Philippe Legrain

“The notion that migration is a one-way movement of permanent settlement is outdated. Most of it is temporary—and it’s time the debate about immigration recognised this reality,” argues Philippe Legrain, an analyst of immigration and the author of “Aftershock”, a recent book analysing economic changes in the wake of the financial crash. Read the full [...]

No. I won the debate against David Goodhart on The Economist’s website, by 51%-49%. Thank you to everyone who voted No.

Headlines from a poll this week suggested nearly half of British people think there are too many immigrants in the UK. But the findings change when people are presented with the facts. The average respondent thought 3 in 10 people in the UK are foreign-born. When told it’s actually 1 in 10, more than twothirds [...]

I was interviewed on BBC World’s World News Today on 1 December 2010 about whether the EU’s border policy is working, whether Europe really can control its borders, and whether there might be a better approach to immigration instead.

The UK government yesterday announced much tighter restrictions on people from outside the EU who want to come here to work or study. At at time when the government is relying on the private sector to drive the recovery as the public sector is cut back, and when the education sector is a particularly important [...]

Ed West says he took time to reply to my earlier post because his “Chinese maid, Yen or Wen or whatever her name is, took ages to clean up my study” – delightful, isn’t he? He then deliberately misinterpreted my response – or perhaps he’s just stupid? I said it was nonsense to claim that [...]

MigrationWatch have posted a pitifully weak response to my criticisms of their education “report”. 1) They defend their use of cumulative figures. They say it is legitimate because the “sole objective” of the study was to calculate “pupil place requirements stemming from net migration since 1998″. Really? If the sole aim was to calculate the [...]

In a typically delightful post about Sally Bercow and the MigrationWatch libel threat, Ed West of the Daily Telegraph describes me as Philippe Legrain, author of How to Turn Europe into the Lebanon in Just One Ill-thought Out Step. Unlike Andrew Green of MigrationWatch, I don’t believe in trying to silence debate, so I’ll let this [...]

Another day, another twisted use of statistics by MigrationWatch. Their shock report suggests the cost of schooling migrants’ children is astrononomical. They do this: 1) By using cumulative figures. If you add up spending on anything over a long period of time, it looks much bigger than it really is. Using a single year’s statistics, [...]

On Tuesday, two Russian-born scientists at the University of Manchester won this year’s Nobel physics prize. The new immigration cap could have prevented them coming to Britain. Today, they and six other Nobel laureates warn that the immigration cap threatens the UK’s position as a centre of scientific excellence. It would “damage our ability to [...]

Geert Wilders is a nasty piece of work. The far-right politician has compared the Koran to Mein Kampf and called Islam fascist. But why, oh why, are the authorities in the Netherlands playing into his hands by putting him on trial for saying the vile things he says? They will only succeed in making him [...]

This right wing think tank Migration Watch has conducted a study which has revealed that youth unemployment is down to migration which is obviously grossly simplistic. The main reason for youth unemployment is the recession which was caused by the bankers and the bankers are more responsible than the migrants, and it’s fairly dangerous propaganda [...]

Michael Gove points out the benefits of coalition government: What helps is having two parties, different cultures, overlapping perspectives, coming from different positions, challenging each other. True. Different cultures and perspectives challenging each other are also among the biggest benefits of immigration: they leads to innovation and better decision-making.

Why do governments make it so difficult for people to migrate temporarily? Most don’t want to move permanently, yet in practice they are forced to choose between staying or leaving for good, as this article by a Nigerian health worker in the UK highlights

1. No wonder France is deporting the Roma. How could a country of 60 million people possibly cope with 15,000 Roma migrants? Interesting article in the New York Times on how the Roma are testing the EU’s open borders policy. 2. Vince Cable says the UK government’s immigration cap is costing jobs and harming the [...]

Big Think is a great site full of interesting articles and ideas. This month they are featuring one radical (“dangerous”) idea a day. Today’s is allowing people to move freely.

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 [...]

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