London Briefing/Chris Johns: In Britain, the debate over globalisation takes many forms but is generally focused on one issue: jobs.

As in the US, there is much hand-wringing about "outsourcing". The traditional movement of low-paying manufacturing jobs is now accompanied, at least if we believe the headlines, by a tidal wave of middle-class service sector jobs.

As in the US, the available data does not support the headlines in any way whatsoever - the numbers are still very small - but that does not stop firms which shift activities overseas being subject to politically inspired hate campaigns.

This is at its worst in the US - it being election year - but the UK gets its fair share of serious commentators arguing that something should be done to stop the jobs disappearing.

Free trade is one of those strange things that most people, most of the time, agree is a good thing.

It is clear that few people understand why they think this, since they soon forget their firmly held convictions once they see imported goods arriving and jobs being exported.

Serious politicians who argue against free trade make strange bedfellows for the airheads who typically make up the anti-globalisation movement.

But the arguments that both groups use are equally specious.

Indeed, the anti-globalisers are soon going to have to confront an uncomfortable fact: the process that they hate so much is starting to free from poverty millions of people in China and throughout Asia.

How those who riot at World Trade Organisation meetings deal with this will be fun to watch.

Undoubtedly we will find people prepared to argue that Chinese peasants were poverty stricken but happy. But the jobs that are now enriching many parts of Asia have not been stolen from the West.

It is worth recalling that, on most conventional measures, both the US and UK economies are operating at levels that used to be called full employment.

The giant sucking sound being made by vanishing jobs is a figment of fevered imaginations.

It has to be acknowledged that proponents of free trade sometimes overplay their hand. Free trade does create losers - it's just that the number of winners dwarfs those who get hurt.

And that is why it is important to have benefit systems, unemployment insurance, regional assistance, retraining grants and all the panoply of the modern welfare state.

That apparatus should be there to assist those who are hurt by change, to help them cope with it and get over it. Change itself should be welcomed.

That, broadly, is how things operate in the UK. That, broadly, is how things do not operate in the countries of old Europe, where change is now a term of abuse.

If we resist change, we impoverish ourselves and other countries. It really is as simple as that.

Or perhaps it isn't, because the number of people who understand how international trade works seems to be dwindling rapidly.

The fear over jobs is also exploited by the anti-immigration lobby. In a debate that is echoed in many countries, we hear that the would-be immigrants are either going to be benefit scroungers, are going to steal British jobs and lower everyone's pay.

Again, there is no evidence at all to support any of these assertions, but facts rarely intrude on this debate.

All of the available data suggests that an enlightened immigration policy increases total employment and has very little impact on overall wages (with perhaps a small effect on low-paid jobs). While some immigrants do end up on welfare, the numbers are small: the UK government in its most recent study concluded that immigrants pay £2.5 billion (€3.75 billion) more in taxes than they receive in benefits and public services.

There is nothing to fear from the EU accession countries: they will come if there are jobs. And if that happens we will all benefit. There is no tidal wave of benefit seekers.

I notice that the Republic has been deporting hotel cleaners who have been working for €6 an hour. People have got to start to join the dots. Just as the anti-globalisers must be made to realise that they are arguing for poor people to stay poor, you cannot expect to have a vibrant tourist industry if you boot out the very people that you need to stay competitive.

Racism that masquerades as economic policy should be resisted at all costs. Fatuous economic policies that mimic the ravings of the anti-globalisation movement need to be exposed for what they are.