It's refugee week, and my mid casts back over everything about immigration in the press. The resounding narrative over the last 6 months has been that we need to have a 'frank and honest discussion' of immigration - politicians, voters, think tanks, the media. But what exactly does this mean? What does Andrew Green mean when he says Migration Watch (his lobby-group) are the only rational voice talking about migration, except for the BNP and UKIP. That he thinks UKIP and BNP are rational immediately weakens his argument, but this opinion is so widely held it has to be explored. So what do they mean?

Do they mean we aren't facing up to the problems migration is causing: traffic (apparently), housing shortages, overcrowding and pressure on public services. They can't do, because immigration is not the cause of any of these things. We have more traffic because we have more people with cars, more people with multiple cars, and more people driving regularly. Thats easy to argue. The housing shortage is more complicated, but immigrants largely get the worst of the social housing stock and move in to the most deprived areas which are suffering from urban decline and outward migration. The housing shortage is because no social housing has been built for 25 years. Overcrowding in cities is a fact of life - and I'd wager is much better now than at the heigh of Victorian industrialisation when there were hardly any 'foreign' migrants at all. Finally, the pressures on public services aren't migrant based: for every issue created for a primary school assimilating Politsh children there are council estates full of institutionally unemployed 'British' people, or drinkers and smokers and aging Brits clogging up our health service. A frank and open discussion of migraton would have to talk about these things. Migration does have an impact, but not specifically because it is migration. People have an impact, migrants are people. But if that is the problem, it is not migration which is the issue but population, and we should be talking about a 1-child policy or voluntary euthanasia. I don't hear any voices calling for that, which I think is a good thing.

Perhas they mean that because we are facing tough times economically, we need to stop letting people in so we can focus on supporting the people we have. Fair enough, but that denies the pure economic demand that we have for immigrant labour. We aren't going to be abel to provide for the people we have - even if we stop letter oters in - unless we can grow the ecnomy again. That requires immigration, be it low skilled EU workers on farms and construction sites or high skilled international bankers, engineers or students (who keep Universities going with the extortionate fees). If we cut international immigration, we risk deprivin ourselves of this excellent workforce that fives Britain it's cutting edge. If we cut EU mgration, we have to accept the consequences - the loss of the trade and other benefits which come with EU membership, because free movement is all part of the deal. Plus, EU migration is very short term. The poles and the czechs are going home now, and will continue to. A frank and honest discussion of immigration would therefore have to reflect on the issue that we may get more from the immigrants than they get from us.

Maybe they are talking about integration. Integration has always been a problem, and is still an issue. Yes - many British Muslim's where burkhas. Yes - many polish workers don't learn English. If this is the discussion they want to have, then at least we can have it. I disagree, but there is none-the-less substance to the argument. The substance, however, is at the end of the day still racist. Not goose-stepping, flag waving, skinhead and doc martins wearing racist, rather racist-granny racist.

The integration argument comes from the view that the 'British Culture is under attack'. But are the Pakistani and Polish immigrants going out in gangs beating up anyone off to the pub, or having a sunday roast? No - they're not. There is an issue about the taboo of being patriotic, but that has more to do with guilt about our colonial past than immigration The only way immigrants can threaten Birish culture as far as I can see is by simply being here. If our culture and identity are that fragile that the mere prescence of an 'other' in our midst, doing 'other' things, then British culture doesn't really have much to shout about. If we are that insecure about our own identities, then it is US we need to have a frank and open discussion about.

That said, we do need to have a frank and open discusson about immigration. We need to stop running about in the shadows and directly address the questions people are raising. We need to talk not about numbers coming in, or border patrols, but about how innneficiently and illogically the whole system is: costin gfar more to the taxpayer than it could, taking too long and for no reason other than to appear tough on immigraton. We need to think about how unnecessarily harsh our system is to migrants, and the cruel and unusual treatment of asylum seekers this entails. There are inherent irrationalities with the system, and they are to no ones benefit and everyones detriment. We need to talk about integration and how we can encourage it (free english lessons, decent housing, community involvement) and not migrant communities and how they isolate themselves. We need to stop pussy-footing around and start making the argument and busting the myths. No platform policy does not work, and we need to confront and engage those with opinions we disagree with, otherwise they will be able to make their arguments without scrutiny, and they will become true merely through the regularity of their repetition.