SNP and Swinney Betray Scottish Students
On Wednesday 22 January 2025, the First Minister John Swinney gave a speech in Glasgow at the Scottish headquarters of JP Morgan Chase, pictured. (1) His theme was "growth" in the economy, and to that end he proposed several ideas. In this article, we examine his claim that more immigration would help the economy "grow", in particular his belief that foreign graduate students should be allowed to stay in Scotland to work.
HIS SYCOPHANTIC AUDIENCE, AFRAID to QUESTION his PREMISE
It should be noted that his audience consisted of broadcast media, and various people from civil society. It may have been a hand-picked audience. In any case, as can be seen from the question period in the video (link below), it was very sycophantic.
One person even said, "You won't be surprised to know I've agreed with every single word you've said John." (2)
Unfortunately, nobody challenged him on his claim that immigration into Scotland would increase "growth", much less whether it was needed at all.
That's why we're writing this article!
HE DID NOT DEFINE "GROWTH"
Mr Swinney did not tell us what he meant by "growth". This is crucial because there are different ways of measuring "growth".
The most common is "Gross Domestic Product" (GDP). In our article "Economy has Nothing to Show for Mass Immigration" we explained the various ways of measuring GDP. (3)
A simple definition would be the sum of all the goods and services in a given year. The "rate of growth" is the difference between the figures this year as opposed to last year, measured as a percentage.
However, the GDP figure is not an accurate reflection of the living standards per person. It does not measure whether people are economically better off. It is quite possible for GDP to rise, but for our living standards to remain static or decline.
A more meaningful measure, for the individual person, is GDP per capita (which means "per person", sometimes stated as "per head") or better still, Income per capita. These are far more practical indicators of our living standards.
After all, if the GDP is "growing" but your personal income is standing still or getting less or buying less, than any "growth" out there in the wider economy is not benefiting you.
However, as we have shown in that article the statistics for both the GDP, and the Income per capita figures, indicate that the "economic growth" argument for mass immigration is bogus anyway!
DO WE REALLY HAVE A "SIGNIFICANT POPULATION CHALLENGE"?
He stated that Scotland has a "significant population challenge". He said:
Scotland's population is aging. The number of deaths registered here in 2023 was greater than the number of births. The difference has been getting wider each year, and is expected to continue.
The number of people aged over 65 is projected to grow by nearly a third by the middle of 2045. Meanwhile, the number of children is projected to fall by nearly a fifth.
For the wellbeing of our society and the future success of our economy, this trend is simply unsustainable.
When I was first elected to the Scottish Parliament, the fear was that Scotland's population would dip below five million.
The concern here is that an aging population will have fewer younger people to pay the taxes to support the pensions of the elderly, or to physically care for the elderly.
His solution?
That is why we need a renewed focus on an immigration policy that works for Scotland. Have no doubt, right now we need people to come here to live and work to bolster our working-age population.
The "aging population" argument for mass immigration is regularly used, because it tends to panic people into accepting the proposed solution of "more immigration".
But is it really correct?
A Force For Good does not argue for reducing the population or increasing the population.
INCREASING the BIRTH RATES, SHOULD BE A POLICY ON THE TABLE
However, if the "aging population" issue is a result of declining birth rates – which Mr Swinney references – then we should, at least, be looking at how we can best address that fundamental systemic issue.
Surely that should be a policy option!
Surely that should be on the table, instead of just importing people who are going to get older themselves, and who are going to present the same problems, and make the same demands, in the future!
For example, we could try encouraging people to have more children. This would require serious policies like tax breaks for families, increasing child benefit payments, and encouraging parents to be able to work from home where possible.
Most importantly, it would also involve changing the culture and "radically enhancing the position of women with young children" in order to recognise "the importance of nurturing and motherhood" in our wider society. This could be done through some kind of "motherhood endowment". (4)
YES, WE CAN FIND A WAY TO FUND PENSIONS
Let us imagine that the population of Scotland did "dip below 5 million", which Mr Swinney seems so worried about. Are we really saying that we couldn't find a way to fund the pensions?
Perhaps under the present method of funding it might present challenges. But we shouldn't forget that governments are able to create money out of nothing. They don't need to always "borrow" money from the financial markets.
We should also remember that the financial markets and the banks (and their propaganda arm, the economists, and the journalists) who profit from the current "debt-based money system" – whereby money is only expected to come into circulation as a debt to someone else – all have a vested interest in perpetuating the notion that everything would fall apart if we didn't keep borrowing from them!
Furthermore, pensions in Scotland are paid from the British Treasury. While we always want Scotland to "pay its way", the reality is that we are – thankfully – insured by the rest of our United Kingdom anyway.
In short, we have no doubt that a solution could be found.
The idea that immigrants – who also get older themselves – are the only way we can fund the pensions, is simply preposterous...and that's before we even consider if immigrants might be taking out more than they are putting in to the public purse in the first place (see below).
WE NEED HIGHER WAGES IN THE CARE SECTOR
What about carers for the elderly?
Mr Swinney was keen to emphasise that the issue was "fundamentally" a supposed lack of people willing to work in the sector, and not low wages.
He said that it was about "the available base" and that, "fundamentally at heart, the issue is that we don't have enough people available in the working age population to contribute to that activity." (5)
He went on to state: "We have to fundamentally address the root cause of the issue which is that our working age population is just not big enough to address these challenges". And "what I've said about migration is designed to help that."
Well, that is certainly debateable!
For example, Geoff Butcher, the boss of Blackadder Care Homes, was interviewed by the Daily Telegraph:
Butcher believes that higher pay in his sector would go some way to addressing the problem.
"If we had better pay, we would probably attract people who are from English, second or third generation backgrounds, who would be more motivated to do this kind of thing. I think it's very largely a motivation issue." (6)
Again, the more people we import to work in the care sector, then the more people are going to need care in the future. Importing people to fill vacancies in this sector is not a sustainable long-term solution.
"SCOTLAND IS DIFFERENT" (NO, IT ISN'T)
Mr Swinney believes that:
If we are to make the most of Scotland's economic opportunities, we need an immigration system that understands Scotland is different from the UK as a whole.
He did not elaborate in which ways Scotland is "different". We imagine this is largely rhetoric.
Indeed, someone in the audience actually pointed out the rate of "economic inactivity for the indigenous population".
He pointed out to Mr Swinney that the national average of economically inactive was "about a quarter of the working age population". He said that this was "an opportunity still being wasted for fulfilling the chronic skills shortages that we see". He asked how that could be addressed. (7)
Mr Swinney did not have a satisfactory answer and really just waffled about "the complexity of people's circumstances." He said it was a "complex picture that has to be addressed, individual by individual".
Mr Swinney concluded by saying that his "fundamental point" was "growing the number of taxpayers".
From this we can presume that he would rather just take the easy option of importing workers from abroad, rather than dealing with the headache and the graft associated with "the complexity of people's circumstances."
HIS BIG IDEA: WORK VISAS for FOREIGN STUDENTS
His big idea was to call for a Student Graduate Work Visa Scheme for Scotland. This would have to be granted by Westminster.
This would enable foreign students, who have completed their time at a Scottish college or university, to be able to stay on and look for work in Scotland.
It's a fact that foreign students are big business in Scotland, and throughout the UK!
They are big business for the colleges themselves, and they are big business for the building sector. Anyone who has been in Glasgow city centre will see all the accommodation which is springing up "for students" – specifically foreign students.
These educational institutions are effectively "selling immigration".
A report in the Scottish Daily Express stated that: "There is no limit to what universities can charge students from overseas, with some courses costing in excess of £20,000 a year. Fees for those from the rest of the UK are capped at £9,250."
It reported that there are more Chinese students in Scotland than students from Edinburgh; more from India than Aberdeenshire, more from Nigeria than Dundee, and more from Pakistan than East Ayrshire! (8)
OBJECTIONS to his FOREIGN GRADUATE VISA SCHEME
Nobody at the meeting thought to point out the following to Mr Swinney:
1. If you offer a combined Student/Work Visa then you will make Scottish colleges and universities more attractive to foreign students. The increase in applications will make it harder for indigenous Scottish students to find a place.
2. How many students are we talking about? A few hundred, several thousand, or tens of thousands? In 2021/22 there were 82,710 foreign students enrolled at Scottish Universities (with 183,030 from Scotland, and 35,490 from the rest of the UK). (9)
3. Most importantly, such a Visa would mean that Scottish graduates could be facing thousands of new competitors for a limited number of graduate jobs. Such a programme would be condemning Scottish graduates to compete for jobs against an endless annual flow of foreign graduates! This is a straight-up betrayal of our young people.
4. Are sufficient graduate jobs even there? Back in 2004, the-then First Minister Jack McConnell promoted the "Fresh Talent" scheme which allowed for an annual intake of 8,000 foreign students to live and work in Scotland for two years after graduation. This was at a time when Scotland attracted 21,700 overseas students a year to its universities (10) – around a quarter of what it does now.
An article at the time quoted Professor Robert Wright, a labour economist at Stirling University, who said:
Graduates are leaving Scotland because there are too many for the jobs available. I just don't buy that the Scottish labour market can absorb any more graduates. In fact, we actually have an over-education problem – we have no shortage of people with sociology degrees, but can you get a plumber? Everyone is crying out for lower end skills. (11)
5. Where are they all going to stay? Well, Mr Swinney has actually thought about that one. He is going to be building houses especially for them. He stated in response to a question:
So the budget settlement that we've put in place which is designed to expand the availability of housing is at the heart of the propositions that are being followed, and is an essential response to the potential of us having a growing population of international students that decide to spend longer here. (12)
WE DO NOT HAVE the TAX CONTRIBUTION v PUBLIC SERVICES COSTINGS
Returning to his "growth" theme, he blithely told us:
have no doubt, they are essential for tax revenues, for the sustainability of public services like our NHS, and for the future success of your businesses, whether as paid employees or as paying customers.
Again, this is just rhetoric.
The fact is, we really do not know if immigrants in Scotland contribute more in "tax revenue" than they take out of "public services" because Holyrood does not make those statistics public. It is unlikely that they are even compiled!
Mr Swinney is just making unsubstantiated claims, which he has no right to do.
To the extent that we can presume immigrants to Scotland are similar to, for example, immigrants to the Netherlands, then the evidence suggests that they are likely to be a net drain on the public finances! (13)
TO CONCLUDE
In 2022-23 there were an astonishing 82,800 long-term immigrants into Scotland. This is larger than a town the size of Paisley – Scotland's fifth most populated town. (14)
We don't yet have the figures for 2023-2024 but they will be similar!
Yet, for Mr Swinney, these numbers are not enough!
He wants even more people to "grow" the economy, regardless of the fact that GDP "growth" does not necessarily make each of us better off, and even when, in this case, it will make it harder for Scottish graduates to get a job!
What can we do in the face of this intransigence?
It is essential that we get people elected into Holyrood in 2026 who will speak up for the interests of the people of Scotland; who will argue against this pointless mass immigration; who will argue for practical measurements of "growth" which reflect our real lives; and who will force Holyrood to compile and release the figures on the actual costs of mass immigration so that we can put an end to it!
REFERENCES
1. You can watch his speech, and the questions at the STV YouTube page here. Below, we refer to time stamps (eg 1:11) to indicate the quotes in the video.
You can read a transcript of his speech "We can grow Scotland's economy and make our nation thrive" at the SNP website here.
2. See video at 55:00.
3. Alistair McConnachie, "Economy has Nothing to Show for Mass Immigration", (22-10-24).
4. A "motherhood endowment" was the idea of Eleanor Rathbone and Eva Hubback. The quotes are Frank Field's from his book Saints and Heroes: Inspiring Politics, (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2010) at p125, wherein we heard about their idea.
5. See video from 31:00.
6. Szu Ping Chan "The struggle to get lazy Britons to follow skilled migrants into work", Daily Telegraph, 23-12-24 here.
7. See video from 38:15.
8. Ben Borland, "Scottish universities now have more students from China than from Edinburgh", Scottish Daily Express, online 20-1-24 here.
Also see: Cicely Oliver, "Reddin survey of university tuition fees", 10-8-21 here.
9. Scottish Daily Express, Ibid.
10. Jenifer Johnston, "'Fresh Talent plan is doomed'", Sunday Herald, 13-6-04, at p10.
11. Sunday Herald, Ibid.
12. See video at 37:12.
13. Jan H van de Beek, Hans Roodenburg, Joop Hartog, Gerrit W. Kreffer, "Borderless Welfare State: The Consequences of Immigration for Public Finances", (University of Amsterdam, April 2023), pdf download here.
14. Alistair McConnachie, "Population Bigger than Paisley, Planted in Scotland Yearly", (31-10-24).
For more articles on this subject see our Territorial Sovereignty: Article Index
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