Emma Reynolds: Voters are pragmatic – Labour should not fear a conversation about immigration and national identity

The backbench PLP departmental group on Brexit recently welcomed Matthew Goodwin, professor of politics and international relations at the University of Kent, to discuss Brexit, UKIP and the populist right. Matthew is currently a leading expert on the rise of populist parties and spoke to us about the challenges that Brexit poses to the Labour party.

Matthew underlined the risk that Labour is caught between a revolt by remain voters in our more cosmopolitan seats and a leave revolt in our heartlands in Wales, the North and the Midlands. Given that there were clear majorities to leave the EU in seven out of 10 Labour constituencies, the main beneficiary of such a revolt could be UKIP.

Before the 2014 European parliamentary elections and the Heywood and Middleton by-election in October that year, many in the Labour Party seem to be dismissive of the UKIP threat. It was assumed that UKIP would take more votes from the Conservative party than Labour. Our approach to UKIP was based on attacking them on the NHS rather than engaging with the argument about immigration.

At the 2015 general election, UKIP polled just under 13 per cent nationally, receiving nearly four million votes, up from 3.1 per cent in 2010. In about a dozen Labour seats, UKIP polled a very close second depriving those Labour MPs of bigger majorities, despite having poor organisation and not spending much money. It is important that Labour understands the UKIP challenge, without overstating it.

UKIP’s success at Labour’s expense is in large part down to Labour’s long term failure to listen to voters on immigration, Matthew stressed. There is a tendency in the Labour party to try and over-intellectualise our response to immigration. We attribute people’s concerns to overstretched public services and unscrupulous employers using immigration to undercut wages.

But in reality the communities who have concerns about immigration don’t just express fears about competing for jobs and wages, they are also worried about their communities changing beyond recognition, about the quickening pace of that change, and about the scale of immigration that is driving it.

Many people don’t believe the mantra of the mainstream elite that globalisation has been good for everybody, they don’t feel that globalisation has benefited them. Voters don’t see immigration simply through the prism of GDP and Labour must stop framing people’s concerns as an economic issue. More important for voters, is that they want to know that the government can control immigration. Hence why the Leave campaign’s message of “take back control” was so effective. One of the main reasons that many people voted to leave the EU was because they see free movement as incompatible with that control.

Labour needs to appreciate that in a fast-changing world, a sense of place, community and identity matters. We should be able to speak with conviction about the importance of national identity in a globalised world. Moreover, Labour should not fear a conversation about immigration and national identity. Most voters are pragmatic about the issue. They recognise that Britain needs highly-skilled migrants, particularly in the national health service and they support our universities attracting top foreign students. They want a system that they feel gives Britain control over the pace and scale of immigration. Brexit provides an opportunity for Labour to start that conversation before it is too late.

In conclusion, Labour needs to put out a simple message that we understand people’s concerns about immigration and their desire for the government to have more control. The policies that flow from that must be both credible and authentic, and emphasise cultural issues as much as economic issues. Only then will Labour start to rebuild the trust of many of those voters who have deserted us at the last two general elections.

Emma Reynolds is MP for Wolverhampton North East and chair of the PLP backbench committee on Brexit.