The passions stirred by it have been one of the principal motors propelling the new populist nationalist right to power and influence in the Western democratic world. It was the red meat of immigration “wot won it” for the Brexit side in the EU referendum in the UK in 2016, and ever since then political and everyday conversation seems to have been dominated by concerns about “invasions” across the English Channel by armadas of “small boats” and housing of migrants/asylum seekers (the two are often blatantly conflated by hostile nativists) and which party has lost and can regain control of that island country’s borders.
Ill-informed speculation about the ethno-religious identity of refugees and that the threat that they may pose to “our” women and children has been a major catalyst in racist inspired disorder around migrant holding centres in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The “threats” to the USA at the Mexican border was of course a significant animating force in the election (twice) of Donald Trump as President and the rise of the MAGA movement. The rise to power of Victor Orban in Hungary; Georgia Meloni in Italy and the electoral strength of National Rally in France and AfD in Germany have occurred in tandem with the rising tide of migration from the Middle East and further afield. As has that of Herbert Kickl’s Austrian Freedom Party and Geert Wilder’s Party for Freedom in the Netherlands Scandinavia, the far-right Swedish Democrats, True Finns and Danish People’s Party have become governing or deal making parties. Because of its signifier for grievances around the downside of globalisation, open borders and societal change in host countries especially over changes in ethno-cultural composition of communities, immigration poses existential dilemmas and risks for centre-left and centre-right parties in terms of whether to shift tactically to tighter border controls in order to assuage the concerns (real or illusory) of their electorates or keep a blue water distance from xenophobic or racially charged sentiments. So, bearing in mind the salience of immigration to the hegemonising of political discourse by the far right, how do progressives deal with immigration and all its toxicities without falling between those two stools?
For Peter Hyman, adviser to Tony Blair from 1994-2003 and to Keir Starmer from 2022-24, the answer is clear. Rather than shouting about how appalled they are about Trump and Farage, progressives need to show respect for ordinary people and pride in their country by accepting that having secure border and orderly immigration is a basic requirement of good government. Hyman states bluntly that when far right populists combine a story about the nation with one about protecting the country’s borders, it sends “us into a tailspin. He accuses parties of the centre “in almost every instance” of having done too little too late to enforce a robust, fair and humane asylum system that has genuine integrity. He cites the British Labour Party as a rare example of a party determined to neutralise the issue. For Peter Hyman, progressives need to understand that this is not about pandering to the far right, but about fairness and control.[1]
But how are “secure borders” and “orderly immigration” to be secured asks Matthew D’Ancona. The performative and censoriousness nature of “wokeness” should not detract from the urgency of the anti-racist project it (partially) enshrines, he states. Yet he also cautions that “retreating into a perma-smug echo chamber” in response to the populist, nativist right is not an option.[2]
Migration Myths
Before considering what a progressive agenda on migration looks like, it is instructive to examine and deconstruct some of the prevailing “common sense” and mythology around the subject. For this I turn to the expertise of Hein de Haas who has distilled three decades of primary research on migration on various countries around the world and integrated them with findings from the burgeoning field of migration studies to publish fresh and original arguments in his magisterial book How Migration Really Works. A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics (Penguin, London 2023).
De Haas’s motivation for writing this book is frustration at the minimal impact of existing academic research on migration on the public debate or on policies proposed by politicians and international organisations, which partly explains why policies frequently hit the buffers. Years of research and talking to policy makers and the relevant NGOs, have led him to the conclusion that ‘speaking truth to power’ on migration is a fruitless exercise as politicians and other policy makers will ignore the facts they find inconvenient often on the grounds that to ‘implement your insights . . . would be political suicide”[3]
De Haas’s book seeks to answer the biggest unresolved questions about migration. Why have Western polities failed to curb immigration despite massive expenditure of public money on border enforcement? Why is illegal migration continuing despite politicians’ promises to destroy the business model of people smugglers often conveyed in meaningless and ineffective catchphrases such as “Stop the Small Boats” or “Smash the Gangs”? Why have governments been so ineffective in preventing the exploitation of migrant workers, despite repeated commitments to decisively crack down on such abuses? How do politicians get way with recycling the same false promises (reduce annual migrant numbers to thousands) or outright lies (that EU expansion would lead to 75 million Turks being eligible to come to the UK, a particularly egregious lie told by Leave campaigners during the Brexit referendum). And most pertinently, what policies can be put in place to deal more effectively with migration?[4]
The central contention of De Haas’s book is that existing policies on migration fall because they fail to understand the science of how migration really works, partly because of ignorance of the evidence but largely because of wilful blindness to the facts. He accuses politicians (from left to right, from conservative to liberal), interest groups and international organisations of perpetuating a series of myths as part of deliberate strategies to obscure the truth about migration which have led to the entrapment of politicians in the webs of lies, deceit and misinformation they themselves are responsible for creating.[5]
But the myth-making syndrome also extend to interest groups like trade unions and business lobbies that exaggerate the harms – or benefits – of migration. It takes in UN agencies like the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) misrepresenting refugee and migrant numbers to generate publicity and funding. It features politicians stigmatising migrants and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers as job thieves or welfare scroungers in order to deflect from the real causes of declining employment security, increasing financial insecurity, housing shortages and collapsing healthcare provision. It’s about corporate lobbies portraying migrants as heroes that will ensure a competitive edge for nations in the race for global talent. And humanitarian organisations denying agency to migrants and refugees by unilaterally depicting them as ‘victims’ requiring rescue from people smugglers.[6]
Posturing Politicians
In the last week, there have been two examples in British politics of a seeming ‘race to the bottom’ on immigration. First, there has been the call by Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, for immigrants to wait for at least fifteen years before they become available for UK citizenship on the grounds that citizenship should only be awarded to people who have shown ‘a real commitment’ to Britain’. In addition, she has called for the amount of time immigrants must live in the UK before they are eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) to be doubled from five to ten years and that those currently with ILR should wait for five years before they can apply for citizenship. She has additionally called for new conditions to be imposed on anyone applying for ILR including showing proof of never having claimed benefits or used social housing; of having no criminal record and would be a ‘net contributor’ to the UK economy.[7]
These shrill calls for new restrictions on immigrants ignore the fact that most work visas come from those with ‘no recourse to public funds’ - conditions preventing immigrants with those visas from claiming benefits or using social housing and in many cases having a criminal record will delay of prevent someone claiming it. Notably she refused to make herself a hostage to fortune by not putting a figure by which a government led by her would reduce immigration by.[8]
Many would note the irony of a second generation Nigerian migrant whose family returned to Nigeria after she was born in the UK and then remigrated there during her teenage years (when she burnished her faux working class credentials by claiming to have worked in a branch of MacDonald’s when aged 16), seeking to draw down doors for other migrants (presumably not of her social milieu).
Ms Badenoch’s calls for further restrictions on UK citizenship for new immigrants drew the response from Dame Angela Eagle, Minister for Border Security, that the Tories had ‘lost control of our borders during their 14 years in office’[9] While not abjuring the case for sensible and equitable border controls, for many this reaction is depressingly banter like over the most toxic and divisive issue in modern politics. As is the boasting by the current Labour government of the thousands of illegals that they have deported (13, 500 Labour reported in December) in communications such as the Facebook adverts launched this week including a series from a group called UK Migration Updates trumpeting that “Labour Hits 5 Year High in Migrant Removals” which do not display the Labour logo and are in a similar shade of blue to that used by Reform UK. This advert was paid for by the Yorkshire and Humber Labour Party. Labour North West has also used the advert on a Facebook page it styles Putting Runcorn First, which shows a large union flag but no Labour branding. The party also set up a Facebook group called Protect Britain’s Communities designed to highlight the government ‘s record on crime and antisocial behaviour. The page does not display any Labour livery but sports a large union flag.[10]
The dynamic behind this posturing is Labour’s perceived need to choke off voter defection to Reform UK who for the first time lead the opinion polls and to park tanks on its populist territory of immigration and crime. Within the Parliamentary Labour Party, panic has led to Labour MPs under threat from Reform (Reform came second in 89 Labour-held constituencies) setting up a pressure group to urge Keir Starmer to get tougher on immigration and crime. Some of these MPs have pushed the case for processing asylum seekers claims overseas and for ministers to be more vocal about deportation flights.[11]
Playing with Fire
Predictably, human rights campaigner and other Labour MPs have sounded the alarm over such toughening stances. Rachel Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, whose regional party set up the UK Migration Updates page and who represents England’s only human rights city ‘where we uphold the dignity of all” cautioned Labour “against raising such community tensions, when we know there are so many asylum seekers who have experienced persecution all their lives.” Steve Valdez-Simmons, refugee and migrants rights director of Amnesty International UK opined that for anyone wishing for “a fair and efficient immigration and asylum system in the UK, public communications strategies such as this only makes the situation worse.”[12]
Labour MPs and officials alarmed by the rise of Reform UK in the opinion polls and the possibility of it making major electoral gains at Labour’s expense can point to findings in the latest Optimum poll for the Observer which shows that it is neck and neck with Labour (Labour – 26%, Reform – 25%, Tories- 22%, Lib Dems – 11% and Greens 8%) because its stance on immigration is proving attractive to floating voters. Among those backing Reform, the poll found that 37% do so due to its hardline policies on immigration. Separately, among “Reform considerers” about 72% liked the party’s immigration and borders policies, more than twice than any other policy issue. The former include freezing non-essential immigration and taking undocumented immigrants out of “small boats” and send them back to France.[13]
However, Robert Ford argues that moving onto the ideological territory occupied by those who are attracted to Nigel Farage is fraught with high risk and low success possibility for Labour in that that demographic is an alienated, ‘anti-politics’ voter group with little historical affinity for Labour and even less trust and affection for the Labour government. Chasing Reform also risks alienating the cohort of voters on its liberal left dismayed enough by Starmer’s refusal to contemplate rejoining the European single market and customs union (and perhaps rowing back on the Net Zero agenda in favour of “growth”) who would then switch to the Liberal Democrats, Greens and the SNP. Ford cites polls showing that while 3 in 10 Labour voters would contemplate a change to Reform, more than four in ten would consider voting Liberal Democrat or Green. Diversion from the lasered focus on those issues which cemented the Labour landside last summer – growth, public services and the cost of living – towards the culture war issues like immigration that are meat and drink to Reform would not be a sensible governing or electoral strategy.[14]
The perils to democracy of mainstream parties who should be gatekeepers of democratic politics of occupying the ground of extremist anti-system parties for short term electoral considerations are currently being played out in Germany which goes to the polls on 23rd February. There the leader of the conservative CDU, Friedrich Merz, in a startlingly attempt to wrest back control of Germany’s polarised migration debate, passed a hard-line but non-binding resolution in the Bundestag (German parliament) on border security with votes from the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) thereby violating a post war taboo in Germany by conferring a degree of respectability on a far right party. The consequent uproar led to Merz’s failure to pass a separate immigration-tightening bill in the Bundestag due to a rebellion within his parliamentary ranks. However opinion polls suggest that his manoeuvre attracted negligible transfer of support from AfD adherents and that his flirtation with the AfD has diverted attention away from the perception in the polls that dealing with Germany’s economic travails is his USP and raised questions about his ability to govern as the need for CDU/CSU’s for a putative coalition partner from the left – Social Democrats or Greens – and his ruling out of a formal coalition with the AfD would require compromise on his pledges to curb migration by, for example, turning “irregular migrants” back at the border.[15]
Merz’s dalliance with the AfD has revived ancestral and primal fears about the turbulent conditions in the Weimar Republic a century ago which enabled the rise to power of the Nazis with the timid acquiescence of moderate parties who failed to act as gatekeepers of democracy. In the words of one elementary school teacher last week it was “emotional” for many Germans and said she was worried that Merz was “playing with fire” and had no clear plan of how to protect democracy.[16]
Migration has become a wedge issue in German politics since former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit a decade ago a million people fleeing war, poverty and persecution – a decision which was a courageous act of humanity and morality but one which Merz has blamed for turbocharging the rise of the AfD. Incidents such as the recently deadly attacks on children in Aschaffenburg and the Christmas market in Magdeburg which were blamed on asylum seekers have unquestionably sharped divisions over migration but tens of thousands have joined demonstrations against Merz’s flirtation with the far right and by doing so acting as grass roots gatekeepers of German democracy.[17]
What Is To Be Done?
Echoing the strictures of Hein de Haas, Mathew D’Ancona states that the basic requirement of a robust progressive strategy on migration is the honesty that has eluded politicians of all British parties in recent years. He begins by stating baldly that newcomers are essential for decent public services, infrastructure and the growth needed to pay for a decent society. He evidences this case by citing these stark figures: the UK has 130,000 vacancies in the social care sector; it needs more than 40,000 nurses and more than 100,000 hospitality employees. The construction industry will require more than 250,000 extra workers to meet demand over the next five years. Skills strategies, necessary though they are, are no substitutes for a migration policy that acknowledges the immediate requirements of the labour market as well as the problems that declining birth rates present for the UK and other developed countries.[18]
Recalling, the then Labour Home Secretary’s, John Reid, pronouncement in 2006 that the Home Office’s immigration directorate was “not fit for purpose”, D’Ancona argues for a new Department of Migration, Visas and Refugees which would give the issue a higher public profile and cabinet representation and would hopefully enable a better resourced, just, compassionate and internationally collaborative system which would command the public approval lacking for current asylum application arrangements.[19]
He cautions “greater realism about freedom of movement” for those in the Remain camp who seek as swift as possible re-entry into the European Union in that the direction of travel is towards tighter controls within the EU guided by the “Fortress Europe” gravitational pull of strategies favoured by Victor Orban in Hungary and Georgi Meloni in Italy. But the biggest challenge of all for progressives is to confront the strength of emotions associated with immigration which especially since the financial crash of 2008 has become a synonym for loss of cultural identity and economic insecurity on the part of globalisation’s discontents; feelings amplified by the daily ubiquity of social media and its harnessing by bad actors. The response of progressives has veered from virtual silence on immigration leaving the field free for Leave campaigners in the Brexit referendum and afterwards in the Home Office to promote their horrible language around “invasion” and values of “sub-communities” from a “peasant background” and cruel schemes like deportation flights to Rwanda to soundbite condemnations and then to neurotic fears about upsetting that mythical electoral entity known as “The Red Wall”.[20]
As it happens there is a pathway though the thicket of anxiety around immigration, integration, parallel communities, erosion of ‘British values and the impact of ‘alien’ ideologies such as Political Islam towards a pluralist, heterogenous nation in a constant flux of healthy, lively negotiation. This was Dame Louise Casey’s 200-page review into opportunity and integration in December 2016. She paid as much attention to far-right white extremism as to Islamist extremism and examined the social exclusion of the Roma community as well as the factors that contribute to the segregation of many Muslims.[21]
She resolutely condemned politicians, bureaucrats and self-appointed community leaders who “have allowed diversity and difference to become separatism and segregation that has divided communities’ and were content merely to genuflect towards tokens of multiculturalism as “saris, samosas and steel drums'' for the already well-intentioned. For Casey, the nub of the problem was that commitment to getting things done was too often sacrificed to the fear of giving offence. Too many political leaders were “focusing on what they think their communities want to hear, rather than what they believe is right, for fear of losing the support of a particular community.” An approach devoid of the courage and integrity people need and desire from their representatives.[22]
Casey made an inventory of wise, common-sense recommendations from the improvement of English language teaching, provision of digital literacy in segregated areas and the boosting of school mixing, teaching of democratic values in the school curriculum, use of the universal credit system to put people into contact with language, employment and other services they might need, to a recognition of shared values in the Committee of Standards in Public Life.[23]
Unfortunately, her recommendations were not taken forward. Once again, the political classes appear to want to avoid the difficult but necessary questions on immigration and integration, leaving the field open to separatists and rabble-rousing populists. For how long can they?
References
[1] Peter Hyman How to Beat Populism. The New European. Issue 420, January 16-22, 2025, pp. 16-19.
[2] Matthew D’Ancona, We Need to Talk About Immigration. The New European. Issue 421, January 23-29 pp13-14.
[3] De Haas, p.3
[4] Ibid. p.2
[5] Ibid, p.8
[6] Ibid, p.9
[7] Christopher McKeon Immigrants Should Face Tougher Hurdles for Citizenship Says Badenoch. Press Association 5 February 2025
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid.
[10] Kiran Stacey Labour ads. Reform-style branding as party targets defectors. Guardian 7th February 2025.
[11] Kiran Stacey, Labour MPs tell Starmer to get tougher on immigration. Guardian. 6th February 2025.
[12] Stacey, Guardian, 7th February 2025 op cit.
[13] Toby Helm, Reform UK bearing down on Labour as voters back harder line on migration. The Observer 9th February 2025.
[14] Robert Ford, Labour risks losing hundreds of seats if it tries to echo Farage. The Observer 9th February 2025.
[15] Deborah Cole Danke, Herr Merz – has immigration gamble played into the hands of AfD? The Observer 9th February 2025
[16] Ibid
[17] Ibid.
[18] D’Ancona, p.13
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid, pp.13-14
[21] Ibid, p.14
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
For Peter Hyman, adviser to Tony Blair from 1994-2003 and to Keir Starmer from 2022-24, the answer is clear. Rather than shouting about how appalled they are about Trump and Farage, progressives need to show respect for ordinary people and pride in their country by accepting that having secure border and orderly immigration is a basic requirement of good government. Hyman states bluntly that when far right populists combine a story about the nation with one about protecting the country’s borders, it sends “us into a tailspin. He accuses parties of the centre “in almost every instance” of having done too little too late to enforce a robust, fair and humane asylum system that has genuine integrity. He cites the British Labour Party as a rare example of a party determined to neutralise the issue. For Peter Hyman, progressives need to understand that this is not about pandering to the far right, but about fairness and control.[1]
But how are “secure borders” and “orderly immigration” to be secured asks Matthew D’Ancona. The performative and censoriousness nature of “wokeness” should not detract from the urgency of the anti-racist project it (partially) enshrines, he states. Yet he also cautions that “retreating into a perma-smug echo chamber” in response to the populist, nativist right is not an option.[2]
Migration Myths
Before considering what a progressive agenda on migration looks like, it is instructive to examine and deconstruct some of the prevailing “common sense” and mythology around the subject. For this I turn to the expertise of Hein de Haas who has distilled three decades of primary research on migration on various countries around the world and integrated them with findings from the burgeoning field of migration studies to publish fresh and original arguments in his magisterial book How Migration Really Works. A Factful Guide to the Most Divisive Issue in Politics (Penguin, London 2023).
De Haas’s motivation for writing this book is frustration at the minimal impact of existing academic research on migration on the public debate or on policies proposed by politicians and international organisations, which partly explains why policies frequently hit the buffers. Years of research and talking to policy makers and the relevant NGOs, have led him to the conclusion that ‘speaking truth to power’ on migration is a fruitless exercise as politicians and other policy makers will ignore the facts they find inconvenient often on the grounds that to ‘implement your insights . . . would be political suicide”[3]
De Haas’s book seeks to answer the biggest unresolved questions about migration. Why have Western polities failed to curb immigration despite massive expenditure of public money on border enforcement? Why is illegal migration continuing despite politicians’ promises to destroy the business model of people smugglers often conveyed in meaningless and ineffective catchphrases such as “Stop the Small Boats” or “Smash the Gangs”? Why have governments been so ineffective in preventing the exploitation of migrant workers, despite repeated commitments to decisively crack down on such abuses? How do politicians get way with recycling the same false promises (reduce annual migrant numbers to thousands) or outright lies (that EU expansion would lead to 75 million Turks being eligible to come to the UK, a particularly egregious lie told by Leave campaigners during the Brexit referendum). And most pertinently, what policies can be put in place to deal more effectively with migration?[4]
The central contention of De Haas’s book is that existing policies on migration fall because they fail to understand the science of how migration really works, partly because of ignorance of the evidence but largely because of wilful blindness to the facts. He accuses politicians (from left to right, from conservative to liberal), interest groups and international organisations of perpetuating a series of myths as part of deliberate strategies to obscure the truth about migration which have led to the entrapment of politicians in the webs of lies, deceit and misinformation they themselves are responsible for creating.[5]
But the myth-making syndrome also extend to interest groups like trade unions and business lobbies that exaggerate the harms – or benefits – of migration. It takes in UN agencies like the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNCHR) misrepresenting refugee and migrant numbers to generate publicity and funding. It features politicians stigmatising migrants and ‘bogus’ asylum seekers as job thieves or welfare scroungers in order to deflect from the real causes of declining employment security, increasing financial insecurity, housing shortages and collapsing healthcare provision. It’s about corporate lobbies portraying migrants as heroes that will ensure a competitive edge for nations in the race for global talent. And humanitarian organisations denying agency to migrants and refugees by unilaterally depicting them as ‘victims’ requiring rescue from people smugglers.[6]
Posturing Politicians
In the last week, there have been two examples in British politics of a seeming ‘race to the bottom’ on immigration. First, there has been the call by Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, for immigrants to wait for at least fifteen years before they become available for UK citizenship on the grounds that citizenship should only be awarded to people who have shown ‘a real commitment’ to Britain’. In addition, she has called for the amount of time immigrants must live in the UK before they are eligible for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) to be doubled from five to ten years and that those currently with ILR should wait for five years before they can apply for citizenship. She has additionally called for new conditions to be imposed on anyone applying for ILR including showing proof of never having claimed benefits or used social housing; of having no criminal record and would be a ‘net contributor’ to the UK economy.[7]
These shrill calls for new restrictions on immigrants ignore the fact that most work visas come from those with ‘no recourse to public funds’ - conditions preventing immigrants with those visas from claiming benefits or using social housing and in many cases having a criminal record will delay of prevent someone claiming it. Notably she refused to make herself a hostage to fortune by not putting a figure by which a government led by her would reduce immigration by.[8]
Many would note the irony of a second generation Nigerian migrant whose family returned to Nigeria after she was born in the UK and then remigrated there during her teenage years (when she burnished her faux working class credentials by claiming to have worked in a branch of MacDonald’s when aged 16), seeking to draw down doors for other migrants (presumably not of her social milieu).
Ms Badenoch’s calls for further restrictions on UK citizenship for new immigrants drew the response from Dame Angela Eagle, Minister for Border Security, that the Tories had ‘lost control of our borders during their 14 years in office’[9] While not abjuring the case for sensible and equitable border controls, for many this reaction is depressingly banter like over the most toxic and divisive issue in modern politics. As is the boasting by the current Labour government of the thousands of illegals that they have deported (13, 500 Labour reported in December) in communications such as the Facebook adverts launched this week including a series from a group called UK Migration Updates trumpeting that “Labour Hits 5 Year High in Migrant Removals” which do not display the Labour logo and are in a similar shade of blue to that used by Reform UK. This advert was paid for by the Yorkshire and Humber Labour Party. Labour North West has also used the advert on a Facebook page it styles Putting Runcorn First, which shows a large union flag but no Labour branding. The party also set up a Facebook group called Protect Britain’s Communities designed to highlight the government ‘s record on crime and antisocial behaviour. The page does not display any Labour livery but sports a large union flag.[10]
The dynamic behind this posturing is Labour’s perceived need to choke off voter defection to Reform UK who for the first time lead the opinion polls and to park tanks on its populist territory of immigration and crime. Within the Parliamentary Labour Party, panic has led to Labour MPs under threat from Reform (Reform came second in 89 Labour-held constituencies) setting up a pressure group to urge Keir Starmer to get tougher on immigration and crime. Some of these MPs have pushed the case for processing asylum seekers claims overseas and for ministers to be more vocal about deportation flights.[11]
Playing with Fire
Predictably, human rights campaigner and other Labour MPs have sounded the alarm over such toughening stances. Rachel Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, whose regional party set up the UK Migration Updates page and who represents England’s only human rights city ‘where we uphold the dignity of all” cautioned Labour “against raising such community tensions, when we know there are so many asylum seekers who have experienced persecution all their lives.” Steve Valdez-Simmons, refugee and migrants rights director of Amnesty International UK opined that for anyone wishing for “a fair and efficient immigration and asylum system in the UK, public communications strategies such as this only makes the situation worse.”[12]
Labour MPs and officials alarmed by the rise of Reform UK in the opinion polls and the possibility of it making major electoral gains at Labour’s expense can point to findings in the latest Optimum poll for the Observer which shows that it is neck and neck with Labour (Labour – 26%, Reform – 25%, Tories- 22%, Lib Dems – 11% and Greens 8%) because its stance on immigration is proving attractive to floating voters. Among those backing Reform, the poll found that 37% do so due to its hardline policies on immigration. Separately, among “Reform considerers” about 72% liked the party’s immigration and borders policies, more than twice than any other policy issue. The former include freezing non-essential immigration and taking undocumented immigrants out of “small boats” and send them back to France.[13]
However, Robert Ford argues that moving onto the ideological territory occupied by those who are attracted to Nigel Farage is fraught with high risk and low success possibility for Labour in that that demographic is an alienated, ‘anti-politics’ voter group with little historical affinity for Labour and even less trust and affection for the Labour government. Chasing Reform also risks alienating the cohort of voters on its liberal left dismayed enough by Starmer’s refusal to contemplate rejoining the European single market and customs union (and perhaps rowing back on the Net Zero agenda in favour of “growth”) who would then switch to the Liberal Democrats, Greens and the SNP. Ford cites polls showing that while 3 in 10 Labour voters would contemplate a change to Reform, more than four in ten would consider voting Liberal Democrat or Green. Diversion from the lasered focus on those issues which cemented the Labour landside last summer – growth, public services and the cost of living – towards the culture war issues like immigration that are meat and drink to Reform would not be a sensible governing or electoral strategy.[14]
The perils to democracy of mainstream parties who should be gatekeepers of democratic politics of occupying the ground of extremist anti-system parties for short term electoral considerations are currently being played out in Germany which goes to the polls on 23rd February. There the leader of the conservative CDU, Friedrich Merz, in a startlingly attempt to wrest back control of Germany’s polarised migration debate, passed a hard-line but non-binding resolution in the Bundestag (German parliament) on border security with votes from the far-right Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) thereby violating a post war taboo in Germany by conferring a degree of respectability on a far right party. The consequent uproar led to Merz’s failure to pass a separate immigration-tightening bill in the Bundestag due to a rebellion within his parliamentary ranks. However opinion polls suggest that his manoeuvre attracted negligible transfer of support from AfD adherents and that his flirtation with the AfD has diverted attention away from the perception in the polls that dealing with Germany’s economic travails is his USP and raised questions about his ability to govern as the need for CDU/CSU’s for a putative coalition partner from the left – Social Democrats or Greens – and his ruling out of a formal coalition with the AfD would require compromise on his pledges to curb migration by, for example, turning “irregular migrants” back at the border.[15]
Merz’s dalliance with the AfD has revived ancestral and primal fears about the turbulent conditions in the Weimar Republic a century ago which enabled the rise to power of the Nazis with the timid acquiescence of moderate parties who failed to act as gatekeepers of democracy. In the words of one elementary school teacher last week it was “emotional” for many Germans and said she was worried that Merz was “playing with fire” and had no clear plan of how to protect democracy.[16]
Migration has become a wedge issue in German politics since former Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to admit a decade ago a million people fleeing war, poverty and persecution – a decision which was a courageous act of humanity and morality but one which Merz has blamed for turbocharging the rise of the AfD. Incidents such as the recently deadly attacks on children in Aschaffenburg and the Christmas market in Magdeburg which were blamed on asylum seekers have unquestionably sharped divisions over migration but tens of thousands have joined demonstrations against Merz’s flirtation with the far right and by doing so acting as grass roots gatekeepers of German democracy.[17]
What Is To Be Done?
Echoing the strictures of Hein de Haas, Mathew D’Ancona states that the basic requirement of a robust progressive strategy on migration is the honesty that has eluded politicians of all British parties in recent years. He begins by stating baldly that newcomers are essential for decent public services, infrastructure and the growth needed to pay for a decent society. He evidences this case by citing these stark figures: the UK has 130,000 vacancies in the social care sector; it needs more than 40,000 nurses and more than 100,000 hospitality employees. The construction industry will require more than 250,000 extra workers to meet demand over the next five years. Skills strategies, necessary though they are, are no substitutes for a migration policy that acknowledges the immediate requirements of the labour market as well as the problems that declining birth rates present for the UK and other developed countries.[18]
Recalling, the then Labour Home Secretary’s, John Reid, pronouncement in 2006 that the Home Office’s immigration directorate was “not fit for purpose”, D’Ancona argues for a new Department of Migration, Visas and Refugees which would give the issue a higher public profile and cabinet representation and would hopefully enable a better resourced, just, compassionate and internationally collaborative system which would command the public approval lacking for current asylum application arrangements.[19]
He cautions “greater realism about freedom of movement” for those in the Remain camp who seek as swift as possible re-entry into the European Union in that the direction of travel is towards tighter controls within the EU guided by the “Fortress Europe” gravitational pull of strategies favoured by Victor Orban in Hungary and Georgi Meloni in Italy. But the biggest challenge of all for progressives is to confront the strength of emotions associated with immigration which especially since the financial crash of 2008 has become a synonym for loss of cultural identity and economic insecurity on the part of globalisation’s discontents; feelings amplified by the daily ubiquity of social media and its harnessing by bad actors. The response of progressives has veered from virtual silence on immigration leaving the field free for Leave campaigners in the Brexit referendum and afterwards in the Home Office to promote their horrible language around “invasion” and values of “sub-communities” from a “peasant background” and cruel schemes like deportation flights to Rwanda to soundbite condemnations and then to neurotic fears about upsetting that mythical electoral entity known as “The Red Wall”.[20]
As it happens there is a pathway though the thicket of anxiety around immigration, integration, parallel communities, erosion of ‘British values and the impact of ‘alien’ ideologies such as Political Islam towards a pluralist, heterogenous nation in a constant flux of healthy, lively negotiation. This was Dame Louise Casey’s 200-page review into opportunity and integration in December 2016. She paid as much attention to far-right white extremism as to Islamist extremism and examined the social exclusion of the Roma community as well as the factors that contribute to the segregation of many Muslims.[21]
She resolutely condemned politicians, bureaucrats and self-appointed community leaders who “have allowed diversity and difference to become separatism and segregation that has divided communities’ and were content merely to genuflect towards tokens of multiculturalism as “saris, samosas and steel drums'' for the already well-intentioned. For Casey, the nub of the problem was that commitment to getting things done was too often sacrificed to the fear of giving offence. Too many political leaders were “focusing on what they think their communities want to hear, rather than what they believe is right, for fear of losing the support of a particular community.” An approach devoid of the courage and integrity people need and desire from their representatives.[22]
Casey made an inventory of wise, common-sense recommendations from the improvement of English language teaching, provision of digital literacy in segregated areas and the boosting of school mixing, teaching of democratic values in the school curriculum, use of the universal credit system to put people into contact with language, employment and other services they might need, to a recognition of shared values in the Committee of Standards in Public Life.[23]
Unfortunately, her recommendations were not taken forward. Once again, the political classes appear to want to avoid the difficult but necessary questions on immigration and integration, leaving the field open to separatists and rabble-rousing populists. For how long can they?
References
[1] Peter Hyman How to Beat Populism. The New European. Issue 420, January 16-22, 2025, pp. 16-19.
[2] Matthew D’Ancona, We Need to Talk About Immigration. The New European. Issue 421, January 23-29 pp13-14.
[3] De Haas, p.3
[4] Ibid. p.2
[5] Ibid, p.8
[6] Ibid, p.9
[7] Christopher McKeon Immigrants Should Face Tougher Hurdles for Citizenship Says Badenoch. Press Association 5 February 2025
[8] Ibid
[9] Ibid.
[10] Kiran Stacey Labour ads. Reform-style branding as party targets defectors. Guardian 7th February 2025.
[11] Kiran Stacey, Labour MPs tell Starmer to get tougher on immigration. Guardian. 6th February 2025.
[12] Stacey, Guardian, 7th February 2025 op cit.
[13] Toby Helm, Reform UK bearing down on Labour as voters back harder line on migration. The Observer 9th February 2025.
[14] Robert Ford, Labour risks losing hundreds of seats if it tries to echo Farage. The Observer 9th February 2025.
[15] Deborah Cole Danke, Herr Merz – has immigration gamble played into the hands of AfD? The Observer 9th February 2025
[16] Ibid
[17] Ibid.
[18] D’Ancona, p.13
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid, pp.13-14
[21] Ibid, p.14
[22] Ibid.
[23] Ibid.
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
Why is a remote European island on course ( this year ) to receive the highest # of asylum applications from Nigerians & many other nationalities in the entire E U ?
ReplyDeleteNobody is deported ( even those who are convicted of very serious crimes ) . No wonder we have the most expensive housing on the continent , have one of the highest global per capita ratio of adults still living with parents & @ least one third of Mountjoy residents are foreign nationals .
When the Brits finally follow the lead of Denmark & Sweden & enact policies to cut legal & illegal immigration , woke Ireland will be overwhelmed within days .
This is another area where the regressive left and wokeists have tried to silence querying and subsequently strategic understanding.
ReplyDeleteIt seems obvious that if the organising principle of the far right across Europe and in the US is immigration, then the Left badly needs to explain how it has no firewall in place that can stop the spread of the far right conflagration. If the far right succeed then immigrants will be allowed to arrive but as slaves. Ethics are always mediated by politics which means strategising rather than moralising.
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ReplyDeleteHas the overall standard of life improved for the people AFTER the influx of migrants? Or has housing become more difficult to obtain? Is there any difficulty in seeing a doctor compared to 30 years ago? How is finding jobs? Who voted for the influx of migrants? When was this put to the people? Why is the EU not acceptable to these migrants in that they feel the need to travel to the UK?
ReplyDeleteHousing is more difficult to obtain thanks to Thatcher's wholesale sell off of council housing. Unemployment and poor public services is due to austerity not immigration nor is access to GPs and the health service.
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't immigration that crashed the UK economy but Liz Truss and her Kwamekazi budget.
ReplyDeleteMigration policy is properly the purview of the legislature and executive not the referendum process and the base passions it stirs.
ReplyDeleteMigrants can travel legitimately to any part of the world. They are not legally obliged to settle in their first country of arrival.
ReplyDeleteFleeing persecution in Calais & Cherbourg ? No I D , impossible to deport .
Delete1950 - 1997 , UK net migration was zero . All changed thanks to woke Blair & has averaged 300 K p a since . That explains why housing has become more expensive relative to incomes .
ReplyDeleteHousing costs in the Dublin area where I live have increased nine fold ( currency adjusted ) over the past 3 decades . The bread delivery & taxi men who used to live here have been replaced by doctors , barristers & uni lecturers . Limitless immigration ( from Auckland to Vancouver ) drives residential rents & prices through the roof #Economics001
Nothing to do with the lack of social housing in a property owning democracy where there was never serious commitment to building municipal housing, Red Ron
DeleteNothing also to the reckless behaviour of banks, developers and their political mates who sold the dream of home ownership to those who could never afford it during the Celtic Tiger era,Red Ron?
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