I’ve stood on the UK Border and welcomed tens of thousands of people to the UK. I’ve also refused entry to a much smaller number of people. As well as that I’ve had jobs in strategy and doing workforce planning. It gives me an unusual insight into how the system works.

The one thing that has struck me, and why I’m writing this article, is the high level of nonsense being bandied about. I don’t personally see the UK having an immigration problem, but our immigration narrative is wildly distorted and nowhere near the facts.

Immigrants to the UK from the EU make a net contribution to the public funds. In fact all legal immigrants make a net contribution. You’d not get that story from listening to politicians. Also you’d miss that we can make the borders and immigration system pay for itself. We charge fees on visas to cover the costs of both the visa issuing and the border officers.

That said, the harder we make it for people to come here legally, the more people will try entering illegally. We can see that happening already, on a range of borders across Europe. Ours is no different from the others.

In many ways nothing will change.

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