If you want to make immigration work, make it a care issue

The descent into the kind of rhetoric which was once the preserve of the far right has been perhaps the most visible shift in politics in Britain. The way the Labour Party now talks about immigration would have been unthinkable a short while ago. It seems as if an anti-immigrant consensus has now descended on Westminster.

This is all focussed on the question of the impact that immigrants have on their host nation. While Keir Starmer is coming uncomfortably close to language which implies a kind of genetic of ethnic fear of 'miscegenation', the justifications he uses are about the negative outcomes on wages, social services and communities rather than ethnic purity.

However, very few of these outcomes are dependent on whether someone in a given community is 'local' or not. What is key is the same thing which is always key to whether societies work. First, is there social cohesion – do strong local cultural and structural factors bind the community together? Social cohesion is very clearly weakening in places where there isn't high immigration. It's not just an immigration effect.

The second factor is economic absorption – can the local economy absorb new entrants without those new entrants distorting the conditions of that economy for others? Once again, there is bountiful evidence that our economy is structured in a way that it is not able to absorb large numbers of of new entrants on anything like the average terms of those already in the workforce.

The third factor is social service provision – can local services support additional people drawing on those services? Once again, if we look across Scotland, you don't need to be in an area where there is a high rate of immigration to find it difficult to get a GP appointment. If social services are struggling already then yes, more immigration will make it harder in the short term.

The fourth factor is the wellbeing of the members of the community – are each of them in a position to be healthy, active, positive members of a community? You will not get effective communities where there are really high levels of depression, or mental health problems, or addiction.

Of these factors, the first three are basically blind to the nature of the member of the community concerned. An economy which cannot absorb a low-skill migrant cannot absorb a low-skill native, a GP surgery which cannot give an immigrant a prompt appointment cannot give an elderly woman who has always lived in the community a prompt appointment.

Indeed, these issues 'solve each other' if the economy and public services are in a healthy state. If members of a community can access decently-paid jobs they will then pay tax which enables the planning and funding of expanded public services.

If the economy is weak, public services are under strain and social cohesion is low, nothing will produce positive outcomes for the community. But there are two things which can at least help to manage the process.

First, planning. There is an unrealistic attitude to expanding population which sees it as something 'we'll deal with when it happens'. If you know you are likely to see an expanding population in the future you must train more doctors and teachers now. If you take steps to bring in large numbers of refugees in one go (as we did over Ukraine) you need to take steps to deal with the consquences in the short term.

But above all, the main thing you can do to make immigration work is recognise that it is mainly a care issues. The issues that someone new to a society or culture will face are similar to those that someone emerging from a long period of depression might face – how to integrate into a community that is or has become unfamiliar?

And of course some immigrants have a series of additional care needs relating to language and adapting to local cultures and customs. Common Weal believes that we should have attractive, humane and efficient immigration processing centres at ports and the border where any immigration which is not fully pre-arranged would be administered quickly and efficiently.

Then whomever is welcomed into Scotland would be paired immediately with a care worker from the local care hub of a National Care Service. They would then support the acclimatisation and integration of those who settle in Scotland. This can all be a very positive process for all involved, including the community.

But that doesn't mean we can be unrealistic about immigration. We absolutely do have serious problems in our economy and public services and we definitely do see a lot of communities will declining levels of social cohesion. We are not best placed to make a genuinely good job of bringing anyone into our society just now. And the global statistics on volumes of mass migration are alarming. This is a global issue and cannot be fixed in Scotland alone.

What we absolutely can do is make the very best job possible of supporting whomever does come and live in Scotland, for the benefit of all. Read more in our book Sorted.