This weekend the president of Bulgaria, in the midst of an increasingly heated debate about the imminent lifting of restrictions on migration from his country to the UK, said: “Politicians should be ready to say the inconvenient truth.” They should endure short-term unpopularity, Rosen Plevneliev suggests, “preserve our values” and “keep the history of our proud tolerant nations as they are”. Given that his words were aimed at a Conservative party now zooming into pre-election mode under the supervision of Lynton Crosby, they read like subtle satire.

And on the same theme, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg asked: “What would happen if tonight every European living in the UK boarded a ship or plane and went home? Are we really that keen to see the back of German lawyers, Dutch accountants, or Finnish engineers?” Full marks for his usual high-mindedness, but the contributions made by such professionals are only a fraction of the issue: the truth is that the British economy would be in a much more parlous state if it lost the low-paid Poles cleaning hotels, the Czechs serving cappuccinos, and the Latvians and Lithuanians working as security guards.

What a mess all this is. Next week, on Jan 1, seven years after their countries joined the European Union, restrictions will be lifted on the number of Bulgarians and Romanians who can live and work in the UK. Exactly how many will come here is inevitably unclear, and clouded by the hysterical claims made by parts of the rightwing press, and the UK Independence party — one of whose leaflets in this year’s Eastleigh by-election stated that “the EU will allow 29 million Bulgarians and Romanians to come to the UK”. That number was derived by simply adding together the two countries’ populations.

The Tories are clearly panicked. Consequently, as of last week, the Conservative position on EU enlargement (long seen by the Tories as the best bulwark against political union) began to shift. David Cameron is now seemingly pledged to veto the accession of such countries as Serbia and Albania, unless there are new restrictions on the free movement of labour. Conservative high-ups are said to be considering an annual cap of 75,000 migrants from the EU — a move that, as business minister Vince Cable pointed out on Dec 22, would probably be “illegal and impossible to implement”, and has much more to do with moronic electioneering than serious politics.

Meanwhile, the liberal left is reprising its mantra: migration is good for us, new migrants from the EU pay about a third more in taxes than they cost in public services and benefits, Britain has a long tradition of tolerance and openness, etc.

Yet something is unavoidably up. According to YouGov, in 2005 Britons supported “the right of people in EU countries to live and work wherever they want” by a ratio of two to one. Today, we oppose free movement by 49 per cent to 38pc. One recent poll by ComRes — admittedly commissioned by an anti-EU outfit called Get Britain Out — found that 79pc of people opposed the lifting of the restrictions on new arrivals from Bulgaria and Romania.

The point is, millions of people will always be uneasy about large-scale change. Not because they are racist, or any more prejudiced than anyone else — but because human beings like a measure of certainty and stability. Further, it barely needs pointing out that immigration tends to impact places where certainty and stability are thin on the ground. If you pinball between part-time work and jobseeker’s allowance and feel about two pay cheques away from destitution, the idea that your meagre chunk of the rock may be about to shrink yet further will not go down well. Statistics, unfortunately, have precious little to do with this: there may be an argument that, viewed from a macro level, immigration does not drag down wages, but it seems to have an appreciable effect towards the bottom of the labour market — and besides, if you live in a constant state of anxiety, even the suggestion that it might will be enough.

As an alternative to the politics of deception and displacement activity, we might accept that UK membership of the EU brings far more benefits than costs, but understand that in the absence of dependable labour standards, housing and other essentials, it could well fall into disrepute. A half-repentant Labour party may be gingerly moving towards this position; the Tories remain much where they ever were; and the Liberal Democrats, long ignorant of anything to do with the nitty-gritty of the economy, do not seem to have a position one way or the other.

To go back to Plevneliev, politicians should indeed be mindful of their countries’ “tolerant” histories, and occasionally state inconvenient truths. But they are also going to have to look at one of the most awkward facts of all: that if the free movement of people has become synonymous with insecurity and anxiety, it should focus attention not on borders policy, but on the basics of our economy.

—By arrangement with the Guardian