The challenge for Labour on immigration is what to say, not how loudly to say it

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For months, everybody thought it would be the Conservatives who would be panicking about UKIP. But Conservative nerves today remain calm: it is Labour that is having a choppy debate about what to do about Nigel Farage, about Europe, and about immigration.

The debate is becoming polarised around the issue of how loudly Labour should talk about immigration. For some, Labour needs to raise the volume on immigration to reconnect with the voters it is losing to UKIP. Others say Labour should stay quiet as it has little to gain from talking about immigration, which will only increase the salience of a debate where other parties are both more confident and more trusted (or, rather, less mistrusted) by a sceptical public.

Both arguments, however, are flawed.

Trying not to talk about a subject that people think you are uncomfortable engaging with only exacerbates the problem. In any event, the question of volume is secondary to the question of content – what does Labour have to say?

A “purple pitch” looks unlikely to succeed. Labour cannot out-UKIP UKIP, and nor can the Conservatives.  Gordon Brown’s “British jobs for British workers” slogan and the Tory copycat Eastleigh campaign should have seen this lesson learnt by now.

The Labour Party will always offer a poor imitation of UKIP for populist voters. UKIP can and will respond to copycat politics by saying ‘you don’t believe it and you won’t do it’. If Labour politicians are seen to be inventing slogans because they are what they think the voters and the newspapers want, they will get caught out.

Yet Labour certainly can’t hope to avoid talking about immigration – and nor should it.

Tony Blair’s intervention on immigration this week, echoed by John Hutton and Alan Milburn in the Times (£), is not the way to solve the problem.  Yes, the “tell it how it is” approach is more direct and confrontational, as perhaps Ed Miliband should have been during the Euro election campaign.  Yet a pre-crash approach to this issue – “globalisation is good for you” – simply won’t work.

Like the stereotypical British holidaymaker abroad, shouting in English and hoping to be understood, turning up the volume on a “just accept that immigration is good for you” argument is destined to fail. Coming from leading lights of New Labour, such arguments simply entrench anxieties and grievances – often leaving individuals and whole communities feeling patronised and further isolated.

So what should Labour do?

1. Never reinforce the UKIP “conspiracy” frame

One key to UKIP’s appeal is its claim that the major parties would rather sweep issues that need talking about under the carpet unless Nigel Farage boldly forces the question.

Any Labour instinct to ‘change the subject’ as quickly as possible when immigration is raised on the doorstep risks the party failing to get a hearing:  ‘I hear exactly what you are saying: the real issues are jobs and housing’ simply sounds like a politician trying to dodge the question.

2.  Be authentic

A social democratic party should be able to find its authentic voice on immigration. It would see immigration as a challenge that the government needs to manage. It would be particularly concerned to ensure the distributional impacts are managed fairly, and that pressures on public services – housing, schools and hospitals – are specifically dealt with.

So Labour is authentic on immigration when it addresses exploitation in the workplace by ensuring fair rules which protect workers and good employers, whether citizens or migrants.  But it also needs to address more directly the “they take our jobs” narrative by talking more explicitly about fairness for British workers (of whatever race) – particularly at the bottom end of the jobs’ market.

Labour is authentic on immigration when it defends immigration that benefits Britain economically and culturally, but also asks those who benefit from skilled migration to acknowledge that for many fellow Brits it simply doesn’t feel the same.

Labour has begun to take up these positions, but has more to do in order to break through.

3.  Get the politics right, not just the policy

Labour risks thinking about immigration simply as a policy challenge. The party is more confident on the nuances and complexities of migration policy. It is less successful at locating that in where the public conversation begins. As John Denham has consistently argued (see this piece he wrote just after the local elections last year), Labour needs its own account of how and why, economically and socially, immigration has become such a large concern for the majority of the population. And it needs an answer to those concerns.

4.  Be clearer on culture

Despite the point about authenticity, Labour, as many centre-left parties do, risks giving a wholly economic answer to what is often a cultural challenge – and dealing with this issue is probably the hardest thing for Labour to come to terms with.  Emphasising the cultural and economic imperatives for newcomers to learn English is now a given but beyond that clearer thinking on the importance of integration is still needed.

5. Find its missing voice in the Europe debate

The leadership’s decision that the risks of a referendum outweigh the benefits is unsurprising from a party which is Pro-Europe – Ed Miliband clearly doesn’t want to be the Labour leader inadvertently responsible for the UK leaving the EU.

However this position misses how the immigration and Europe debates have become ever more closely linked. Part of the price of being in the European club is that the choices people would like to make about immigration – a pragmatic and selective approach, inside and outside the EU – are not on the menu.  It also plays directly into the hands of UKIP when they are able to argue that Labour simply doesn’t trust the public to make the “right” decision on our future in or out of the EU.

Failing to commit to a referendum on the future of Britain in Europe leaves a gaping hole for UKIP and others to fill.  Pro-European voices in the party arguing for a referendum need to get louder and the leadership should listen and act.

The 2015 general election will not for Labour, sadly, be about the NHS. It will be about the economy and immigration. In its ‘cost of living crisis’ narrative, Labour has a coherent message on the economy, one which voters understand. It needs to find the equivalent for immigration – an approach that speaks to voters’ concerns, authentically, from a Labour perspective. UKIP has a lot of complaints but it doesn’t have answers. A Labour party that is serious about governing the country will need to show the public that it offers a real answer to their anxieties.

Matthew Rhodes is Director of Strategy at the thinktank British Future

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