Blair: We should not chase after UKIP on immigration

Tony Blair has warned the Labour Party not to give in to UKIP’s arguments on immigration, saying that the party has a “nasty core of prejudice”. In an interview with Progress, Blair says Labour should be take the line that UKIP are wrong:

“Let’s be clear: We don’t think that UKIP’s right, not on immigration and not on Europe – so the first thing you’ve got to be really careful of doing is … saying things that suggest that they’re kind of justified in their policy because what you’re actually going to do is validate their argument when in fact you don’t believe in it.”

Ed Miliband has adopted tougher language on immigration in recent months, but former leader Blair says he would rather see Labour take on the argument. He says Blair shouldn’t be:

“…chasing after the policies of a party like UKIP, who you don’t agree with, whose policies would take this country backwards economically, politically, in every conceivable way, and who, ultimately, at the heart of what they do, have a rather nasty core of prejudice that none of us believe in, which you’ve actually got to take on and fight. So the way to deal with this is to deal with it by what you believe.”

In contrast to the story last week that suggested he privately predicts a Conservative victory next year (which he flatly denies), Blair also touched upon the self-destructive tendency of the Tory Party whenever the topic of the EU is raised:

“Clause IV is Europe, and the fact that they haven’t dealt with it and have now allowed this thing to run away again with their party, it doesn’t do them any electoral favours at all.”

This was the closest that Blair strayed to commenting on domestic affairs in an interview that focussed largely on matters affecting his role as a diplomat in the Middle East. He seems very aware that whatever remarks he makes about British politics will be somehow construed as an attack on Ed Miliband. While he runs that risk with his comments on immigration here, it is clear that UKIP is the real target.

It is not the first time Tony Blair has tackled UKIP head on – watch this clip from the European Parliament in 2005 to see an impassioned argument against Nigel Farage.