Few political issues expose the differences between Scotland and England like immigration.
Over the last 48 hours, the Conservatives and Labour at Westminster have been locked in a struggle to show who can sound tougher on immigration. The fires have been stoked by government statistics on net migration, showing numbers are up, for the first time in two years, with visitors from the EU rising while those from outside the EU have dropped. As hysteria mounts about rule changes allowing access to the UK labour market for Romanian and Bulgarian workers on January 1, the Prime Minister has promised a ban on new arrivals claiming out-of-work benefits for three months and to deport any who are found begging. Her Majesty's Opposition at Westminster has offered to help.
What this apparent consensus utterly fails to reflect is that there is, thankfully, a markedly different attitude to immigration in Scotland. Some Scots do have concerns about it, but it is not a core election issue as it is in many parts of England. A survey by Oxford University in 2011 showed higher levels of support in Scotland than any other part of Britain for substantially increased immigration. Consequently the tone of the debate in Scotland is calmer and more positive.
The Scottish Government has hailed its intention to attract more immigrants to Scotland to boost the economy but the SNP did not invent the policy: their Labour-LibDem predecessors promoted higher immigration as a solution to a feared drop in population. Former First Minister Jack McConnell devised the Fresh Talent initiative to tempt foreign graduates to stay in Scotland and would have gone further were it not, apparently, for the opposition of the Labour Government at Westminster. Scotland needs and welcomes those who bring their skills and talents from overseas.
None of this is to say that there is a case for unchecked immigration. It should be acknowledged that those born outside the UK made up 7.2% of the Scottish population in 2012 compared with 12.3% in the UK as a whole and 13.5% in England, so Scotland has less experience of immigration overall than England. Scotland is certainly not immune to community tensions. Yet Scots should be proud of the country's more constructive, welcoming approach as a debate rages at a UK level that is at times openly xenophobic.
The Prime Minister is playing a dangerous game. On his watch, a notion has been allowed to take root that EU migrants are gearing up to live off Britain's benefits system, but the reality as demonstrated by the Government's own research is that migrants are much less likely to claim benefits than people born in the UK: only 7% of overseas-born people living in the UK claim working age benefits, compared with 17% of British nationals. Unsurprisingly, those who leave their home countries to go abroad are motivated self-starters who want to work. Mr Cameron is responding to the Ukip threat, but by singling out Romanians and Bulgarians - many of whom are employed doing essential jobs such as care work and nursing - he runs the risk of increasing public hostility towards those groups.
Immigration is not to be feared and when politicians rail against it, it is not in Scotland's best interests.
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