Ben's blog and articles

Things are getting bleak when even non-partisan experts seem to be turning a blind eye to evidence. Last week’s comprehensive report on European Union migration from the government’s independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) gave with one hand and took away with the other. It did a splendid job of busting some entrenched myths about the economic impact of flows of EU migrants under freedom of movement. No, EU migrants are not a drain on public services or the public fina

To warn about the consequences of an exodus of European Union workers from the British economy probably comes across like shouting fire in the midst of Noah’s flood. Aren’t there more than two million EU nationals in the British workforce, double the number a decade ago? Isn’t net immigration from the EU running at almost 200,000 a year according to the latest figures? Didn’t millions of Britons vote for Brexit precisely to reduce the numbers of workers from the Continent com

A moral disgrace. An act of wanton cruelty. A legal outrage. An unconstitutional power grab. A work of gross administrative incompetence. A self-inflicted security wound. But economic idiocy too? It seems almost otiose to mention money in the context of Trump’s arbitrary executive order barring Syrian refugees from America, capping the overall refugee intake for 2017 at 50,000 and stopping all entry to nationals from seven countries from the Muslim world. But it’s true. Trump