We must not pander on immigration

The recent stagnation in the polls for UKIP should not be the cause for celebration or encourage any complacency in the fight for the hearts and minds of the British public. This is especially true on the issues that UKIP seem to have dominated over the last few months; immigration and Europe. We have been down this road before. Tony Benn summarised it up best by saying that “Every generation must fight the same battles again and again. There’s no final victory and there’s no final defeat”. He was referring to the on-going struggle for social democracy, the importance of local activism and the need to be eternally vigilant against the forces that would seek to scare us, to divide us and to set us against one another. It could easily be applied to the current febrile nature of the debate around immigration in this country. Although Nigel Farage’s party are not anywhere nearly as toxic as their odious predecessors and cannot merely be dismissed as a racist party as Baroness Warsi did last year, they demonstrate a similar desire and tendency to pander to one of societies most powerful, misguided and damaging neuroses; the fear of strangers.

The ‘fear of strangers’ is an enduring and persistent phobia, perhaps the oldest, as it appeals to our very base human instincts. Dating back to the days of Homo sapiens, we are wired to be skittish, flighty and worried creatures, concerned about the threats, wonders and horrors in the world unknown. Simply put, it’s in our very nature to be frightened.

It is for this reason that Labour has to be bold and honest about the type of One Nation we wish to build. Is it a One Nation when we tolerate ‘Stop and Search’ at our train stations? Or a One Nation where Home Office propaganda trawls the streets on the side of vans advising people to “Go Home”, a slogan long associated with the National Front and the far-right?

It should be neither. One Nation means that our Shadow Cabinet should not encourage or contribute to the misinformation that the British public are subjected to daily, by a sinisterly motivated right-wing press, and an equally cynically motivated Conservative Party. Chris Bryant was rightly pilloried for a factually inaccurate version of his speech which had found itself leaked to the Telegraph but the content of the speech also left him open to ridicule. Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation Kevin Green said: “There was a distinct lack of substance to Chris Bryant’s speech today and he had no clear evidence to show that British businesses have failed to comply with the current legislation around immigration and employment”.

In short Chris Bryant found himself being accused of getting the facts wrong but more crucially, not even having the right argument in the first place. By adding to the noise about foreign workers taking British jobs, Chris Bryant inadvertently fell for the trap set by the Tories who wish to use this debate to deflect from the cost of living crisis which has ballooned on their watch. It is a trap that we need to avoid at all costs.

The answer to UKIP and the Conservatives attempts to stoke up mistrust and disinformation can not be to pander to those base instincts. The time is now to be bold and honest with the British public, setting apart the facts and myths about immigration, and show that in 2015 the Labour Party is the only party willing to stand up for the many, not just the few.