THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION

pro-migration, meant that fairness was left out of the message.
This struggle to find and articulate a confident and authentic
message on immigration was further hampered by the party having little
to say about free movement within the EU – the form of immigration that
most voters were talking about.
The party’s opposition to a referendum on the EU made it difficult
to get a hearing from voters who were concerned with the scale of East
European migration. If the party had supported a referendum, Labour
candidates could have explained that they believed EU membership was,
on balance, a good thing; and that free movement, combined with efforts
to alleviate its impacts, was a price worth paying for being in the club.
Voters who disagreed would get to make that choice for themselves in
a referendum. Instead, candidates seemed to be telling voters that they
were wrong about EU immigration and so couldn’t be trusted to make the
choice about Britain’s place in the EU.
***
The Survation poll findings offer little evidence that Labour turned
off voters by being too tough on immigration, save perhaps for a very
small niche of its core supporters. Critics of the immigration mug on
social media were not particularly representative of the party’s electorate.
The new research suggests that Labour could have spoken more about
immigration during the election campaign without fear of alienating its
own supporters – particularly if it did so confidently and with an authentic
message that embodied the party’s values.
Overall, only 10% of voters thought Labour talked too much about
immigration, while 44% thought the party should have said more. 46%
thought that Labour talked about immigration ‘about the right amount’.
The party got the balance right for most Labour voters, too – 59%
of those supporting the party thought it talked the right amount about
immigration, while a third thought it had said too little. Just 7% said the
party had talked too much about the topic.
It was the same among ethnic and faith minorities, with only a
few feeling that Labour talked too much about immigration. Only 12% of
British Muslim respondents said so; and both black and Asian voters were
three times as likely to say that Labour said too little about immigration
than too much. Majorities thought that the party got the balance right.
The party’s focus on fairness in the workplace may have been more
effective with Labour voters, whose concerns about immigration were
more about its tangible impacts on work, housing and public services.
Other voters whose primary concerns were cultural – about the pace of
change to Britain – may have just heard someone on the doorstep trying
to change the subject.
***
Some in the party argue that this means Labour should make a
more full-throated, unabashedly pro-migration case. Interestingly, this
view is shared by two wings of the party who have been at each other’s
throats all summer: the New Labour right of the party, associated with
former prime minister Tony Blair, and the insurgent left of the party,
13 British Future / The Politics of Immigration