Years of scaremongering by the press, successive governments and opportunist politicians have ensured immigration has become nothing more than a fetid, toxic swamp. Its rotten stink permeates politics as it competes to scapegoat and appear “tough” on people who come to live and work here. Basically, it’s who can fall furthest, fastest into a bottomless pit of amorality and wilful ignorance. But, apparently, all they want is an open and honest debate about immigration *innocent face*. Continue reading
Tagged with immigration
Whatever happened to Labour resistance to the Tory rampage?
In case you were wondering, there is no 3-line Labour vote in the Commons this week. It’s true that on two of these days there are four debates organised by the elected Back-Bench Business Committee, though all of them concern important and worthwhile issues. But today (Tuesday) there is a highly contentious debate on an extremely toxic issue, namely immigration.
But this Immigration Bill introduced by the Home Secretary will not be challenged by Labour, at least not by a vote at second reading. Previously when a very difficult and equivocal issue arose Labour might not vote against, but would present a reasoned amendment at second reading to indicate, if not outright opposition, nevertheless deep reservations about certain aspects of the Bill with which the party fundamentally disagreed. Continue reading
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British Jobs for British Workers?
One thing’s for certain, Tony wouldn’t have stood for it. The shambolic bungling of today’s “big speech” by shadow immigration spokesperson, Chris Bryant lacked the smooth running of a Blair-era media operation. But Labour getting a handle on employers’ preferences for East European workers from a recognisably labour movement point-of-view would never have passed muster back then either.
To be honest, I’m not interested in the media’s mischief-making about first and second drafts of Chris’s speech. Anecdotally – and reinforced by Channel 4 News features on it last night – it is true that Tesco and Next are hiring in East European workers, and often in places where the supply of labour is plentiful. In both cases warehouse working is involved. Continue reading
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Countering lies of immigrant scapegoating
What do we talk about when we talk about immigration? Better yet, how should we talk about immigration with voters in the run up to the 2015 election?
At a recent Next Generation Labour event, titled ‘Challenging the Tory scapegoating of immigrants’ there seemed to be a great deal of consensus around the need to educate voters to the many benefits immigration has for the UK as well as mobilise the Labour movement to encourage a more positive discourse about immigration. Continue reading
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Can David Cameron ignore the Right of his party for much longer?
A new set of results from a Guardian/ICM poll has found that the Conservatives would be more appealing to the electorate if they took more hardline positions on social affairs, which will come as a great disappointment both to the political left, as well as loyalists to David Cameron who take a more liberal stance on issues such as gay marriage.
By a ratio of 69%-24% those who took part in the poll said that Tories could boost their appeal by supporting the traditional family. 67%, compared with 25%, said that Tories would be more appealing if they took a harder line on Europe, while 88% of Tories and 98% of Ukip voters believe that a harder line towards immigration would help the Conservatives.
This comes after an embarrassing by-election in Eastleigh where the Conservatives finished third behind their unpopular coalition partners the Liberal Democrats, and their close political rivals the United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip). Continue reading
