anti-Semitic.
No one knows the pre-2020 immigration figures into the UK.
All the ONS figures you see quoted here are based on surveys handed out to a tiny sample of new arrivals in airports.
What we do know is that when existing EU immigrants were offered Right to Remain from 2020, three times the number of people that the ONS thought had ever arrived from the EU applied for one of these visas!
Additionally we know from the census data that the population of the UK grew from 60mn to 68mn between 2003 and 2022. We also know that the birth rate was below the replacement rate during that period. Therefore there were at least 8mn immigrants in those 19 years or 421k per year (in fact there were probably more as the birthrate was a long way below replacement).
So the 2000-2020 ONS figures that Migration Observatory relies on are out by 200k-300k.
Also the table in this article is a good example of “correlation is not causation”. While the relationship looks like it is between unemployment and immigration, it is actually showing that unemployment spiked and immigration fell during the Lockdowns. The cause of both was the Lockdown and so they were not dependent on one another.
‘The Arab countries have no interest, and few incentives, to take in the Palestinians….’
Aren’t Palestinians Arabs?
Why are Palestinians elected to the Knesset always called ‘Arabs’, even if they were born in what is allegedly called ‘Palestine’?
In fact, they call themselves arabs
We know what happened last time surrounding countries accepted Palestinians.
Jordan was forced to throw them out of the country, and a new terrorist group ‘Black September’ formed to attack the Jordanian Prime Minister and the Jordanian ambassador to London and an attack on the Saudi embassy in Khartoum.
Little wonder that Egypt does not want Palestinians and has closed the border to Gaza.
Doesn’t China have a housing glut?
I keep reading about all these empty apartment buildings throughout the country and veritable “ghost cities.” So why not give a little vibrant diversity to the People’s Republic?
Wouldn’t Shanghai and Beijing enjoy their very own “Global Day of Jihad.”
Look what happened with the Syrian refugees. The Arab countries either did not want them or the environment and support systems in European countries were more inviting.
We have a similar situation here in the US. People feeling persecution, crime, violence or poor economic prospects from Latin America do not stop in Mexico – where they would not be persecuted like in say Venezuela, they continue on to the US and enter illegally.
Sadly, few counties want Gazans in their midst. Even Iran does not want them. However, Hamas wants them for propaganda purposes to show their deaths when Israel retaliates for the massacre and torture (e.g., being burned alive) of its citizens.
The countries that are funding Hamas to continue fighting Israel are morally responsible for Palestinians refugees. So, obviously they should migrate to Iran and Qatar. Europe should not bear the burden of irresponsible countries.
Exactly
‘The Arab countries have no interest, and few incentives, to take in the Palestinians….’
Aren’t Palestinians Arabs?
Why are Palestinians elected to the Knesset always called ‘Arabs’, even if they were born in what is allegedly called ‘Palestine’?
Could it be that those Sunni majority countries in the ME, see migration of their co-religionists to the West as the perfect vehicle for the spread of Sunni Islam?
The Arab nations do not want to accept these refugees because they are radicalized. It would be a grave mistake and a massive security risk for us to let them in.
The author dispassionately describes the second Nakba. Even moderate Israeli voices can call it for what it is.
Most do not want to leave, so if/when they are forced out, I hope that those justifying or ignoring Israel’s war crimes in Gaza will welcome them into this country. This is not Europe’s problem this time; the responsibility to take these refugees will fall primarily on the US and UK here.
Why? We are Israel’s primary backers in the conflict. The UK bears special responsibility historically.
That won’t happen, of course. We will simply expect somebody else to absorb the problem. We will get up in arms about terrorists in boats coming across the channel.
Actions have consequences.
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????? So, as Israel’s primary backer, so your argument goes, we the (UK /US) are responsible for looking after Israel’s enemies (and not necessarily friends of ours either) ?
Aren’t you forgetting Iran’s HUGE thumbprint all over the Middle East, and it’s visceral hatred of Jews, and Israel in particular. Do they not have an obligation to look after the ‘collateral’ side effect of the war that they had formented ?
A second Nakba, a crime against humanity, will only be enabled under US and UK cover.
Iran’s role since 1917 has been far less than the UK’s initiation of the conflict and the US’s maintenance of it.
If you want to give some refugees to Iran, what is that percentage? How many Palestinian Christians and Sunni Muslims shall we relocate there?
Ah, Palestinian Christians… Whatever happened to them?
There are still 1-3k in Gaza, according to different estimates.
So while the population of Gaza increases from 300,000 in 1969 to 2.2 million, the number of Palestinian Christians in Gaza plummets to less than 0.2% of the population
The whole Palestinian cause has been Islamised and hijacked by Islamists. It helps them market this cause globally. Most muslims around the world now actually believe that this is a conflict between jews and muslims!
You don’t think ‘terrorists in boats coming across the channel’ is anything to worry about, then?
Your hatred of this country is astonishing.
There will be very few terrorists in boats; that is just how they will be painted. There will be a great many Palestinian civilians, though.
They shouldn’t be in boats if we are going to provide cover for a second Nakba. They should be in planes.
Few terrorists?
Are you implying that Hamas had no mandate from the Palestinian people to behead babies?
How did Hamas get elected?
The last election was in 2006. 50% of the inhabitants are children. What percentage of the population alive today do you think voted for Hamas?
Free Palestine from Hamas dictatorship.
Even Nik Jewell knows Hamas have no mandate.
We are finally agreed on something – Hamas has no mandate. If they have no mandate, how are the Palestinian people accountable for the terrorist atrocities, as you imply above?
Civilians are not accountable for the actions of Hamas, just like Russian people are not responsible for Putin.
‘There will be very few terrorists in boats’
Oh, that’s all right then. There was only one at the Manchester Arena and he killed 23 people. Most of the victims were young girls. They seem to prefer killing young girls, they’ve just done it again in Israel.
The terrorists are in Gaza. Do you think we should push them out of Gaza?
They don’t stay in Gaza now, do they…
Not when Shin Bet and the IDF drop the ball.
Cmon Nick. Let’s get real here. Hamas is a death cult. They indoctrinate children at a young age to absolutely despise Jews, and willingly die to kill them. The education system is used to indoctrinate children, similar to that in the west, but much much more intensively. Palestinian civilians do not deserve to die – full stop – but to think the majority of them are a blank slate just happy to arrive somewhere and forget their hatred of Jews is silly. The Hamas leader has explicitly stated that Jews love life and Hamas loves death.
Hamas intentionally embeds itself among civilians, places its headquarters, arsenals and infrastructure under hospitals, schools, apartment blocks and mosques, all of which are crimes under international law.
From firing its rockets behind its civilian human shield, Hamas has struck out to murder women, children, whole families. It has murdered parents and stolen their children and taken numerous hostages and run back to hide among civilians knowing they will pay the price for its butchery. This, again, is a war crime.
Actions have consequences. So does inaction. If Israel does not retaliate in the strongest terms it would face attack after attack from all directions and in due course enough of its army and citizens would be dead that the remainder would be forced to flee, Israel would cease to exist, and Jews would again be homeless refugees.
Surrounded by enemies and faced with such an existential threat, if you were Israel, what would you do?
Pursue a two-state or single-state solution.
Just to be clear: you are recommending that Israel forget about the attack and start to negotiate with the terrorists who have just killed their people?
Then you think it a good idea that Israel consider a one state solution that would have Israelis live among the murderers and become a voting minority in a country of people, the majority of whom want them dead?
On a “two-state solution”; Hamas and the majority of Palestinians don’t want a “two state solution”; they want the destruction of Israel. When Israel left Gaza in 2005 there was hope Palestinians would use the opportunity to materially benefit their circumstances. Instead they elected Hamas and used Gaza as a base to attack Israel. There is no reason to suggest that if they were given further territorial concessions, they would not do precisely the same again.
As I said, for Israel this is about the reality of life and death of themselves and their country; it isn’t a sixth form talking point. They will do what they need to do to survive. When one strips everything away, for Israelis, it is a case of: us or them.
It has been about the reality of life and death for Palestinians for 75 years.
How do you know what the majority of Palestinians want?
What is your solution?
What is yours?
I just stated it above. Not easy to get there, but what are the equitable alternatives?
What is yours?
There have been polls of Palestinians which show just this. As they are denied elections, this is the only indicators we have.
The only solution is the Palestinians giving up the idea of destroying Israel. If that happens, a two state solution might become possible but not in my lifetime.
It starts with the destruction of Hamas. After that Palestinians in Gaza can decide if they wish to continue to support self-destructive attacks on Israel, or follow the example of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank and work to improve relations with Israel.
That hasn’t really helped the people of the Occupied West Bank much, has it? Nearly 60 are dead this week, they’re under a blockade now and they didn’t attack Israel.
Hamas attacks Israel, forcing Israel to respond. This in causes conflict in the West Bank, necessitating a lock down of the West Bank by Israel. How is that not an argument for destroying Hamas?
As per my post in the other topic today, I doubt if it will be possible to destroy Hamas.
Nice post
There is no moral relativism here. Any who try to equate the actions of Israel with that of Hamas is either ignorant or evil.
I’m not sure which category you fall into – but any attempt to draw moral parity between the people who deliberately murder women and children and the people who are attempting to avoid killing civilians, but cannot avoid it when Hamas are deliberately hiding behind women and children, is as absurd as it is chilling.
Hamas is deliberately putting Gazan civilians into the firing line. They want the Israelis to attack and kill as many civilians as possible in the collateral damage , because it encourages apologists like you to try and draw a moral equivalence.
I say again, anyone who tries to claim they are equivalent is either an idiot or morally bankrupt.
Show me where I am equating the actions of Hamas and Israel, please.
Downvoters – perhaps you can tell me? I have written a lot on this topic in the past few days, so you have plenty to go on.
Can you find any statements of moral equivalence, apologies or justifications for October 7th? I don’t think so. I called it out as atrocities and terror from the start, and my position has not changed.