Extremely loud and incredibly close.
John Harris is without a doubt one of the best political commentators we have. Unlike many of the others with a column and their name in a large font, he bothers to respond to the keyboard hammerers below the line, and he really does go beyond, indeed anywhere but Westminster. Just though as not getting out enough leads to losing touch, so too can travelling to wherever the next by-election is being held make you think the hot topic of the moment is the most important issue in politics outright. Add in a straw man, and you pretty much have his piece for the Graun today.
To say I'm bored out of my mind by the immigration debate in general doesn't really cover it. It's taken the place of the Iraq war in being constantly talked about without anyone ever making an original point or changing their position. These are the facts: despite claims to the contrary, we've been having a debate about immigration for over half a century now. Yes, there have always been some people who've shouted racist whenever the topic is broached, mainly for the good reason that up till relatively recently the majority of complaints about immigration, rather than being couched in economic or social terms, were based around skin colour or culture. This is to simplify massively, but Steve Bell captured how far we've come in his cartoon from last week: we've moved on from the days of "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" to "if you want a fruit picker from Romania for a neighbour, vote Labour".
Next, Labour did not try and transform the country into a truly multicultural society through immigration, as those who can remember back to the times when it was asylum seekers rather than eastern European migrants who were regarded as the biggest problem facing the country will know. The mistake in 2004 was not realising the effect opening the borders to A8 states would have, especially when only Sweden and Ireland similarly didn't impose further restrictions. Even fewer Poles speak Swedish than English, hence why so many journeyed here instead of to Stockholm. Lastly, as it bears repeating, it's now almost been a decade since the Conservatives under Michael Howard used "it's not racist to impose limits on immigration" as a slogan. Ever tighter limits have since been imposed, except of course when it comes to the EU.
Harris's piece could have almost been in response to my post on Tuesday. He was though most likely thinking of the works of either Polly Toynbee or Richard Seymour, aka Lenin from the Tomb. Without referring directly to Harris, Seymour has since tweeted this poll finding, which does rather underline his point. No, people's worries and fears about migration writ large aren't racist, bigoted or down to prejudice; are however some of those fears at their most base down to as, Seymour puts it, entitlement and chauvinism? Well, yes.
That topsy-turvy poll finding by ComRes does in its own way sum up the immigration, even the Europe debate in microcosm. Do we still want the undoubted benefits of being in the EU, that past waves of immigration have brought here? Certainly. Are we as keen on the impact on public services, on how towns like Wisbech, Peterborough and Boston have been altered, and just how swift the pace of change has been? Not so much. At the same time, the poll makes clear those most concerned about immigration are extremely noisy, as a solid 36% still accept freedom of movement within the EU. As Flying Rodent has argued, concern about immigration is one of the relatively few areas of public opinion which is pandered to.
And it hasn't worked, for the reason it hasn't addressed the fundamental right of freedom of movement, as politicians haven't had the guts to make the argument for why it's one of the few areas of EU policy they ought to be able to agree has been a success. Chris answers Harris's question of whether free movement has been of most benefit to capital or labour, but that obviously isn't going to convince the people he's been listening to. What might, and is something Westminster politicians have shied away from as it would reduce their control is, as we now know to a fair extent where the most pressures have been put on public services and housing, the targeting of extra funding to those areas. This, finally, does seem to be where Labour is moving towards, with Ed Miliband today setting out 5 points around which an immigration bill from his government would be based. We can quibble about the rights and wrongs of preventing migrants from sending child benefit and child tax credits back to their home nation when Brits working abroad can do the same, but if it helps to staunch public concern then so be it.
If some of the left has been blasé about migration, as Harris puts it, the reason is precisely because of the way we've arrived at this point. Yes, public concern about immigration has been high in the past, and is high now. Where though did the current mood have its roots, and is it all about migration or rather migration becoming the rallying point for a whole other myriad of concerns? Easily forgotten is the way panic was whipped up last year over the looming ending of restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians coming here, with the media all but joining UKIP in predicting a movement similar to that of post-2005. It didn't happen. What did happen is the economy continuing to recovery, albeit without a similar recovery in living standards, the former leading to workers in western rather than eastern Europe looking for jobs further afield. The fault is not with the migrants, but with the joint failings of late capitalism and politicians both here and in Europe.
For all the insults and asking of what the "modern left" would do, Harris himself doesn't offer a solution other than restricting free movement, despite how this both isn't going to and shouldn't happen. We could start with being straight with the public rather than continuing to lie to them. Who knows, it might just begin to have an effect.
To say I'm bored out of my mind by the immigration debate in general doesn't really cover it. It's taken the place of the Iraq war in being constantly talked about without anyone ever making an original point or changing their position. These are the facts: despite claims to the contrary, we've been having a debate about immigration for over half a century now. Yes, there have always been some people who've shouted racist whenever the topic is broached, mainly for the good reason that up till relatively recently the majority of complaints about immigration, rather than being couched in economic or social terms, were based around skin colour or culture. This is to simplify massively, but Steve Bell captured how far we've come in his cartoon from last week: we've moved on from the days of "if you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour" to "if you want a fruit picker from Romania for a neighbour, vote Labour".
Next, Labour did not try and transform the country into a truly multicultural society through immigration, as those who can remember back to the times when it was asylum seekers rather than eastern European migrants who were regarded as the biggest problem facing the country will know. The mistake in 2004 was not realising the effect opening the borders to A8 states would have, especially when only Sweden and Ireland similarly didn't impose further restrictions. Even fewer Poles speak Swedish than English, hence why so many journeyed here instead of to Stockholm. Lastly, as it bears repeating, it's now almost been a decade since the Conservatives under Michael Howard used "it's not racist to impose limits on immigration" as a slogan. Ever tighter limits have since been imposed, except of course when it comes to the EU.
Harris's piece could have almost been in response to my post on Tuesday. He was though most likely thinking of the works of either Polly Toynbee or Richard Seymour, aka Lenin from the Tomb. Without referring directly to Harris, Seymour has since tweeted this poll finding, which does rather underline his point. No, people's worries and fears about migration writ large aren't racist, bigoted or down to prejudice; are however some of those fears at their most base down to as, Seymour puts it, entitlement and chauvinism? Well, yes.
That topsy-turvy poll finding by ComRes does in its own way sum up the immigration, even the Europe debate in microcosm. Do we still want the undoubted benefits of being in the EU, that past waves of immigration have brought here? Certainly. Are we as keen on the impact on public services, on how towns like Wisbech, Peterborough and Boston have been altered, and just how swift the pace of change has been? Not so much. At the same time, the poll makes clear those most concerned about immigration are extremely noisy, as a solid 36% still accept freedom of movement within the EU. As Flying Rodent has argued, concern about immigration is one of the relatively few areas of public opinion which is pandered to.
And it hasn't worked, for the reason it hasn't addressed the fundamental right of freedom of movement, as politicians haven't had the guts to make the argument for why it's one of the few areas of EU policy they ought to be able to agree has been a success. Chris answers Harris's question of whether free movement has been of most benefit to capital or labour, but that obviously isn't going to convince the people he's been listening to. What might, and is something Westminster politicians have shied away from as it would reduce their control is, as we now know to a fair extent where the most pressures have been put on public services and housing, the targeting of extra funding to those areas. This, finally, does seem to be where Labour is moving towards, with Ed Miliband today setting out 5 points around which an immigration bill from his government would be based. We can quibble about the rights and wrongs of preventing migrants from sending child benefit and child tax credits back to their home nation when Brits working abroad can do the same, but if it helps to staunch public concern then so be it.
If some of the left has been blasé about migration, as Harris puts it, the reason is precisely because of the way we've arrived at this point. Yes, public concern about immigration has been high in the past, and is high now. Where though did the current mood have its roots, and is it all about migration or rather migration becoming the rallying point for a whole other myriad of concerns? Easily forgotten is the way panic was whipped up last year over the looming ending of restrictions on Romanians and Bulgarians coming here, with the media all but joining UKIP in predicting a movement similar to that of post-2005. It didn't happen. What did happen is the economy continuing to recovery, albeit without a similar recovery in living standards, the former leading to workers in western rather than eastern Europe looking for jobs further afield. The fault is not with the migrants, but with the joint failings of late capitalism and politicians both here and in Europe.
For all the insults and asking of what the "modern left" would do, Harris himself doesn't offer a solution other than restricting free movement, despite how this both isn't going to and shouldn't happen. We could start with being straight with the public rather than continuing to lie to them. Who knows, it might just begin to have an effect.
Labels: Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, David Cameron, European Union, immigration, John Harris, Labour, politics, Tories, UKIP
| Permalink
Post a Comment