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Miliband’s mistake on migration

July 6, 2012 4:39 pm

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Luke Martell

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Ed Miliband has made a mistake in the way he’s tackled the sensitive topic of immigration.

The media coverage of Miliband’s speech on 22 June was about Labour admitting they had got it wrong on migration from Central and Eastern Europe. But the language of ‘admitting’ made something sound like a fact that is not. Research shows migrants from these areas did not lower wages or cause unemployment under New Labour.

In fact migrants work, pay tax, contribute to economic growth and support public services and the ageing population. They are less likely to claim benefits or use public services than British citizens, and more likely to set up a business. Miliband’s speech was made on factually flawed grounds, yet he went ahead with it.

Patrick Macfarlane raises the issue of low pay and immigration. Critics of Milband’s speech like Owen Jones, Alan Travis and myself have argued that migration does not decrease wages overall, there is good evidence for this, and Owen Jones openly raised the issue of low wages.

But insofar as low wages drop when there is immigration, it is employers that cut pay, exploiting newcomers to get the cheapest labour they can. The bosses cut the wages yet immigrants get the blame, not just from the Conservative press but also from the Labour Party. The solution, a Labour solution, is to curb the power of employers to drive down pay by having stronger trade unions and a living wage. It’s wrong to penalize the victims, migrant workers, as if they were the architects of the situation.

Of course Miliband has to appeal to the fears of working class voters. But the facts on this are also mixed. An Oxford Study on attitudes to migration shows that more people are concerned about permanent than temporary migrants and illegal than legal migrants. They are less opposed to immigrants who are legal and temporary, the group that Miliband said Labour should have clamped down on.

Miliband didn’t question inhumane Tory proposals to break up or deport UK-migrant families on less than average incomes. He could have talked about protecting the family and the poor to make the case against this. But Yvette Cooper has endorsed these harsh plans. He did not argue that the government should be encouraging international students to our universities rather than turning them away, another current issue. The latter is bad for higher education, one of Britain’s proudest industries, and bad for the economy. Social democrats should be internationally compassionate but the Labour leader did not address the needs of migrants. They are often pursuing a better life, leaving adverse circumstances that make this difficult. Otherwise why would they leave their homes, families and communities? Labour could be investigating what we should do to meet migrants’ needs. Immigration brings the benefits of cultural diversity yet migrants experience racism and xenophobia, something that is ramped up by commentaries that blame outsiders for problems that have other explanations. These human issues were not explored in Miliband’s speech.

Insofar as the public do fear immigration in an era of precarity the role of politicians is not just to accommodate to the electorate but also be leaders and shape the debate, as Obama has done on this issue. Winning votes from the far-right by anti-immigration rhetoric runs the risk of affirming their intolerant ideology and losing the votes of liberal electors. A politician representing liberalism and the left should be pushing attitudes in the direction of fairness and tolerance not encouraging beliefs that are the opposite.

There are problems of housing shortages, low wages and unemployment. Miliband talked about responsible capitalism, labour standards and enforcing the minimum wage. But there are other social democratic and labour explanations that can be made for these. Council housing has been sold off since the Thatcher years, trade unions weakened by anti-union legislation, and poverty and inequality have increased in the UK. This is why the British working class face problems with accommodation, pay and employment.

A Labour approach should be about stronger unions, a living wage and state housing. Yet Miliband abandoned these social democratic points and explained the problems in terms of insiders and outsiders. What a party leader says has an effect; outsiders will suffer as a result. Miliband has said he will speak on migration again. The chance to frame the debate in a more social democratic and Labour way should be taken up.

Luke Martell is Professor of Political Sociology at the University of Sussex

Epsmurphy

In Peterborough (15,000 migrants in 10 years)
at the GE Labours vote bucked the national trend and held up – the Conservative vote went down. Think EM should apologise for PFI’s and too muich privatisation not migration
- Quiet_Sceptic
  
  Hardly clear cut evidence – Labour lost the seat to the Tories in 2005 after having held it since ’97.
  - aracataca
    
    Yes but the MP (1997-2005) was an alcoholic whose behaviour in public was less than perfect at times.
shaheed 79

At last , someone has the courage to say what needed to be said about labour’s dismal failure to stand up for families that will be spilt up by the Tories Disgraceful attacks on Immigrants and those who might find love or settle for marriage with someone from abroad. Why could YvetteCooper / Ed Miliband not say some of this?
The current proposals are harsh, draconian and to see labour leaders endorsing them was such a disappointment.
shaheed 79

Yvette Cooper has endorsed a minimum level of £18,600 for couplse to remain together in the UK .
Otherwise , one of them could be deported and they would be forced to live apart .Families broken up and children growing up without their father or mother.
Does this represent core labour values?
If it does, you can count me out.
Why does have to be £18600, when in France it is £10000 and in Spain it is £5000?
Why does the UK have to be so out of step with other EU countries?
shaheed 79

Sorry for the Typo – should have read,
..for couples to remain together in the UK.
Daniel Speight

This is a rather mealy mouthed post. Let’s get down to basics. Governments have a choice of an immigration policy or open borders. The latter may be a long term goal for those that believe all men are born equal, but it would be very hard and certainly suicidal for a party to promote it as an electoral policy.

So then this particular argument becomes what sort of immigration policy Labour should be promoting, unless the writer does want to defend immediate open borders, as is his right of course.

One thing that should be pointed out is that immigration policy and racism should have no connection. If we had an immigration policy that was based on racial profiling then of course we should fight it, but here we are talking about a feeling that excessive immigration has forced down wages. To my mind the big damage has come in what were skilled working jobs being open to Eastern European skilled workers and forcing down wage levels of those jobs. Ed Miliband talks about something similar, but not particularly EU related, at the very bottom of the job ladder. When you have the feeling that the minimum wage has become the maximum wage in some sectors, there is something obviously wrong.

So when Luke, (why are they always Lukes , says:

and myself have argued that migration does not decrease wages overall…

And follows it with:

But insofar as low wages drop when there is immigration…

my BS meter starts pinging or ponging or whatever.

So Luke, or Owen, or Alan, tell us what your immigration policy would look like. Don’t give us the corny bits about wives and kids that we would agree with, but tell us what restrictions, if any you would impose.
- Luke Martell
  
  Daniel, I think we should aim for open borders. We have relatively open borders in the EU and it has not caused major problems, despite what Miliband says, see the evidence in the Portes article linked to in the second para above. Problems that there have been (housing, wages, employment) are often caused by lack of state housing, weak unions and exploitative employers, not immigrants. Furthermore, in a world of open borders many people would not move because of ties of family, community and locality.
  
  On your BS meter – overall average wages do not drop as a result of immigration. The evidence on this is very clear. The claim that skilled workers wages have dropped with immigration is not supported by the data. But wages at lowest levels may drop, but because of employers cutting them and lack of union and state protection for the low waged, not because of immigration. Saying overall wages have not dropped but low wages may have done are two compatible statements.
  
  Corny bits about wives and kids: human needs are the main reason to support migration – so people can escape obstacles to their aspirations and find better opportunities.
  - Daniel Speight
    
    See Luke it’s the Mrs. Duffy moment isn’t it? What the middle class isn’t willing to accept is spotted by those on the ground and those that suffer*.
    
    Let’s take a few examples.
    
    First if you live in London or the south open the local yellow pages or trade listing and find a maintenance company to do some electrical or plumbing work on your house. The quote will probably be less than it was five years ago and the it would be better than even money that the sparks or plumber will be Eastern European. How can we pretend that it doesn’t affect the rate for the job. Good for the middle class house owner though as prior to the EU enlargement they probably felt that the tradesmen were holding them to ransom.
    
    Second go on any building site and see what percentage of tradesmen are Eastern European. Rates for the job don’t go up when there is plenty of labour, it’s when labour is short that workers do better.
    
    Last let’s go back to an example I often use, Gatwick Airport. Flying out just last year, with hours to spare, I found that the whole restaurant area was as far as I could see not staffed by local people. There was a time that Gatwick was a major employer for the then new town of Crawley.
    
    Excess labour is good for two groups, the employers and the middle class. For the working class is does very little good for. That’s been the history since the industrial revolution. Just read a little bit about the Irish immigration in the 19th. Century from which so many of us are descended and you will see they were used for just that purpose, to push down wages or even as scabs. (Of course in the recent neo-liberal consensus, excess labour is good for growth.)
    
    I was very lucky being a young man in the sixties where jobs were plentiful. It was also a time when the old ETU was still a strong union even with the awful Chapple as general secretary. I would like my kids and grandkids to live in Britain like I had back then.
    
    You say that we should aim at open borders and I agree, but it’s a long term aim because it’s going to need international action not just from one country. Seeing that you accept it’s an aim, what restrictions would you propose for a Labour immigration policy? You don’t like Ed Miliband’s version so let’s see yours.
    
    One thing that impressed me with Ed Miliband’s speech was for him to say it was a class issue. I never though I would hear a Labour leader say those two words together again. Yes Ed, it is a class issue as are almost all the other issues you need to deal with. All you have to do is decide which class needs the most help at the moment.
    
    *Luke the research you use is suspect. Go talk with tradesmen. Find some British electricians. Go speak with builders. Have a look at how many kids are getting electrician’s apprenticeships compared to forty years ago. On the other hand you could just use Gordon’s bigoted woman line although in this case you would have to change the sex I think.
    - Luke Martell
      
      Daniel, the research I have referred to is economic and social research done by professional researchers looking systematically at the things you suggest, wages for skilled and unskilled workers in exactly the sectors you mention, and employment.
      
      The construction industry, for example, was boosted a few year ago by migrant labour which led to more jobs all round.
      
      I understand the points you are making but it is not supported by almost universal evidence done through proper research by the government and independent academic and policy researchers. Check the Portes link that collects some of it together.
      
      Forget the middle class. Immigration helps working class people because it creates growth, adds jobs and tax revenue for welfare.
      
      I think Miliband should start removing restrictions, starting with international students and joint UK-overseas marriages of people with below average incomes to take just two examples. International students bring in huge fees to the UK economy. The marriage example breaks up families.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Well I agree with your last paragraph, but this is nonsense –
        
        Forget the middle class. Immigration helps working class people because it creates growth, adds jobs and tax revenue for welfare.
        
        Let’s do it step-by-step. I’m not even going to ask about depressing wages right now.
        
        Do you think that skilled Eastern European labour stopped a shortage of labour driving wages in the building trade up?
        
        Once you answer that could you explain this.
        
        The construction industry, for example, was boosted a few year ago by migrant labour which led to more jobs all round.
        
        How did migrant labour boost jobs? Was it they all wanted their own houses built? Or are you claiming that growth was boosted by the building industry migrant labour because it paid taxes or what? Give me the logic behind your statement and maybe you can convince me. Which building jobs were created because of migrant labour?
      - Luke Martell
        
        I think I have answered these points already. The construction industry was stagnating. It was able to get skilled and affordable east European labour. Construction companies responded to this and got new contracts. When a sector expands like this it hires new labour, including unemployed Brits. So there is more employment and pay. The migrant labour spend income that otherwise would not have been there which boosts the local shops and industries creating jobs in them. They also pay tax which creates additional finance for public services and public service jobs. This is all standard economics, I am not saying anything which is very radical.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Dear oh dear Luke, read through what you have just put up. There’s a serious logic problem with it.
        
        1. The construction industry was stagnating.
        
        2. There was skilled and affordable east European labour.
        
        3. Construction companies responded to this and got new contracts.
        
        4. When a sector expands like this it hires new labour, including unemployed Brits.
        
        5. So there is more employment and pay.
        
        Let me put it in a slightly clearer way.
        
        1. The construction industry found local wage levels too high.
        
        2. Thanks to the EU expansion it could get cheaper East European labour.
        
        3. Construction companies could either give lower quotes or make a bigger profit.
        
        4. Once it hires the “affordable” labour, it can force the local labour to be “affordable” also.
        
        5. So there is happiness in the boardrooms and the government can get cheaper buildings made, providing they don’t use a PFI contract that is.
        
        You know Luke, many years ago, probably before you were born, a well known but long gone Marxist in the labour movement tried very hard to convince me that common sense was a tool of the ruling class. Even at my then young, tender and impressionable age I had trouble accepting that idea.
        
        So I didn’t accept it then, and I don’t think I will accept it now. Some people have done very well out of this “growth” you talk about, but I think, why should help companies make bigger profits, or the middle class to get their home repairs done cheaper, or our political class to have a bigger choice of, and cheaper, maids, cleaners, toy boys and prostitutes. I don’t like any of you enough to support that.
      - Luke Martell
        
        Your 1-5 is not what I said.
        
        You’re right to see a class issue. But the poor people are often the migrants, and working class jobs and revenue for welfare is created by immigration.
        
        I share your vierw about the way the rich benefit from growth but thats not to do with immigration, that’s to do with the class system and inequality, exploitation and power and the feebleness of politicians in tackling that.
        
        Let’s blame inequality and advantage on the rich, powerful and politicians not on often poor and needy migrants.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        Let’s say we have a choice of either open borders or an immigration policy policy that among other things protects the working class already in Britain rather than the employers. I hope the latter was what Ed Miliband was promoting.
      - Luke Martell
        
        I’m with you on protecting the working class. I believe in redistribution and the rich taking much more of a share of the responsibility for where we are now. But I think open borders will help this more than immigration controls, because the working class is international and many migrants are a needy part of it. Even if they were not the evidence is that openness boosts employment, welfare and (mostly) wages for workers, as long as backed up by strong unions and a living wage, which are what a Labour leader should be supporting.
      - Bill Lockhart
        
        You’re wrong, the working class is far more parochial, nationalistic and likely to be racist than the middle class, and in reality is nothing like your mythical homo sovieticus
      - Luke Martell
        
        I didn’t mean the working class is international in outlook. I meant it is international in the sense that it is in countries internationally. So migrants are also working class.
      - Daniel Speight
        
        I think we have got there Luke, and these boxes are far too small now, but it seems you want open borders now, or pretty damn soon anyway.
        
        Fix all those other problems like lack of, or weak unionization and low wages first and then fight for your open borders. At the moment all you have achieved is an attack on the working class already here by having an excess of labour during a time of recession.
        
        Not that I claim to have the answers as I see the EU free movement of labour being a villain, but how to tackle that without it leading to an argument over EU membership, and for that I just don’t know. I lean towards the idea of getting the EU back to being more like the old EEC and being more protectionist rather than free trade.
        
        Please if you answer this go to the top and make a new comment as this box width is silly.
JC

As unfashionable as it might seem, one of the reasons we have high(ish) levels of immigration from Eastern Europe here in Devon is our reluctance to persuade young people to accept jobs they might not really want but are capable of doing. I have seen many unemployed young people start work in the food industry where I work and leave within a week. They give a range of reasons from “It’s beneath me” to “It’s too hard” and similar. Before long, we have a new Eastern European worker who fits in well and does the job. We all complain and feel we’re underpaid, but we also are not impressed that someone can come from another country to pay tax so an indigenous person need not work. It’s a bit like the Roman Empire.
ThePurpleBooker

I’m sorry but yet again this is just foolishness from a group within the party who hate debate and are so much indulged in the North London, metropolitan liberal elite that they do not know what is going on in people’s everyday lives.
Immigration is a great thing for this country. Immigration built this country in many ways. My parents, like Miliband’s, were immigrants. However, the influx of Eastern European which came in too fast did unsettle some communities and put new pressures on public services as well as jobs. That is why one side of the solution should be more housing, living wage and more skills but the other side should be tough restrictions which are fair but firm. To be honest, I am in favour of allowing illegal immigrants who have lived here for at least five years, paid tax, work and made a contribution to British society to have the chance to remain in the country in return for community pay back for arriving illegally instead of deportation.
- Luke Martell
  
  First of all, I welcome debate, I have just engaged in it. I am not in the North London metropolitan liberal elite. My parents and grandparents were working class Brits. I live in an area which is mostly poor British people residentially with the local businesses a majority run by migrants or British ethnic minorities. People’s everyday lives on this issue are on my doorstep every day.
  
  Tough restrictions. A lot of research has been done on the effect of immigration on wages, employment and public services. It does not support the case that this has a negative impact in these areas. Immigration leads to economic growth which creates jobs, and provides tax revenue to boost public services, and it does not knock down average wages. So tough restrictions would not help with jobs, wages and welfare, probably the opposite.
  
  Agree with most of what you say, just to pick out these two points.
  - Bill Lockhart
    
    “Immigration leads to economic growth”
    No it doesn’t. Immigration tracks economic growth.
    Much of your so-called “research” “proving” the “benefits” of immigration is really just propaganda from pressure groups. Peer-reviewed, trustworthy research is thin on the ground, but what there is points to a lowering of wages in the unskilled sector due to immigration- the sector Labour is supposed to care about most but actually cares about least.
    - Luke Martell
      
      No, there is plenty of peer-reviewed independent academic and government research on this. It almost all shows immigration is positive for growth (creates it not tracks it), employment and wages for reason I have given. Even research from critics, eg Tory House of Lords report, supports this. Members of the IPPR recently supported Miliband’s speech but their own research contradicts their position.
      I agree the data suggest low wages may drop with immigration. I have said this above. But the cause is employers cutting wages, not migrants, and a Labour solution is protection for the low paid, eg stronger trade unions, living wage.
      - Bill Lockhart
        
        Silly chicken and egg argument. Employers were only able to depress wages for whole industries because there was, as a matter of political policy under Labour, an unlimited supply of unskilled, unregulated and unfussy immigrant labour. Without the Chinese or Latvians willing to sleep 10 to a room in Peterborough dosshouses, wages would not have been lowered, would they?
      - Luke Martell
        
        My point is the policy solution should be one that focuses on employers cutting wages, and stopping this, not on migrants who are paid the low wages. The latter are victims not causes. A Labour party especially should be taking such an approach.
      - Bill Lockhart
        
        “Victims” how exactly? They came there freely and then equally freely took employment.
      - Luke Martell
        
        Victims in the sense that they are the ones who work for lower pay cut by employers exploiting their wish to work, and are not the ones who cause the low wages.
        
        Come here freely. Many are leaving disadvantaged and poor backgrounds and come for jobs well below what they could have at home (often professionals taking unskilled manual jobs) where they leave their families and communities to come to a place where they are sadly not welcomed. I doubt many really want to do that. I don’t think that is that free.
      - Bill Lockhart
        
        Box getting too small. See above.
      - Quiet_Sceptic
        
        There’s a naivety here about how labour markets work.
        
        You assume that government and unions can somehow stop market wages rates adjusting to changes in the supply of labour.
        
        Perhaps in some industries they can, but some industries are very open; freelance workers, contract labour, small contractors or the self-employed. Short of a major shift in government policy, you cannot control wage rates in these markets.
        
        Take the often cited example of the self-employed domestic plumber, how are you going to stop householders opting for the cheaper new-entrants and driving down wage rates?
      - Luke Martell
        
        Point taken quiet-sceptic, these are good points. I can’t say what I am suggesting is a quick or easy solution for all areas of the economy right now.
        
        But more unionised areas do have higher wages than those where unionisation is lower. There is a debate going on about the need to extend unionisation to sectors such as those you mention through community membership and such like.
        
        I’m not pretending this will be easy and I am suggesting a major change in government policy.
        
        This site is talking to the Labour Party and if this party does not try to extend a living wage and robust union protection as a solution to low pay (over taking it out on migrant workers) who will?
Bill Lockhart

Continuing from below, silly shrinking boxes on a PC..

“Many are leaving disadvantaged and poor backgrounds and come for jobs well below what they could have at home”

This is literally nonsense. If they could do better at home, why did they come here?
I find it frankly worrying that you are in a position of educational responsibility. You are clearly a polemicist rather than an unbiased academic: you start from your conclusion and work backwards, re-writing the evidence. What happens to students who fail to parrot your left-liberal establishment line?
- Luke Martell
  
  Bill, many migrants in the UK are professionals in their home countries whose pay and conditions there are so poor they come here and take unskilled manual work because it pays better. This is a well-known and well-researched phenomenon.
  
  Polemics and bias: As mentioned in the article and comments what I am saying is based on academic and independent research which I have referred to, including research from people opposed to my view who I have mentioned in posts, eg House of Lords, IPPR personnel. If you know of systematic research which contradicts this tell me where it is and I will read it and get back to you about it, on this page if you would like me to. Honestly what I am saying is what I have come to after reading empirical research on this area which is amazingly consensual about the issues. I was surprised how much it was.
  
  I mark students for work which is well supported with good arguments and evidence. Some of the best marks I have given have been to people with very different views to mine, including on this topic, but they take care to develop a good argument for what they say and give good empirical evidence.
shaheed 79

All the comments are very interesting but ,
1) where do you stand on what is going to happen from 9 July 2012?
- this was the question posed to the labour representative on Question Time and she could not give an answer.
- these are going to split up couples and children from either mother or father.
2) I am astonished that people here are arguing that employees being exploited by their bosses are to blame for their plight.
3) Having reviewed what Miliband and Yvette Cooper have to say, many people will think that more Bradford West’s are needed so that Labour suffers more humiliation.
4) Maybe , now that the PSC is going to fund independent candidates, labour will become even more irrelevant not just on failing to support the fight for jobs but also on Immigration.
5) After all, it was Callaghan , who introduced the most overtly racist bit of Statute Law in this country.
- Luke Martell
  
  Shaheed, completely agree. (1) Labour are complying with government policies to break up or deport British-overseas families. It would be easy for them to make an appealing case against this inhumane policy but they won’t. (2) Strongly agree. Employers cut migrant and domestic wages but the exploited migrant workers get the blame. And agree on the other points too.
Rob

Oh please Luke, you are talking utter rubbish.

Jonathan Portes research into immigration is surely worthy of a Nobel prize. After, its the first study in history that claims that increased supply (of labour) has no effect on price (wages). Of course, you ignore other reqorts that show this is not actually the case in the real world that academics seem to be only dimly aware of.

You also say that Ed Miliband “did not address the needs of immgrants… who are often pursuing a better life.” Sorry, but the needs aof immigrants are not actually relevant. The needs, and views, of existing citizens of this country are relevant and the clear messsage is that this little country is getting rather full. We do not have any obligation, eithert legal or moral to accept someone simply because they are looking for a better life.

Your utopian desire for open borders will not level every country up, but will certainly destroy whats left of the Welfare State in this country and I do not think you fantasies of living in perfect harmony with the rest of the world are worth that sacrifice.

This is not racist, nor is it xenophobic. It is simply the view of a long time Labour member fed up of cretinous liberals with a misguided post colonial guilt complex trying to fit more and people into this increasingly over crowded island. I think, Luke, you’ll find that you’re not onto a winner out in them marginals with yur views.
- Alan Giles
  
  ”
  a long time Labour member fed up of cretinous liberals ”
  
  Really, Mr. Marchant. Sir
  
  I thought you dissaproved of “ad hominem attacks”? – or is that just when you are the attacked, not the attacker?
- Luke Martell
  
  I didn’t refer to Portes’ research. I mentioned research by him and others he collected together. This does not say that immigration has no effect on wages. Research, as I have said, says it has a positive/neutral effect on average/overall wages, even anti-migration people say this. I did not ignore other research. I said migration may have a negative effect on the lowest wages, but that the cause and response here has to lie with employers.
  
  Why are the needs of UK citizens our only consideration and those of others from other countries mostly more needy not? Miliband would not be here on that basis, nor many other peoples whose lives and life chances were at risk. We have a moral obligation to humans in need wherever they are, including outside our town, county or country.
  
  Welfare state – much of the tax revenue that supports it and many of the staff who work in it are supplied by migration. Immigrants use public services less than UK citizens. Check the research.
  
  We are not overcrowded. 1.5% of this rich country is built on.
  - Rob
    
    Fine, try giving those answers in Barking and Dagenham. Or the many seats Labour lost in 2010.
    
    Are you for real? Do you really not understand exactly why the considerations of UK citizens might, just, matter a tad more than those of people from Malwi or Bangladesh? Who votes in this country? Who chooses the next government? I think you’ve been reading rather too many text books and need to get out more.
    
    And no, I do not have a moral obligation to everyone on this planet. I might sympahise for some poor woman from rural Pakistan for the tradegy of being born in that ghastly country, but I do not owe her a better life here.
    
    If you don’t think we’re over crowded now, at what piont will you say that we are full? When there is no Green Belt left? When everyone who wants to move to this country has done so? As long as Labour gives views like yours any credence whatsoever, it is doomed to irrelevant opposition.
    
    And Alan Giles, do you think there might have been a clue in what my name is? It says “Rob”. It does not say Rob Marchant, and I am not him (correct and well argued as his view often are).
    - Luke Martell
      
      I think Labour does need to give those answers in Barking and Dagenham rather than going along with empirically inaccurate answers which stoke up intolerance. It needs to shape the debate. If people did not try to shape arguments because it may be a vote loser or go against popular beliefs then there would not have been workers rights, the vote for women, civil rights, legalisation of homosexuality, etc.
      Why is the more needy woman from Pakistan less important than the less needy man from Barking, just because he happens to have been born in the UK? Your argument means no international aid for the poor.
      - Rob
        
        No, my argument means that the government of this country is responsible for the well being of those who live in this country first.
        
        Not only are your arguments massive vote losers, but they are also wrong and the popular beliefs you wish to defend are all too frequently not shared by recent arrivals.
        
        “Votes for women, civil rights, legalisation of homosexuality, etc.” are, unfortunately, considered immoral by the adherents to the ”religion of peace” for example.
        
        It must have dawned on you that the only countries in the world with open borders all share the fact that they are failed states.

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Speaking at the Google Big Tent event Ed Miliband said (please note, Miliband spoke without notes, but this is the text released by the party): It is great to be here inside the Google Big Tent. My sons Daniel and Sam think I do a very boring job, so they will be excited when I tell them I appeared along with the “Killer Robots” and the “Captain of the Moonshots” at your sessions. I’d like to start by showing you [...]
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Comment Unions
The chutzpah of Peter Mandelson – and why we need more trade unionists

By Mark Seddon

Lord Mandelson, or Baron Mandelson of Foy, as he should be referred to since he was packed off to the House of Lords by a small cabal, recently accused the Unite union of ‘manipulating selection procedures’ in the Labour Party. He went on to warn Ed Miliband that this ‘stores up danger for a future Labour government’. Irony has always been in as short supply as sheer chutzpah has been plentiful with old Mandy – but since his faithful disciple [...]
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