“Tackling immigration” – either you have a plan, or you’re pandering

“Low-skill migration has been too high and we need to bring it down.” That’s the key line from Labour’s new Party Political Broadcast, which we previewed last week (and which you can watch here).

In the past I’ve spoken in favour of Ed Miliband’s plans to encourage immigrants who don’t speak English to learn the language (because being able to communicate is undoubtedly a good thing). That seemed like a sensible course of action, pairing a legitimate concern, with a sensible an practical solution that benefits everyone.

The same cant be said for Labour’s broader approach to immigration. Simply saying that low-skilled immigration was too high and wringing our hands whilst staring doe eyed at the Express and the Mail isn’t a political strategy or a policy solution. I’m hopeful that we might see some concrete details in Yvette Cooper’s speech at IPPR tomorrow, but you rather expect that if such ideas existed they would be put forward by the party leader on TV rather than by the Shadow Home Secretary at a think tank.

Aside from the fact that there are many arguments in favour of higher levels of immigration, politicians need to be wary that when they open the “shit room door” that is attacking immigration it’s incredibly hard to close it again. So you need to be able to deal with what’s inside. That either means cutting immigration (but as an EU member that’s hard to do without detrimental moves like cutting international student numbers) or alleviating the pressures on communities caused by immigration and population growth – like building millions more homes.

Cutting immigration down to a level low enough where it ceases to become an issue is almost impossible for an open, internationalist and pro-EU party like Labour – even it it were desirable (which it most certainly isn’t). So the only real option is to develop policies that deal with a sense of overcrowding, adverse competition for jobs and perceived detrimental change to communities.

Unless Labour actually deals with any of this stuff – of which there’s little sign that we are yet – then it just looks like pandering to concerns (and prejudices) of some of the British people, without offering concrete solutions. And such pandering is not only incredibly fair to those who are fearful of immigration – it’s unfair to immigrants too.