Migrationwatch - Reaction To The Group

Reaction To The Group

MigrationWatch has received criticism in some sections of the media and from academics, as well as praise from other commentators.

It has been characterised as a right-wing lobby or pressure group by some commentators and academics.

An August 2002 editorial in The Independent concerning the Migrationwatch prediction of two million migrants in the following decade carried the title "A nasty little group playing an old, and unwelcome, trick" and stated that "Migration Watch is, of course, no think tank, but a pressure group with a distinctly unpleasant agenda". It has been argued that MigrationWatch's messages "can be taken advantage of by people with Islamophobia and prejudice". The accuracy of the group's research has also been questioned. Academic Richard De Zoysa, for instance, argues that MigrationWatch's predictions of future immigration are exaggerated,(although this is now shown to be wrong), while David Robinson, Professor of Housing and Public Policy at Sheffield Hallam University, argues that the group's assertion that immigrants are placing strain on social housing lacks evidence. Economist Philippe Legrain has claimed that "MigrationWatch's xenophobic prejudice is causing it to twist the truth" about the impact of immigration on the employment prospects of British people.

Professor Tony Kushner has argued that "it has been possible to couch the campaign against asylum-seekers in a discourse of morality: the need to protect 'our' people and culture against the diseased and dangerous alien, as well as the distinction drawn between helping the genuine refugee and exposing the bogus asylum-seeker", and cites MigrationWatch as contributing to this discourse. He argues that the anti-asylum campaign, through groups including MigrationWatch, "has constructed for itself a spurious statistical rationale".

Andrew Green has rejected claims that his group have exaggerated immigration forecasts. Giving evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee in January 2006 he quoted an internal e-mail by a member of staff at the Home Office, which stated "I have made this point many times before, but can we please stop saying that Migration Watch migration forecasts are wrong. I have pointed out before that Migration Watch assumptions are often below the Government Actuary Department's high-migration scenario". Green argues that "To speak out about is not to be anti-immigrant". Green has said of MigrationWatch's agenda: "It's not racism. It's realism. It's right in a democracy that the public has the facts". Journalist Deborah Orr has argued that "the great trouble with this constant flood of highly contentious figures, is that it does not do what Sir Andrew says he wants to do — promote debate. Instead, Migration Watch UK, despite its lofty claims, is working to further polarise it".

Conservative politician Jonathan Aitken has credited MigrationWatch with improving the quality of the British debate on immigration. He argues that "Migrationwatch has changed the administrative practices of the civil service and the policies of the major political parties on asylum seekers, work permit criteria and numerical totals. It has introduced integrity and accuracy into the previously misleading government statistics on immigration. The level of understanding of the subject in all serious newspapers and broadcasting organizations has been improved. Britain may or may not have the right answers to immigration questions, but we certainly now have a far more informed debate on them".

Similarly, an article by Dean Godson of the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange published in The Times in June 2006 states: "The dramatic change in the terms of the immigration debate over recent months is largely down to the determination and courage of a single individual – Sir Andrew Green, the founder and chairman of MigrationWatch UK. Almost single-handedly, he has rescued the national discourse from the twin inanities of saloon-bar bigotry on the Right and politically correct McCarthyism on the Left".

Jay Rayner, writing in The Observer quotes one senior BBC News executive, who stated that "We probably were reluctant and slow to take him seriously to begin with. We probably didn't like what he had to say. But then we were also slow to pick up on immigration as a story, not least because we are a very middle-class organisation and the impact of mass immigration was being felt more in working-class communities. If he's proved himself, it's because he hasn't put a foot wrong on the information he's published".

Academics Nissa Finney and Ludi Simpson, however, state that "we believe that the evidence used by MigrationWatchUK is questionable, yet the organisation and its arguments have received prominence in migration debates and have assumed an authority – not least because of the profiles of its highly connected chair and advisory council – which we consider dangerous if there is no similar authority presenting counterarguments".

In August 2010, Sally Bercow, a Labour Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate and wife of Conservative Party Member of Parliament John Bercow, argued on a Sky News newspaper review that a Daily Express article based on MigrationWatch research was "oversimplifying" and constituted "dangerous propaganda". As a result, MigrationWatch and Andrew Green threatened to take libel action against Bercow. After she instructed the lawyer David Allen Green to defend the threatened action, MigrationWatch dropped its threat. According to a MigrationWatch press release, in the light of an assurance by her lawyer that Mrs Bercow "did not intend to (and did not) allege that Migrationwatch is a fascist or racist organisation", Migrationwatch decided not to take the matter further.