‘Labour must not chase coat-tails of anti-migrant right’

On Westminster Bridge poor young men play the three card trick to trap wealthy tourists. In America there is a different version of the game.

There it is the super-wealthy, the rich-beyond-the-dreams-of-Croesus wealthy, who have schooled the population to doubt science, to deny the existence of society and to understand that they cannot afford the luxury of public health or state provided education.

More — such public services and welfare are the reason their way of life is being threatened by “hordes of economic migrants” seeking to displace them.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference last week, the man once the unlikeliest of heartbeats away from the most powerful office in the world, gave clarion notice: “I believe that there is nothing more important than mass migration.”

Not the threat of a bellicose Russia, not the cyber threat of an ascendent China, not the energy instability of a Middle East in turmoil, but for JD Vance the great security issue is the amorphous demonised “Other” beating down the walls of European and North American civilisation.

They believe not in government, but in the market

We must not ask why they come to attack the citadel! We must not question the origin of the drought that has desertified their farms – the climate, don’t you know, has always been changing. We must not question the wars and the dictators who have destroyed their families – their leaders were our friends, they bought our arms and supplied our thirst for oil.

We must only build the wall higher because it is the citadel that defends the wealth of our society – the wealth that remains stubbornly in the hands of the super-rich.

Challenge and you are envious of success. Challenge and you are unpatriotic. Challenge and you are undermining the market. The super-rich want a minimalist government. That is what DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, is all about. They believe not in government, but in the market.

READ MORE: ‘The asylum bill revolt is no surprise. It continues cruel anti-migrant policies’

Government is about tackling poverty, solving problems and creating opportunity. Government is about restricting one person’s unfettered freedom in order to create a society where all can be free from exploitation, ignorance, disease, or hunger. Good government intervenes in the market and manages it. It gives people the freedom to explore their own life-choices rather than be tools for others to pursue theirs.

So why is the Labour Government so apparent, so strident, so brazen in its embrace of the minimalist state? Why so determined in its resolve to out-Vance Vance and chase the coat-tails of each and every anti-migrant rhetorician across Europe from Giorgia Meloni and Alice Weidel to Marine Le Pen and Nigel Farage. The Starmer I respect is the one who told us “the whole United Kingdom is better because of immigration.” The Starmer I want back is the one who said “If I’m honest, the Labour Party has been a bit scared of making the positive case for immigration.”

There is a politics of hope and respect

The Starmer of today may reply that the reason they peddled those deportation videos around the broadcast media, and the reason government boasted it had deported 73% more migrants than the Tories, is a response to the electoral threat of Reform.

I am sorry: that is not good enough. You do not win political battles by throwing over the principles your party stands for. You alienate those who find they do not have the facility of a chameleon. There are people who joined the Labour Party precisely because it stands for values such as human dignity, compassion and respect and who consider that parading young men in manacles as a virility signal is to betray, not advance, the principles for which we stand.

People who have no right, or through criminal offences have lost the right to live in the UK, should be returned to their country of origin and our laws upheld. They should not be used as propaganda in a race to the political sewer.

There is a politics of hope and of respect. It does not ignore the loss of well-paid oil and gas jobs, it builds a just transition and leads workers to an equally prosperous renewable economy. It does not flinch at county lines and gang fuelled violence, it rebuilds the youth programmes that were cut because Treasury could only add up how much they cost, and never accounted for what they saved.

READ MORE: ‘Council set to buy 300 ex-council homes for refugees and other homeless families’

It does not cower before private health providers or allow them to profit from the serial sabotage of our proudest institution. There is a politics of hope and respect. But it is not the same politics that tells investors they need not worry “about the bats and the newts”. It is not the same politics that, when asked about growth, reaches for its inner-Trump to parrot “Build Baby Build”.

Labour politicians may yet be too sensitive to resort to the overt dog whistle politics of Tommy Robinson and his ilk when it comes to racism, but they should reflect on the subliminal messages they are giving to those who built their party, who campaigned for years to put them where they are, and who did so because they at least, still believe in a society whose pillars are justice, dignity, fairness and a sustainable environment.

For too long working people have been tutored by the avatars of deified wealth to blame their immiseration on each other. Our leaders have schooled us that we must make sacrifices to achieve growth. What they have failed to tell us is that the growth was their growth, and the sacrifices are ours.

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