‘The politics of security – when ‘for the many’ politics becomes uncomfortable for Labour’

I will never forget something a Labour voter in a very safe Tory seat told me once soon after the 1997 election. He said that he thought that some of his floating voter friends felt that they could “afford to vote Labour”. They believed that doing so would come at a cost to them but felt that was offset by the need to invest in better public services. They were ready to accept a more generous state at personal expense. They hadn’t changed their opinion on which party was more hard headed on the economy – but the salience of that was lessened for them by the circumstances. The economy was doing well; their lives were going OK – they could afford a Labour government. 

Head over heart?

Labour strategists have long contended with the ‘heart over head’ problem. Voters have always seen the party as a bit soft, a bit of an easy touch, a bit gullible and lacking in hardheadedness. Too nice to take the tough decisions. Too willing to spend taxpayer money. Too focused on groups who – for a variety of reasons – were not the average voters but those deemed the most vulnerable. 

Looking after vulnerable groups is – of course – rightly a part of Labour’s mission. But it’s only a part. “For the many not the few” (a phrase used by both Blair and Corbyn) has to literally mean “for the many” and the many are not – by definition – the most needy. 

What successful Labour governments have always done is try to build a coalition between ordinary voters and the vulnerable to ensure that all sides feel – whoever they voted for – that they are part of the country that the government seeks to represent.  

It doesn’t matter if you do polling, focus groups or canvassing or just overhear conversations in the pub – you will gather that voters have a vague sense that Labour are ‘too soft’. That sense has always been ruthlessly exploited by our opponents who will endlessly define precisely who it is we are ‘too soft’ on. 

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When we worry about the children cast into poverty by the two child cap the right will find someone who has exploited the benefits system for their own selfish ends and make them the poster for chipping ever further away at the welfare state. Which in turn leads to some making a full throated defence of the welfare system as it is – and not instead striving to achieve better ways to get people off benefits and into more satisfying lives. 

When we think we are being compassionate towards refugees the right will find the example of someone who has come over on a small boat and committed a heinous crime and make them the emblem of the whole system. And they do so in such a vile way that it pushes some into defending the system that allowed the criminal through rather than working to strengthen the border and ensure that we can build a system that works for migrants, refugees and the communities into which they settle.

Security Blankets

Security is the endless watchword of any government. Keeping our people safe is what governments are for. 

That’s fine as far as it goes. There’s not a politician around who won’t agree with that sentence. It’s what comes next that makes all the difference. 

What is meant by security? For the left, a class-based analysis means a focus on economic security – ensuring that wages at the bottom end of the spectrum rise; that the basics are affordable; that we can all eat, heat our homes and see our children educated into good lives and jobs. 

For a more identitarian strand of left thinking it means you can feel secure that your identity will be not be weaponised against to to cause you harm. That the colour of your skin, your sexuality or your faith will never hold you back from being and feeling a full member of British society. 

The right have never believed in economic redistribution so have always believed that some people should experience economic insecurity. For some to win, others must lose. Thatcher broke the post-war welfare consensus by reintroducing the notion of the undeserving poor and the vague notions of property owning and share owning democracies which excited a generation of people – many of whom directly benefitted – and smashed the hopes of every generation that came after them when it turned out that ‘trickle down’ economics ran only through family bloodlines, not communities; not society. 

The right have since dealt with the security question by making an argument that is about the security of nationhood. Whether that was persuasive – but I think it’s a fool’s errand to suggest it wasn’t) or the powerful sense that Britain has lost control of its border when it comes to immigration and small boats. That our very island is insecure and, as a result, so are our neighbourhoods, towns and villages.

This sense of insecurity is palpable. And Labour have made the mistake too often of ignoring it. I remember being briefed when out canvassing in a run down area of Essex in 2015 that if someone raised ‘immigration’ on the doorstep I should try to pivot “to what they are really worried about” (this usually meant talking about a policy issue that Labour was more comfortable with such as housing, jobs etc). But I can tell you that some, most, of those voters were really worried about immigration. And whether those fears were stoked by the racist right or whether the racist right was using those fears as an opening now seems pretty immaterial – an academic distraction from our real world troubles – because those fear existed ten years ago and no amount of being chided and told they are really worried about something else has quelled them in the minds of voters.

Secure channels

It is into this world, that Labour’s Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood set out a new approach to illegal immigration and refugee policy yesterday. And she did so by responding to voters’ feelings of insecurity that Labour simply cannot ignore. 

There are reasonable arguments to be made for refugee status being temporary and reversible (one would hope that people are able to return to their countries if and when circumstances change) but equally, I am unconvinced that doing so will help with one of the biggest challenges which is that of community cohesion. It is much harder to get emotionally invested in a community you may be ripped away from in 2.5 years. Every 2.5 years. There is going to be greater investment in ‘safe and effective’ routes and in ways to gain settled status for those deemed to have a reasonable claim. 

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But however nuanced the actual policy is – or is not (and it does have some pretty sharp edges that trouble me as much as it troubles many backbenchers) it is not being sold with nuance. Or at least not exactly. 

Looking at some of the policy, I suspect it will not live up (or down depending on your point of view) to the rhetoric that surrounds it. Mahmood pushed back pretty hard on the line that Labour were going to be snatching jewellery at the border – though it is worth asking how that seed was planted with the Sun (a tactic that has been waning in workability since the advent of social media).

The government are banking on the rhetoric and policy environment breaking through to those who might be considering coming and it dissuades them. I don’t know how likely this is. 

In the Commons, Mahmood spoke of watching the TikToks from the gangs marketing channel crossings to those watching in desperate circumstances in war torn countries. These people have a great deal of financial incentive to keep peddling these crossings to those desperate enough to get in a boat – and no care at all for the circumstances they find themselves in on arrival. So what would stop the smugglers from continuing to peddle their evil trade? And what is the government’s strategy to counter those comms day in, day out. Because I promise you giving one speech in the UK Parliament one time is not going to cut it. And this government have rarely shown an ability or willingness to be consistent with comms and messaging in the easiest of circumstances – never mind trying to take on the gangs at their own comms game.

It may be that those who do arrive will tell a tale of their own insecurity. Of a hostile country that makes it harder for them to settle and to become a part of and that, over time, that makes the UK a less attractive destination for those fleeing persecution. But it would have to be a hell of a lot less attractive than anyone is willing to make it to compare unfavourably with where they are coming from. No one – from Mahmood on down really has the stomach for what that might mean. 

Borders and red lines  

It is not wrong, or anti-Labour to want to have secure borders. There is not a democratic government in the world who isn’t struggling with these issues and there are no easy solutions. As climate change continues to wipe out more and more arable land these issues are only going to get worse (one reason why I have always been contemptuous of the anti-immigration right also embracing anti Net Zero politics). Governments to owe a first duty to their citizens to keep them secure and ensure they feel secure. 

But it is anti-realism to think that can ever mean the same thing as completely non-porous borders. As Stephen Bush pointed out yesterday, people got in and out of the Soviet Union – and even occasionally North Korea. These are closed societies who are or were wholly invested in the secure nature of their border. Yet go the Checkpoint Charlie museum in Berlin and you will see a thousand inventive ways that people who yearned for freedom found to escape. 

So we need to be clear about what can be done and what can’t. How such crossings can be minimised while ensuring that we remain a humane society into which those we do accept can be happily and comfortably assimilated. 

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This crisis, this rhetoric, this “moment” has been going on for most of this century now. It is not going to go anywhere and the Labour government is going to have to find a way to deal with it that allows the best of the conscience to allay with the best of their instincts for security. There will be trade offs. There always are.

Instead of ignoring that we would be better working out what is possible before we have what we felt would never happen imposed upon us.

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