My heart sank when I saw the quote from Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor about immigration. He – Corbyn’s closest chums are always men – said: “We are not concerned about numbers. It is not our objective to reduce the numbers, to reduce immigration.” Labour’s leader said the same thing in his speech today. “We understand people’s concerns,” was the gist of his comments. “We’re going to throw money at areas where there are more migrants that than the affected places can cope with. Hopefully, this will do the trick because I couldn’t care less about how many people actually come here and I don’t care if you do.” I do not profess to speak on behalf of the entire electorate, but I suspect that a lot of people are concerned about the levels of migration and for many it was why they voted to leave the EU.
My loyal reader will have seen my previous articles on the subject of immigration, which are always written bearing in mind that my heritage is more Dutch and Norwegian than it is British. A public debate about immigration and its effects is long overdue.
Generally speaking, I am in favour of immigration. I have no issue with people coming to work here and contribute, like my grandfather did when he came here from Norway and my mother when she came from the Netherlands. Indeed, my father emigrated to Canada and his great success probably generated considerable sums for the Canadian exchequer. In economic terms, migrants bring benefits, in public services like the NHS they keep people alive. EU migration, which may now be curbed, has done little to affect our culture (and I believe in diversity, not multiculturalism) but immigration from certain Commonwealth countries has. It is striking to me that immigration from Europe is what worries the Brits. Cards on the table, much of the immigration fear centres on islam. People are genuinely worried about what they see as the islamification of our country because muslims have different cultures.
I am not alone in my concerns about the subject of immigration. Shadow home secretary Andy Burnham said today: “(Voters are not) narrow-minded, nor xenophobic. They have welcomed refugees and have no problem with people coming here to work. They do have a problem with people taking them for granted and with unlimited, unfunded, unskilled migration which damages their own living standards. And they have an even bigger problem with an out-of-touch elite who don’t seem to care about it. If Labour now argues for the status quo, it will look like we have abandoned them too.”
I’d go further than that and also include the current Labour Party leadership as an “out of touch elite”. There is no doubt in my mind that many traditional Labour people voted to leave the EU specifically because of the immigration issue. I cannot pretend to know the reasons – and there are a number of different reasons – but it’s more than just anecdotal. When I worked at a well known supermarket, the overnight shift was almost entirely eastern European, working for little more than the minimum wage plus a minor premium. If cheap overseas labour was not available, do you think an employer might just have to offer local people a bit more than the minimum wage? I was told that without the eastern Europeans the place would grind to a halt. I’ll bet that’s the same everywhere.
But that story, that anecdote, is all we have. The Tories say immigration bad, Labour under Corbyn says all good. My guess is the public mood is somewhere in the middle. We want the NHS properly staffed and we do not much care if the doctor performing our life saving operation comes from Moldova. But we don’t want our jobs undercut by a dozen Poles who sleep four to a room in a two up two down rented house, sending the bulk of their cash home to their families.
With living standards for many still at pre 2008 crash levels, no wonder many people are angry and they rightly feel that no one is speaking up for them and many make the mistake of believing that far right parties like the BNP and Ukip are. But what are ordinary people supposed to feel when politicians say they have all the answers even though they never answer their questions?
It is not good enough to tell worried people, who can’t get a school place or a doctor’s appointment that everything will be fine because on day a Labour government will throw money at their area. Actually, it might work but we don’t really know. That is another reason why we need an educated, mature public debate. Some politicians do get it, as Andy Burnham showed today. Others, like Corbyn today and May, always, don’t.
We’re storing up more and more problems the longer we leave this. All we are saying is give the people a voice and you, the politicians, listen to us.