Any incumbent government in the UK would seek to reduce net migration figures, according to political commentator and The Rest is Politics podcast star Rory Stewart.
Speaking to an industry audience at DETcon, he answered audience questions on geo-politics, university funding and net migration trends.
“One of the things that’s happened in the world is that politics is no longer domestic, and this push against immigration is nothing unique to the United Kingdom,” said Stewart, when asked to clarify his opinion on a one-way trend.
“It defines the politics of the United States, Germany, France, Netherlands, etc. and any political party that tries to pretend it isn’t an issue or tries to think it can somehow explain its way out of it would be doomed,” he warned.
It was suggested to him that the immigrants the British public is concerned about are the illegal immigrants or asylum seekers, rather than international students who contribute economically.
Any political party that tries to pretend [immigration] isn’t an issue or tries to think it can somehow explain its way out of it would be doomed
Rory Stewart, political commentator
That may be the case, said Stewart, but he suggested the electorate would still favour tight controls, with public opinion “so clear” on this issue.
“It’s true, of course, that if you ask anybody, including many Reform [right-wing political party] voters, they can think of many, many things that they like about individual immigrants and they can see their contribution to the country,” he responded.
“But I’m afraid it would be a real mistake to conclude from that conversation that that individual would support 725,000 people a year coming into the UK.”
The well-known podcast host suggested voters might support “a position that there were more students and less family reunity, or more students and fewer asylum seekers, but they would still want the overall numbers down”.
Stewart also discussed the impact of the legal dispute between the US government and Harvard and the crisis in higher education in the country.
What is happening right now with federal funding restrictions and visa bans is “the most incredible act of self-harm.. I mean, astonishing”, he shared, explaining that the strong funding infrastructure into US universities (he teaches at Yale) is key to research outputs that translate into economic and competitive advantage.
“Why is the US economy still a quarter of the global economy? Why has the US economy gone from being the same size as Europe to being 50% larger in just a decade? Why is the US, for all its flaws, the home to the most productive, competitive, innovative companies in the world?,” he asked
“The answer is a partnership between the federal government and the universities. It goes all the way back to the Second World War, a deliberate decision after the Second Wold War for the federal government to set up these incredible research grants, which were fed into these universities and which have pioneered everything from the most basic science to ultimately at the other end, their realisation into commercial activity.”
Stewart cited the internet, GPS and nuclear power as inventions born out of a partnership between the American state and American academics. “And Trump is dismantling that,” he warned.
And he warned that the UK education scene should not believe it is immune from the culture wars. “American culture is very powerful. And what happens in the United States moves more easily than we want to acknowledge”.
When asked what “Rory as PM” would do (he was once a Conservative MP) to shore up financial instability among UK universities, he again pointed to a need for increased government funding.
“I’m afraid the answer is kind of obvious and difficult – the only answer to this conundrum is proper central government funding of universities,” he said. “The sector is too underfunded, and so many of the problems that follow come from that fact.”
