Immigration security

Immigration: how much is too much?

Maybe it was intrusive use of big data. A mistrust of Eurocracy and foreign judges.

Maybe it depended on undeliverable promises and the big red bus. Perhaps it was the complacency of the remainers, and of intransigence in Brussels.

But there's little doubt that none of these factors would have made much difference to the Brexit vote without the big issue that people on all sides tend to speak about nervously - immigration.

So when the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) speaks, it needs close attention. Amid all the claims, counter-claims, petty prejudices about Johnny Foreigner and justifiable concerns about jobs and wages, this is the outfit that feeds real hard evidence into government thinking - or so you would hope.

It was commissioned last July by the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, to take an in-depth and wide-ranging look at the UK's continuing economic and demographic requirement to attract a continued flow of European Union immigrants after Brexiting.