Philippe Legrain

The coalition government has taken leave of its senses. Highly skilled foreign workers are small in number, but make a disproportionate contribution to the economy – and government coffers. Global businesses that invest in the UK economy, boost exports and create jobs for British people rely on them. They also provide irreplaceable skills, experience and [...]

House prices in Australia have soared over the past decade: they are now two-and-a-half times what they were in 2000. While prices dipped a little at the height of the global financial crisis, they have since resumed their onward rise. In fact, they rose a whopping 20% in the 12 months to the end of [...]

Since the disaster in 1986, British charities have helped thousands of young people from affected areas in the Ukraine and Belarus to have holidays with British families. Now those charities say their work is becoming impossible as the UK Border Agency rejects so many visas at the last minute. Last month only seven of 17 [...]

I debated whether freedom of movement is a good thing on BBC1′s Sunday Morning Live with George Hargreaves of the Christian Party and Jon Gaunt, a right-wing shock jock. Part 2

Twenty years ago, the main goal of many migrant workers in city factories was to send money home to struggling village families. Now they see the factory as part of a personal project, a first step towards an urban life. Internet access has made them more worldly and since a labour law passed in 2008 [...]

Great piece by Edward Luce in the FT on Obama’s efforts to revive immigration reform. On grounds of enlightened self-interest, Mr Obama should therefore be commended. The opposite could be said of an increasingly nativist Republican party. Having applauded their colleagues in Arizona, who in April enacted the most draconian anti-immigrant state law in a [...]

Max Dunbar reviews Aftershock in 3:AM magazine In his essential book Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them, the economist Philippe Legrain demolished the case against migration in both its economic and what he kindly terms its ‘cultural’ form. In that book he also made the argument for freedom of movement of labour to match the freedom of movement of [...]

I debated the issue with Douglas Murray on the Politics UK programme on the BBC World Service. The interviewer was Edward Stourton. Listen here.