Sam Bowman's comments on UKIP's pledge to lower the UK net migration cap are featured in The Telegraph

Research Director Sam Bowman's comments on UKIP's proposal to lower the UK net migration cap to 50,000 people per year for employment were featured in The Telegraph.

Ukip has promised to cut immigration. The party's general election manifesto will pledge to cut net immigration to 50,000 or below. Dog bites man, as they say.

What is interesting, however, is the reaction to that pledge.

The Adam Smith Institute is not happy. The ASI is a think-tank, the sort of place where free-marketeers hang out and which provided some of the intellectual fuel for Thatcherism.

Here's what the ASI has to say about Ukip policy, and immigration in general:

"UKIP’s line on immigration is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Despite what UKIP claims, immigration is good for virtually everyone in society, rich and poor alike. The evidence is clear that even low-skilled immigration only hurts low-skilled native wages temporarily, and does not affect the number of jobs available to natives at all. The reason for this is that immigrants demand services as well as supplying them: every job taken by an immigrant also means a new job will be created to supply him or her with their needs.

"Opposing immigration is economically no different to 19th Century-style trade protectionism – the only difference is where the people we’re trading with are. Economists, left and right, agree that trade makes everyone richer, and immigration just allows us to trade with more people more often at home. One of the best things about the EU has been the guarantee of free movement between member states; to throw that away would be an economic catastrophe. If UKIP's priority is to leave the EU, it is vital that they maintain open borders with the EU.

"Immigrants are a huge boon to the welfare state. Because they are usually young and motivated to find work, they pay more in taxes overall than they cost the state in services. As Britain gets older, with more and more retirees to provide for with pensions and healthcare, we will need more immigrants to avoid a massive debt crisis by 2050. Far from being a cost to the state, immigrants may be the only way to fulfill our obligations to the older generation."

Read the full article here.