David Gow forensically peels way the right wing rhetoric around immigration to show that immigrants are critical to our economic stability and growth
This article was first published on 25 August 2025 on David Gow’s substack at https://davidgow.substack.com/p/migrant-truths-from-the-mid-west.
By David Gow
It’s extraordinary that it takes central bankers to talk up the value of foreign workers but, at least, Scotland trumpets a pro-immigration case
As thousands of “concerned citizens” aka racists and far right thugs demonstrated outside hotels serving as temporary homes for asylum-seekers, a few salient facts about the value of migrant labour to western capitalist economies emerged from an unlikely spot: Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
The annual summer gathering of central bankers heard from the likes of Christine Lagarde, ECB president, that by 2040 the working-age population of Europe is projected to shrink by around 3.4 million. “Since 2002, the number of people over 60 has risen by 28m, while that of those aged 15–60 has fallen by 2.4m, and of those under 14 by 2.8m.”
It made the weekend splash in the FT but you’d be lucky to find it in the anti-immigrant right-wing populist tabloid press being whipped up by and exploiting the latest inflammatory statements from Conservative leadership rivals Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick and, of course, Voice of the People Nigel Farage.
According to a new book, Timebomb1, by my old friend and colleague Giles Merritt, ageing is a largely invisible problem but one that is holing Europe’s ship of state below the waterline – and probably making the UK even more vulnerable. He highlights ten “detonators” that could blow up Europe’s economy and society, including poverty and inequality, but Lagarde and her fellow central bankers focus on lower economic growth.
She points out that, even with the pandemic, Europe’s labour force is up by some 6m in the past three years, partly because of more women but also older folk in employment. The key factor, however, is foreign workers: only 9% of the labour force in 2022 but accounting for half of its recent growth. And, while ageing negatively impacts productivity growth, foreign workers boost it: German GDP is 6% higher than it would otherwise be; Spain’s stellar post-Covid growth owes much to migrant labour.
It’s a phenomenon we recognise more readily in Scotland where, according to National Records, the population reached a new high of 5.55m in mid-June 2024, with migration the main driver of population growth over the year – up 42,600 and helping to offset the demographic deficit caused by more deaths than births. Around a fifth (20.5% v 16.2% 20 years ago) is aged 65+ while just 16.2% is aged 0-15, down from 18.4% in mid-2004. And we now know that there were fewer than 46,000 live births in Scotland last year, the lowest number since 1855, giving a fertility rate of 1.25.
Numerous families
The “acute challenge” (Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey) of ageing and declining productivity growth is recognised, to give it its due, by the Scottish Government but not by its UK equivalent. Its recent (May 2025) White Paper, Restoring Control over the Immigration System, sets great store by restricting not only net international migration but, within that, skilled workers and graduates.
These may (or, more likely, may not) be good for England but should be anathema to Scotland. As the Fraser of Allander Institute points out, immigrants are frequently younger, more likely to have children and be economically active. “Restrictions to skilled worker visas and recruitment of adult social care workers may pose challenges for Scotland’s labour market,” it says, also highlighting a threat to universities from fewer visas for postgrads. It concludes: “The Scottish Government faces a tight fiscal environment. These reforms may pose additional challenges to the Scottish economy without offering much in the way of solutions.” (By reducing the working-age tax base as immigrants pay in more than they take out).
The SG response to this White Paper makes a compelling case for positive net migration – “crucial for economic growth, public service planning, and community cohesion.” A key point is this: “Even with robust, targeted, skills and labour market planning, Scotland will lack sufficient numbers of working age individuals to deliver the economic growth that both the Scottish and UK Government are eager to achieve through this approach.” In other words: migrants are vital even if the (vaguely promised) skills upgrade among indigenous Brits is enacted – and is effective.
The case for a bespoke immigration policy and system for Scotland gets stronger by the year though the prospect of a Labour government in fear and trembling of Farage/Reform UK conceding it is zero. It’s another area where Scottish Labour would gain electorally if it promulgated a pro-immigration stance tailored to Scottish needs and abandoned its default too frit attitude.
“Places that do not receive migrants quickly turn into places from which jobs begin to disappear, despite the locals’ reluctance to leave,” writes Prof Danny Dorman in his latest book (his 59th!), The Next Crisis2. “We need to be better at understanding the connections between people coming and a thriving economy.” And, as he told the Edinburgh Book Festival this year, we cannot continue to allow a posse of very rich people to gain and cement political power by feeding off and fertilising people’s understandable economic anxieties – and exploiting ancient fear of the Other for proto-fascist reasons.
- Giles Merritt, Timebomb, Policy Press, 296pp, £12.99 ↩︎
- Danny Dorman, The Next Crisis, Verso, 322pp, £22 ↩︎
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