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Rethinking immigration

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No 10 rejected immigration promises that could have turned the referendum around, writes Will Straw 

‘We mustn’t engage on immigration; we must pivot to the economy.’ Those words still ring in my ears.

In the final weeks before the 2016 referendum on the United Kingdom’s membership of the European Union, it was obvious that immigration was the number one issue on the doorstep – as it had been a year earlier in the general election.

But the No 10 team at Britain Stronger in Europe were adamant that our best approach was to stick to the economic risk of leaving rather than offering a set of progressive policies to mitigate voter concern on immigration.

Inside the campaign, Labour voices argued that a ‘vow’ on immigration – similar to the devolution policy signed by David Cameron, Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg on the eve of the Scottish referendum – was needed to show voters that their concerns were being taken seriously.

In a note to No 10 in early June, I argued that we needed more support to enforce the minimum wage; the return of a migration impact fund to address pressure on public services and housing in areas with high migration; more resources for border controls; and the creation of a cross-party commission on immigration.

📖 Freedom of manoeuvre 

This approach was dismissed out of hand.

As Labour’s candidate in Rossendale and Darwen in 2015, I knew how tough immigration was on the doorstep. But I also knew that if you engaged people in a conversation rather than just putting them down as ‘against’, you could find common ground.

Some people were clearly racist and did not like to hear foreign accents or see brown faces. But the vast majority were not prejudiced and, instead, were concerned about what they saw as the pace of change – particularly the impact on local jobs and public services.

Having had their say, I found many people were willing to engage in a wider conversation about the benefits of migration or how much they liked and respected the migrants they knew.

When the ‘Remain’ campaign was formed in the summer of 2015, long before No 10 was even willing to meet us, we undertook a series of focus groups in what turned out to be ‘Leave’ areas and carried out nationally representative polls. These were intended to delve deeper into people’s views on immigration – anticipating how the argument would unfold.

We found that 82 per cent of people believed the following statement: ‘People from other European countries should not be allowed to come to Britain and go on benefits immediately, but those who come here to work hard, pay their taxes and contribute to our economy should be welcomed.’

Around two-thirds of voters believed that EU migrants contributed by working in public services like the NHS or doing jobs that others did not want to do.

With my personal experience validated by the research, we developed a script for Remain spokespeople. While being clear about the responsibilities of migrants, it argued that we should welcome those who ‘come here to work hard, pay their taxes and support public services’. It went on to say that ending free movement would ‘compromise opportunities for Brits to work, study, travel and retire freely in Europe’.

Unfortunately it never saw the light of day. Whenever the leading Remain voices were confronted on immigration, they sought to dodge, weave and, indeed, pivot back to the economy rather than making the positive case.

Following David Cameron’s appearance in front of a live ITV audience in early June 2016, Robert Peston wrote that after an hour of dissembling, the then prime minister would need to ‘start making the economic case for immigration, or come up with something slightly more concrete about how he’s going to reduce it’.

He was right.

🎙 Free movement: can it be changed

Inside the campaign I argued that we should be much more robust with Vote Leave’s claims on immigration. While arguing that we could take back control of our borders by leaving, leaflets to south Asian communities claimed that immigration from their countries of origin would rise if we left the EU and ended free movement.

The only people to tackle the issue head on were Trades Union Congress general secretary Frances O’Grady and mayor of London Sadiq Khan in the final BBC debate. But by then it was too late and just two days later, we voted to Leave.

Where do we go from here? Immigration has dropped in salience but that does not mean that the issue has gone away.

First, we must take voters seriously. Tory migration caps that had no prospect of being met and Labour mugs tritely offering ‘controls on immigration’ have done untold damage to voters’ trust of politicians on this issue.

Second, we must have an honest account of how to manage migration. If we are to stay in the single market, as supported by seven in 10 Labour voters, that means addressing concerns about free movement. As Richard Angell argued in the last issue of Progress, other European countries operate ‘no job, no stay’ rules and ensure that new vacancies have to be offered first to domestic workers.

This is sensible stuff but simply producing 10-point plans will never be enough. We cannot simply project onto voters the policies that we think will address their concerns.

So third, we must engage the public in the development of immigration and integration policy.

To this end, the home affairs select committee has worked with British Future and Hope Not Hate on a ‘national conversation on immigration’ with 60 citizens’ panels around the country.

They have found ‘much common ground on which to build consensus’ including on the economic benefits of migration, our collective obligations for refugees, and extra funding for local communities with high levels of migration.

This is encouraging.

Whatever happens over Brexit, our country will continue to need inward migration. As we are already seeing, the real pressure on our NHS comes not from too many migrants in the waiting room but a lack of migrant doctors and nurses.

So let us be confident in having the conversation and genuinely listening, confident in making the positive case about the benefits of immigration, and confident in collectively devising policies which tackle abuses of the system, but do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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Will Straw was executive director of Britain Stronger in Europe. He tweets @wdjstraw

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Photo: By Ilovetheeu [CC BY-SA 4.0], from Wikimedia Commons

The post Rethinking immigration appeared first on Progress | Centre-left Labour politics.


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