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HOW MIGRATION REALLY WORKS: A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics by Hein de Haas

An authoritative and myth-busting analysis that tells us why we're wrong about migration. 


How Migration Really Works

A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics

by Hein de Haas
Hardback / 9 November 2023 / Penguin - Viking / £25

What are we getting so wrong about migration – and why?

Are borders beyond control after being deluged by desperate people in small boats? Are immigrants taking jobs away from native workers? Or do we badly need immigrants to boost economic growth and innovation? As debates on migration have reached fever pitch, so has political and media fearmongering, but what are the facts behind the headlines?

In this ground-breaking and revelatory book, based on over three decades of research, Professor Hein de Haas explodes the myths that politicians, interest groups and media regularly spread about migration. Draining the vitriol from a debate that has poisoned politics for decades, Hein de Haas shows us that global migration is not at an all-time high; climate change will not lead to mass migration; immigration mainly benefits the already wealthy, not workers; and border restrictions have paradoxically produced more migration.

Comparing trends and perspectives from Western ‘destination countries’ (the United Kingdom, United States and in Europe) as well as ‘origin countries’ in Asia and Africa, de Haas equips readers with essential knowledge on migration based on the best evidence and data, enabling us to have better and more informed conversations about the most hot-button issue in politics.

Above all, How Migration Really Works offers a new vision of migration based on facts rather than fears, and a paradigm-altering understanding of this perennially important subject.


ABOUT Hein de Haas

Hein de Haas is Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and Professor of Migration and Development at the University of Maastricht. He formerly taught at the University of Oxford, where he co-founded and co-directed the International Migration Institute (IMI). One of the world’s top migration scholars, he continues to direct IMI from its current home at UvA. He is the lead author of The Age of Migration, a seminal textbook in the field of migration studies. He lives in Amsterdam.


'‘A careful, balanced, and convincing take on one of the most divisive issues of our age. Backed by masses of data, Hein de Haas challenges much of what we think is obvious about migration, systematically busting myths and exposing propaganda from all across the political spectrum’

Ian Morris, author of Why The West Rules – For Now

 ‘Compelling…it engages with the arguments behind the myths…How Migration Really Works ultimately uses its convincing research to ask us to worry less about migration. In doing so, it instead alights upon global inequality as the true cause for concern.’

The World Today, Chatham House


TOP SURPRISING FACTS ABOUT MIGRATION 

1) International migrants only make up 3% of the global population, and refugees represent 5-10% of this number – much smaller than we are led to believe by the media and politicians.

2) Instead of a ‘desperate flight from misery’, migration is generally a deliberate and rational investment in the long-term well-being of families.

3) Labour demand, not inequality or poverty, is the root cause of migration. While wage gaps often motivate people to migrate, most migrants would have stayed home without concrete job opportunities.

4) Rather than taking jobs from native workers, migrants fill vacancies for which not enough local workers are available.

5) The lack of affordable housing, substandard schooling and healthcare are not caused by immigration, but by policies to roll back the welfare state and to defund and privatize government services.

6) There is no evidence that immigration leads to more crime. In fact, crime rates have dropped as immigration has increased. Immigrants – legal and illegal – tend to be equally or less criminal than native-born people.

7) Claims that migration ‘lifts all boats’ reflect elite views and corporate agendas, and conceal the fact that migration mainly benefits the already privileged. Although it is a myth that foreign workers steal jobs or undercut wages, native workers barely reap any economic benefits from immigration.

8) It is an illusion that immigration can reignite growth and innovation in stagnating economies, as high immigration is the result, rather than the cause of, economic success.

9) While measures such as border walls help to create an appearance of control, extraordinarily low levels of labour enforcement prove that politicians are, in practice, willing turn a blind eye towards employment of illegal migrants.

10) There is no left-right divide in immigration policy making. The issue divides political parties internally. On average, right-wing governments do not adopt more restrictive immigration policies compared to left-wing governments.

11) Although inflammatory rhetoric by politicians can embolden nativist groups and racist violence, there is no evidence that public opinion has generally turned against immigration.

12) Smuggling is a reaction to border controls, not the cause of illegal migration. Smugglers deliver a service that migrants are willing to pay for, so that they can cross borders without being caught by abusive state agents, border guards or criminals.

13) Migrant workers mislabelled as trafficking victims resist being ‘rescued’ as this usually implies deportation and loss of income. By criminalizing precarious work but failing to stop abusive employers, anti-trafficking policies have made workers more vulnerable, perpetuating a vicious cycle of abuse, exploitation and stigmatization.

14) Ill-conceived immigration restrictions often backfire by paradoxically producing more migration. The effectiveness of border restrictions is also undermined by pre-emptive ‘now or never’ migration surges.

15) Apocalyptic forecasts of massive South-North climate migration lack any scientific basis. They ignore evidence that most displacement in response to floods, droughts and hurricanes is short-distance and temporary, and that vulnerable populations lack the resources to move over long distances.


For further information please contact:

EMMA FINNIGAN PR

07870 210468 | emma@emmafinniganpr.co.uk | @emmafinnigan | www.emmafinniganpr.co.uk


Lobby Life by Carole Walker

A no-holds-barred insight into the corridors of Westminster and personal stories of life in the Lobby from a journalist who was at the heart of the political establishment for two decades.


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Lobby Life
Inside Westminster’s Secret Society
By Carole Walker
Elliott & Thompson / Hardback non-fiction / £16.99 / 24 June 2021

Drawing on personal experience and interviews with former colleagues, politicians, spin doctors and critics of the system, Lobby Life tells the intriguing story of the once highly secretive institution known as the Lobby – the club at the heart of Westminster which has been the focal point of battles between government and the media for more than 140 years. From the Lobby's conception to the present day, Carole Walker exposes the battles between its political reporters and Downing Street to control the news agenda, including during some of most momentous stories in recent history. Through the rise and fall of successive governments – via war, industrial strife and scandal, the financial crash, Brexit and a global pandemic – we witness the rows and resignations, the drama and debate.

In this no-holds-barred account of what really happens behind the closed doors of Westminster, Walker asks urgent questions about the role of the media today, when politicians can engage directly with voters online, bypassing journalists – and accountability.


TALKING POINTS

  • Lifting the lid on the mysterious world of the parliamentary Lobby – once so secretive that the late Chris Moncrieff, legendary former political editor of the Press Association, said it was like working for MI5.  When he joined in the 1970s he was warned he must never mention that he attended regular briefings from the Prime Minister’s press secretary to anyone – even his wife.

  • What it’s like being a Lobby journalist at Westminster: how you gather your stories; how you find your sources; how government and MPs seek to shape the stories we are told. The words uttered at Lobby briefings can make headlines around the world, signal the end of a ministerial career or indicate far-reaching policy changes. 

  • How the women of the Lobby have confronted outdated attitudes and established their rightful place, holding MPs and ministers to account and explaining the decisions that shape our daily lives. 

  • How female Lobby journalists helped to expose unacceptable behaviour by some of our most senior politicians when the #MeToo movement swept through Westminster in 2017. From the infamous ‘lunge after lunch’, which brought down a Cabinet minister, to casual comments and ‘wandering’ hands, women in the Lobby have dealt with it all.

  • The fun and frustration being a Lobby journalist ‘on tour’ with a Prime Minister: champagne on a flight with Margaret Thatcher; breaking news on-board Tony Blair’s plane; battles to meet deadlines in a desert sandstorm with David Cameron. On these tightly controlled package tours, the destination is far less important than your fellow-travellers. 

  • The power of key insiders at Westminster, such as Sir Bernard Ingham (Thatcher), Alastair Campbell (Blair) and Dominic Cummings (Johnson), on government – and how they use the Lobby to try to shape the agenda.

  • The role of Lobby journalists today when politicians can engage directly with voters via social media.

  • Behind-the-scenes at Westminster during some of the most pivotal moments in our recent history: Churchill’s war government, the Suez Crisis; mining strikes; the Falklands conflict and two Gulf wars; the ‘dodgy-dossier’ on WMD; the death of Dr David Kelly; the phone-hacking and expenses scandals; the financial crisis of 2008; Brexit and a global pandemic.


ABOUT Carole Walker

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Carole Walker is a high-profile journalist and political commentator with more than twenty years’ experience as a BBC Political Correspondent. As a Lobby journalist, she covered some of the biggest political stories in recent history including six general elections, the EU referendum, the rise and fall of successive governments, resignations, rows and parliamentary debates. She has travelled to Iraq and Afghanistan with Prime Ministers and reported on international summits, the first Gulf War, revolution in Moscow, the break-up of the Soviet Union and civil war in the Balkans and Somalia. She is now a flag-ship presenter on Times Radio, shining a light on the political events of the day.

Carole is available for interviews, features and events.

The Power of Geography by Tim Marshall

10 maps that reveal the future of our world: the much-anticipated sequel to the million-copy bestseller Prisoners of Geography


'Another outstanding guide to the modern world. Tim Marshall is a master at explaining what you need to know and why.' - Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads

‘This valuable book is an urgent and accessible study of the facts and forces that will shape our future on earth and beyond.’ - Ed Husain, author of The House of Islam

'A skilful navigation of the regions that could define geopolitics for future generations. One to read to stay ahead of the game.' - Dharshini David, author of The Almighty Dollar

‘A compelling account of the return of geopolitics by the master of maps.’ - Professor Brendan Simms, author of Britain's Europe: A Thousand Years of Conflict and Cooperation  


The Power of Geography

The Power of Geography

THE POWER OF GEOGRAPHY: Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World

Tim Marshall | ISBN: 978-1-78396-537-3

22 April 2021 / Royal Hardback / 368pp / £16.99
Also available in ebook and audio

If you want to understand what’s happening in the world, look at a map.

Tim Marshall’s global bestseller Prisoners of Geography showed how every nation’s choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn’t changed, but the world has.

In this revelatory new book, Marshall explores ten regions that are set to shape global politics in a new age of great-power rivalry. Find out why Europe’s next refugee crisis is closer than it thinks as trouble brews in the Sahel; why the Middle East must look beyond oil and sand to secure its future; why the eastern Mediterranean is one of the most volatile flashpoints of the twenty-first century; and why the Earth’s atmosphere is set to become the world’s next battleground.

In ten chapters covering Australia, The Sahel, Greece, Turkey, the UK, Iran,  Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Space, delivered with Marshall’s trademark wit and insight, this is a lucid and gripping exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity’s past, present – and future.

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Tim Marshall

Tim Marshall is a leading authority on foreign affairs with more than 30 years of reporting experience. He was diplomatic editor at Sky News, and before that was working for the BBC and LBC/IRN radio. He has reported from 40 countries and covered conflicts in Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Libya. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps that Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics and Divided: Why We’re Living in an Age of Walls as well as Worth Dying For: The Power and Politics of Flags; and Shadowplay: Behind the Lines and Under Fire.  #powerofgeography 

Tim is available for interviews, features and events. For further information please contact Emma Finnigan.

The Breakdown: Making Sense of Politics in a Messed-Up World by Tatton Spiller

The Breakdown is a smart, entertaining handbook showing how we can understand – and feel better about – modern politics.


The Breakdown: Making Sense of Politics in a Messed-Up World
By Tatton Spiller
Elliott & Thompson / 30 May / hardback / £12.99

We’re in a time of enormous political engagement, but most of us are ill equipped to truly understand and debate the issues currently rocking our world. Instead, we become entrenched in our echo chambers, convinced that those with a different viewpoint are stupid, awful human beings whose actions must be stopped. This lack of political knowledge and wider understanding is unsurprising – after all, few of us are taught about our political system or about different ideologies – but it leaves us unable to engage in the conversation, to influence others’ opinions, or to effect change. It leaves us with no control.

With sections including How it All Works; How Different People Think; and Making Change Happen, this superbly clear-sighted, light-hearted and judgement-free book will equip readers with the tools they need to understand the different arguments, to work out what is happening and why – and then to do something about it.

In a shifting political landscape that can at times be frustrating, emotional or confusing, The Breakdown is an oasis of calm in a turbulent world.

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TALKING POINTS

  • How subscription ‘news’ websites have a vested interest in keeping you angry

  • How we dehumanise the opposition thereby preventing any kind of meaningful debate

  • Why there is a reluctance to try and solve problems and find workable solutions, and the damage this is causing

  • Social media abuse and the damage it is doing to democracy

  • A snappy tour of different political ideologies (liberals; libertarians; socialists; traditional conservatives; one-nation conservatives; social democrats)

  • A tour of political battlegrounds – Education; Privatisation; Tax and Spend; Immigration; Free speech; Brexit

  • A look at successful changemakers of the 21st Century, and what drove that success

  • Tips to keep your head clear and out of your echo chamber


ABOUT TATTON SPILLER

Tatton Spiller is the founder of Simple Politics, a hugely successful project that aims to explain and engage people with politics, both online and via talks. He has been a teacher and a journalist, and worked at the Houses of Parliament, devising, training and delivering education sessions for visiting school students. While at Parliament, he watched many, many debates, engaged thousands of people, and organised Q&A sessions with hundreds of MPs. This gave him a real insight into how the whole thing works. The nagging feeling that nobody was really breaking down politics in a way that engages people never left him.

Tatton is available for interviews, features and events.


MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this book, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

Carrington by Christopher Lee

A vivid and expert biography of Lord Carrington, one of the outstanding politicians of the 20th century, who died on 9 July 2018.

"One of the country's greatest post-war statesmen" - Sir John Major


Carrington - An Honourable Man
by Christopher Lee
Viking | £25.00 | Hardback | 6 September 2018

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Lord Carrington served as a minister in every Conservative government from Churchill to Thatcher – who said there was something innately reassuring walking into a room where Carrington stood. Most notably, he was Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands in 1982. Absent in Israel on the eve of the invasion, he promptly resigned since it was, he said, a point of honour. He is seen by many today as the last of his breed in politics, an honourable man committed to public service.

He could be viewed as a typical Tory grandee, yet he disliked the Party, claiming late in his life that he was no longer a member, and could be fiercely independent. And there were recurring oddities in his career. He was forced to offer his resignation to Churchill for bad judgement over the Crichel Down Affair. As Navy Minister he was caught in the glare of a spy ring, and, though Defence
Secretary, kept out of the loop of the military operation which culminated in Bloody Sunday.

In this full biography, authorised but not read by the subject, Christopher Lee offers a fascinating portrait of a Tory icon whose career is a window into post-war British politics and life as a politician and diplomat.

Suggested talking points:

  • The relationship between Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers
  • The relationship between Carrington and Thatcher
  • MPs’ resignations - are there still ‘honourable’ resignations
  • Falklands War, and Carrington’s subsequent resignation
  • The agreement over Rhodesia / Zimbabwe, and its impact on Carrington’s career
  • Carrington’s wartime experiences – including his Military Cross at Arnhem

Christopher Lee began this book while Quatercentenary Research Fellow at Emmanuel College Cambridge where he also edited Winston Churchill's A History of the English-speaking Peoples and where he wrote his award-winning BBC Radio 4 history of Britain, This Sceptred Isle. He was previously Defence & Foreign Affairs Correspondent at the BBC, where he controlled Radio 4’s output on the Falklands War. Lee lives in Kent and aboard a restored sloop which he sails from the Beaulieu River.

Christopher Lee started the book twenty years ago and interviewed Carrington regularly. It was Carrington who requested that the book wasn’t published until after his death.

Others interviewed by Lee over the course of writing the book include Sir Edward Heath; Dr Henry Kissinger; Baroness Thatcher and Sir John Nott.


MORE INFORMATION

For more information about this book, please don't hesitate to get in touch.

1984: India’s Guilty Secret by Pav Singh

When 8,000 citizens in the world's largest democracy are murdered in a government- orchestrated genocidal massacre in just four days, how is it possible for the guilty to evade justice? This shocking exposé of a true-life Orwellian plot of nightmarish proportions reveals how they did it.


1984: India’s Guilty Secret by Pav Singh | Kashi House / non-fiction / tpb / £12.99 / 1 November 2017

1984: India's Guilty Secret by Pav Singh

In November 1984, the ruling elite of the world's largest democracy conspired to murder thousands of their country's citizens in genocidal massacres reminiscent of Nazi-era Germany while the world watched on. Over four days, armed mobs brutally and systematically butchered, torched and raped members of the minority Sikh community living in Delhi and elsewhere. The sheer scale of the killings exceeded the combined civilian death tolls of the conflict in Northern Ireland, Tiananmen Square and 9/11. In Delhi alone 3,000 people were killed. The full extent of what took place has yet to be fully acknowledged.

This definitive account based on harrowing victim testimonies and official accounts reveals how the largest mass crime against humanity in India's modern history was perpetrated by politicians and covered up with the help of the police, judiciary and media. The failings of Western governments - who turned a blind eye to the atrocities for fear of losing trade contracts worth billions - are also exposed.

  • This is the first book to expose the chilling events of November 1984, the Indian government's 33- year cover-up and the moral indifference of Thatcher cabinet.
  • Reveals for the first time the high-level conspiracy at the heart of the Indian establishment by connecting the lower level actors to senior politicians, high-ranking policemen, judges and ultimately, to the Gandhi family itself
  • A powerful and compelling account exposing the dark underbelly of a key global and economic powerhouse - hailed as ‘a timely reminder of India's shameful inability to account for that explosion of racial and religious hatred’ in Delhi and elsewhere in November 1984 (Geoffrey Robertson QC)
  • Includes an analysis of the previously unrecognised issue of mass genocidal rape against women and the killing of children: 'long overdue in coming since there is far too little writing on 1984' (Dr Uma Chakravarti, Indian historian & feminist).

About Pav Singh

Pav Singh was born in Leeds, England, the son of Punjabi immigrants. He has been instrumental in campaigning on the issues surrounding the 1984 massacres. In 2004, he spent a year in India researching the full extent of the pogroms and the subsequent cover-up. He met with survivors and witnessed the political fall-out and protests following the release of the flawed Nanavati Report into the killings. His research led to the pivotal and authoritative report 1984 Sikhs' Kristallnacht, which was first released in the UK Parliament in 2005 and substantially expanded in 2009. In his role as a community advocate at the Wiener (Holocaust) Library for the Study of the Holocaust and Genocide, London, he curated the exhibition 'The 1984 Anti-Sikh Pogroms Remembered' in 2014 with Delhi-based photographer Gauri Gill.


More information

For more information about this book, please contact me.

Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? by Ian Dunt

Paperback / Canbury Press / 17 November 2016 / £7.99
The ultimate guide to Brexit: How our divorce from Europe will change life in the UK forever. 

I wanted to write a book which could be read in a few hours, but allow someone to win arguments about Brexit for the next decade. This is the biggest story of our lifetime, but the debate around it is filled with sloppy thinking, half-truths and self-interested speculation. It’s almost impossible for people to find one single, readable account of what is really going on. Hopefully this book will address that.
— Ian Dunt
Brexit by Ian Dunt

Our departure from the European Union is filled with propaganda, myth, and half-truth – but the risks of a chaotic Brexit are very real. Mishandling the negotiations with Brussels could lower our global status, diminish our quality of life, and throw our legal system into turmoil. 

With the help of constitutional and trade experts, Ian Dunt argues that:

  • The current approach to Brexit will be a catastrophe for the British economy. The UK urgently needs to agree transitional controls to avoid a financial cliff edge in 2019, which would thump the City and manufacturing. Two years is simply not long enough for what the government wants to do, but the May government shows no signs of pursuing an interim deal.
  • Brexit massively increases the power of the government: Theresa May’s great repeal bill will feature powers allowing ministers to use statutory instruments to alter forty years of entwined EU/UK law without the need for parliamentary debate. So far no democratic safeguards have been announced to ensure the Government does not misuse this power. If the effect of Brexit is as calamitous as expected, ministers will be encouraged to deliver trade deals by unilaterally reducing workers rights, environmental standards and consumer protections.  
  • Brexit will hurt the poor first: Manufacturing communities will be first hit by tariffs and non-tariff barriers. The working communities who voted for Brexit will be the first to be hurt by it.

Dunt also offers solutions, and suggests we should be negotiating diplomatically with European partners while also leveraging what advantages the UK has on market size and military capabilities.

Ian Dunt is editor of Politics.co.uk and a pundit on Newsnight, Channel 4 News and other shows. In this book he is joined by dozens of experts from trade, law and politics to map out how Brexit will redefine Britain in the years ahead.  Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? is the ultimate guide to the least-understood issue of our time.

For further information please contact us.