THE POLITICS OF IMMIGRATION

Can new leaders avoid the same old arguments?
For the opposition parties, the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn
and the Liberal Democrats under Tim Farron may now adopt a rather
clearer and simpler pro-migration public argument. On some issues, such
as the principle of Britain playing its part in protecting and welcoming
refugees, this could resonate quite broadly, so that principle and good
politics combine.
On broader immigration issues, however, it is highly questionable as
to whether an un-nuanced case for immigration is the most effective way to
defend the gains it brings to Britain. Parties with a broadly pro-migration
public reputation are always going to struggle to be trusted on the issue
by those with the toughest anti-immigration attitudes. With voters whose
top priority is getting the numbers down and leaving the EU to make that
possible, parties that don’t take those positions will have to accept that
there are some people they can not reach.
That still leaves plenty of space, however, for the self-styled
progressive parties to make a positive argument for immigration – but
one that does not duck the challenge of securing majority public consent
for how Britain can handle the levels of immigration we currently have.
With the ‘anxious middle’ of the British public, paying considerably
more attention to constructive responses to public concerns about how
to manage the pressures of immigration should be an essential part of a
politics that takes rebuilding public confidence and consent seriously.
It is this offer to the public - of a sensible, grown-up debate that
acknowledges their legitimate concerns and offers practical solutions – that
was lacking from the 2015 General Election. This may seem surprising,
given the salience of immigration as an issue for voters both before and
after the election. Yet it is, in fact, far closer to ‘business as usual’ in the
immigration debate. Politicians from the main parties have consistently
failed to offer the majority of the public the debate that they want. Those
with more pro-migration views, including the Labour Party, have ducked
the issue or changed the subject, equating concerns about the pressures of
immigration with xenophobia or racism; their Conservative opponents have
responded to public pressure with an unkept promise on net migration, and
new ‘crackdowns’ each quarter to distract attention from their failings.
And so most of the noise in the immigration debate, during the
election campaign and outside of it, has come from the anti-migration
voice of UKIP, while other parties seemed to concede the issue entirely.
For most voters, this means they didn’t like what they heard. The majority
in Britain is not ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ immigration – they are the ‘anxious middle’,
worried about the pace and scale of immigration to Britain and its impacts,
but aware of the benefits it can bring and generally positive about migrants
themselves.
What we did not find out in this election is what happens when
you give this majority group the immigration debate that they want.
Not a toxified debate tinged with xenophobia, nor one which ducks the
challenges of high migration, but a debate in which politicians engage and
discuss voters’ concerns about immigration, without stoking up prejudice
or pandering to those with more extreme views, and offer their party’s
response to them. One suspects that were this to happen, politicians would
not find a debate that is ‘all pain and no gain’ for them; they would find
more balanced and reasonable views than they currently expect.
50 British Future / The Politics of Immigration