The West is trapped in a morality debate on immigration. It’s time for a big shift.

“If immigration policy is about making sure immigration is beneficial to our country, the correct number of illegal immigrants is zero,” writes Konstantin Kisin.

Earlier this year, at a small private gathering of political and media leaders in Australia, I was asked what advice I might have for Australians with the power to shape their nation’s future.

I had explained that while Australia was not as advanced as Britain and America in terms of its cultural malaise, it does appear to be on the same downward trajectory.

Having dispensed with the standard British response that I have no idea why any of them should listen to my opinion, I proceeded with the standard Russian response of telling them exactly what I think, as bluntly as possible: “The most important thing you can do for the future of your society is not allow immigration to become a moral issue!”

On the surface, this might appear to be a strange and somewhat esoteric response. Surely what politicians need to do is “take control of the border”, ensure “border security” and “stop the boats”?

These populist slogans are great for retail politics and allow charismatic anti-immigration politicians such as Nigel Farage and Donald Trump to win votes. But no matter how many votes they win, culturally the fight for a sensible immigration policy is still being lost. Why? Because immigration is no longer seen as a policy issue. It has become a matter of morality.

I recently appeared on the BBC program Moral Maze, in which I attempted to elicit from an academic his view of the negative trade-offs of mass immigration. I might as well have asked him about the negative trade-offs of curing cancer.

Donald Trump listens as Nigel Farage speaks during a Make America Great Again rally at Phoenix Goodyear Airport, Arizona, 2020.

Of the very few skills I have to my name, understanding how to win a debate is, perhaps, one I can claim without false modesty. And I can tell you that as long as this framing is accepted in public discourse, those of us who want a sensible immigration policy will keep losing.

What most people fail to understand is you do not win debates with arguments – you win by setting the frame. You saw the power of this technique during Covid with your own eyes – all the authorities had to do was set the frame correctly and your fellow citizens abandoned reason and rationality in the blink of an eye. How did they do it, exactly?

In a battle, the deciding factor between comparable armies is often the territory on which the fight happens. A general who is able to place his troops in an advantageous position will usually win, even against a bigger, more powerful army.

This is how Edward the Black Prince secured victory in the Battle of Poitiers or, for a more contemporary reference, how a small number of Spartans were able to hold back a Persian horde in the Battle of Thermopylae on which the movie 300 is based. The same is true of a debate.

The frame is the set of unspoken assumptions that determine how the conversation happens. Whoever controls the frame controls the way the debate goes. During the pandemic, the framing was simple: all deaths from Covid are unacceptable and since all deaths from Covid are unacceptable, this is the only thing we must all focus on.

Notice how nobody ever said this out loud. Politicians never went on TV and said “the only thing that matters is Covid deaths and our goal is to reduce them to zero” because if they had, a lot of sensible people would have asked questions about how reasonable and realistic that was.

Instead, they simply acted like it was self-evident that reducing Covid deaths was the only thing that mattered, and before long so did everyone else. This is why perfectly good arguments about proportionality, personal liberty and bodily autonomy had absolutely no impact on public policy outside Sweden and a handful of US states.

Emmanuel Macron greets Keir Starmer

Once you have drilled into people’s heads that the only thing we ought to focus on is the number of people who die from Covid, all else follows.

The reason the debate about immigration is as absurd as it is in the Western world is that we are operating within a morality-based framing of the issue. As long as we continue to do so, we will continue to lose.

What is the frame? “Immigration is a good thing. Therefore, anyone who opposes immigration is a bad person.” Once this framing is set, arguments are largely irrelevant. You can quote statistics, facts and figures till you’re blue in the face, but all you’ll ever be is an angry racist using numbers to support your immoral position. The only way to win this debate is to break the frame.

The correct framing of this issue, like any other, is that immigration policy is a slider. You move it to the left when you need more immigration and you move it to the right when you want less. Most Western countries have gone through periods when they were absolutely desperate for more people to come.

Australia responded to the end of WWII by deciding it must increase its population to avoid the threat of another invasion, and launched an immigration program under the slogan “populate or perish”.

Britain, too, increased migration after the war, encouraging colonial people to take jobs that could not be filled by British people. Canada, the US and many European countries have encouraged migration within living memory for perfectly good reasons.

In other words, the attempt to present the history of our countries as one continual process of moving from a restrictionist past to a progressive utopia is not just inaccurate, it is purposefully misleading. This framing deliberately conceals the reality that the right level of immigration varies over time. It is therefore unwise and counter-productive to argue “against immigration” or “for immigration”.

Postwar PM Ben Chiefley

The correct frame is that immigration is good when it is good and bad when it is bad. And, as before, all else follows. Once this framing is accepted, winning the remaining argument becomes simple. If immigration policy is about making sure immigration is beneficial to our country, the correct number of illegal immigrants is zero.

The arguments often made in the US about illegal immigrants doing jobs no one wants are patently absurd – many of the people who are desperate to do those jobs are waiting patiently for their visa application to be approved and the only reason people enter the US illegally is that they know they won’t be allowed in.

In other words, illegal immigration is not beneficial to a country. As for legal immigration, once you accept that the quantity and type of people allowed to come should depend on how beneficial they are likely to be to our country given the current circumstances, the argument becomes even simpler. After decades of unprecedented levels of immigration, it is time to pause.

Notice that you’ve heard all these arguments before. But in a new frame, they land differently: Britain is not against immigration. Britons do not hate immigrants. We, in fact, envisage circumstances in which we may well be delighted to welcome more people here: I am proud that Britain has offered refuge to people fleeing Chinese tyranny in Hong Kong and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What we are for is a sensible immigration policy – one that fits the realities of the present time.

Konstantin Kisin is an Anglo-Russian satirist, author and co-host of the popular podcast Triggernometry. https://www.konstantinkisin.com/