The City’s history may be great but its future depends on open borders
THE CROWDS queuing for a glimpse of Her Majesty’s royal barge will get – for a few hours – a useful reminder of the role geography has played in the success of London as a global trading hub. And the importance of immigration, too.
Sunblock and brollies at the ready on Sunday, we will gaze out across the Thames and use our imagination to place this Queen Elizabeth in the time of her namesake.
Even if the event does not match Shakespeare’s fantastical evocation of Cleopatra and her barge, it will be very special indeed. As we stand and study the tide, we might, like Shakespeare himself, note a few things about this elbow of the Thames known as the City.
First: the Thames is not a flat blue surface that waterbuses can race up and down. It’s a tricky river, powered by a brutally strong tide, a far cry from the silky Seine or Frankfurt’s straightforward Main.
The City is set on a series of hills, well away from floods and smelly drains. Its Thames, far from being an ornament, was an ancient internet, connecting directly via the North Sea and the European inland waterways to the Old World’s ideas and commerce and, eventually, to the Mediterranean, the Silk Route and distant Cathay (though a medieval Londoner, hazarding a guess, might place Cathay just the other side of Barking).
Trade – first in goods, then also in finance and services – has always been what the City has been about. And nationality has never been that important. Take Cannon Street, once the heart of the medieval wool trade, where the German community was allowed to elect its own City Alderman – just as long as they kept the peace and kept the trade flowing.
In the twenty-first century, skills and ideas are the imported goods of choice and Heathrow is the point of entry. But while Crossrail is the good news, linking the City to Heathrow in 39 minutes in 2018, the bad news is both the airport’s capacity overstretch and prescriptive restrictions on skilled immigrants.
Our competitors are no longer Hanseatic ports but Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore and Dubai – as well as New York and Mumbai. And while the UK’s balance of permanent net immigration is clearly a party political matter, the City must always make the case for open access to the world’s best brains – whether students or qualified professionals.
As we watch the Royal River Pageant on Sunday, we must take care not to draw the wrong lesson.
City spectators who look out across the Thames should not be seduced by the stately advance of the boats into assuming that progress is inexorable, or inevitable. A better lesson can be read from the geological metaphor of the winding river curves: their lesson is that history does not move in straight lines and yesterday’s success does not lead inevitably to tomorrow’s.
The City has had a great past. But it will only have a great future if we secure access to the world’s best minds, whatever their passport.
Mark Boleat is policy chairman at Canada Corporation.