They work for you

Do MPs speak for England?

In The Road to Somewhere, David Goodhart recalled attending a dinner at an Oxford college in the Spring of 2011 - and having some eye-opening conversations with members of Britain’s elite.

‘When I said to my neighbour – Gus O’Donnell, then in his last few months as Cabinet Secretary, the most senior civil servant in the land – that I was writing a book about immigration, he replied. “When I was at the Treasury I argued for the most open-door possible to immigration… I think it’s my job to maximise global welfare, not national welfare.”

‘I was surprised to hear this from the head of such a national institution and asked the man sitting next to the civil servant, Mark Thompson – then Director-General of the BBC – whether he believed global welfare should be put before national welfare, if the two should conflict. He defended O’Donnell and said he, too, believed global welfare was paramount.’

O’Donnell later confirmed his recollection to Goodhart, who added that ‘Moreover, he thinks that his views about immigration are, notwithstanding some short-term losers, in the interests of the average British person. He was permanent secretary of the treasury when important decisions were made about immigration.’

This mindset has certainly influenced our immigration policy over the years, driven by a sense that we must not only focus on Britain’s narrow interests. Free movement raises global welfare, even if most of the gains are accrued by immigrants themselves - and many natives lose out.

This extract came to mind late last year following the Government’s bizarre decision to hand over the British Indian Ocean Islands to Mauritius, a policy which seems to make absolutely no sense unless you appreciate how unusually global-minded British elites are. (As Goodhart pointed out, it is extremely unlikely that O’Donnell and Thompson’s French equivalents would see it that way.)