I'm not in a position to oppose the statistics used by MigrationWatchUK in their latest 'contribution' to the debate about immigration -- that's being done very capably elsewhere. But as a philosopher I can comment on their logic.
Sir Andrew Green's comments to the BBC [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16463861] display the slipperiness of that logic. Basically, MigrationWatch are saying: "We cannot prove there is any connection between Eastern European immigration and youth unemployment in the UK, but in order to refute our claim that there must be a connection, our opponents have to prove that there is no connection at all between them."
Well, nobody can prove that, and anyway, the likelihood is that at least one young British citizen has been looked over for a job because at least one Eastern European immigrant got it instead. We're not in a position to know that this has never happened.
But we can't allow MigrationWatch to rig the argument in this way. The onus remains on them to provide proof that this has happened in a systematic way, rather than on their opponents to prove that it hasn't.
This is a favourite tactic of the right -- to assert a causal connection between two things and then claim their opponents can't disprove it. I remember the debates about single parent families and the rise in youth crime -- both had gone up at roughly the same time statistically, so, claimed some on the right, there must be a connection. Well, there was no empirical proof at all for this, and eventually they dropped it [it might come back].
There's much more to say here about the use of statistics in empirical argument, and what they can establish, and, of course, much more to say about immigration. But for now, look at the logic, or its absence.
See http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/01/immigration-unemployment.
