THE national obsession with immigration in this country is often difficult to fathom.

The latest furore concerned net immigration figures of 745,000.

The throwing around of such figures is misleading, pulling together refugees, economic migrants, students and others in a headline figure that Daily Mail leader writers can then fulminate about.

The small boats coming across the channel have become a focus of government policy — despite the relatively small numbers involved.

The dehumanising approach of politicians generally explains much of the failure of policy. Crazy schemes like basically trying to scare already frightened refugees into not coming because they could end up in Rwanda, rather than on the gold-paved streets of Britain, make no sense.

There is much talk of targeting the traffickers but they are just an effect of the problem. The causes behind the creation of these refugees are things like war and environmental degradation. Address these causes, if the small boats are such an issue.

Maybe, a bit of circumspection on Britain’s own role in wars, such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Britain is also a major arms seller. Also, Britain’s increasingly backward policies on the climate crisis.

The hierarchy of suffering is another thing difficult to fathom, with Britain having a far more welcoming attitude to those coming from say Ukraine and Hong Kong compared to Afghanistan and Iraq.

The mindless attitude to economic migration is even more difficult to understand. In a country with an ageing population and labour shortages, migrant labour is essential to fill the gaps and keep the economy going.

The statistics show migrants add to revenues, they are not a drain. True, infrastructural support needs to be provided but the extra tax coming in from migrant workers should meet this need. Migrant workers should not of course be allowed to undercut indigenous workers’ pay, terms and conditions.

Also, why are asylum-seekers not allowed to work while they are here, especially given that they can be waiting years to have their claims heard?

Possibly, the most ludicrous target in the migrant wars are foreign students. Further education is one of the few growth areas in this country — it is largely kept going by fees from foreign students but some in government want to stop them coming. Utterly ludicrous. As with many other categories, foreign students are mostly only here for a limited time, so are a net gain for the economy.

In fact, taking economic migrants and students as indicative categories, the large number coming in is an indicator of a healthy economy. Migrants come to get work or learn, not, as the tabloid myth would have us believe, to take benefits.

The unhealthy obsession with migration threatens to do great damage to the economic and cultural fabric of society. The categorising of migration as “a problem” helps build fear.

The opposition to migration is driven by fear-based racism. This is aided by a wilful, racist misuse of data by some media to drive sales of their own products.

This national racism-driven obsession with migration helped bring about Brexit (something ironically that has cut the overall wealth of the country and helped create skill shortages). It will do more damage if right-wing politicians and their media megaphones are allowed to continue creating unfounded fears and divisions in society.

What is needed is a proper recognition of the pluses and minuses of migration. There then needs to be a humane, efficient and welcoming system developed for all the different categories of migrants. The backlogs need to be cleared. Using people’s lives as political footballs is not acceptable.