“LOkay, if you don’t like mugs, you don’t have to buy mugs,” said an exasperated Ed Miliband. A month before election day in 2015, we were on a train heading to Manchester for the televised leadership debate. The mug in question had the slogan “Immigration Control” written on it. This is one of his five-card sets, each branded with a campaign promise. “Other mugs are available,” the Labor leader at the time reminded me.
But the one on border control provoked paroxysms of indignation from the left and cynical distrust from the right. Mr Miliband’s frustration was clear. His advisers elaborated on the logic. The slogan was uncontroversial.Alternatives to immigration restrictions do not have We regulate immigration, but no one has ever won an election by promising to do so. In theory, it was a reasonable campaign priority.
However, even though it came in a mug instead of paper, no one bought it.
Not being trusted to manage the border is just one of the many reasons why Miliband lost that election. Stirring up some public confidence in his policies is not the only reason why Keir Starmer is likely to become prime minister this year. But like winning an election, this is a rare feat for Labor leaders to achieve.
A lot has happened in the immigration debate since 2015, but the biggest one has been Brexit. Ending the treaty obligation to give European workers free access to the UK labor market frees up previously unavailable immigration policy tools. Whether it was worth the cost of giving up access to the single market and British nationals losing the right to work on the continent is another question.
The salience of immigration Their ranking in political debates, measured as their position among the issues voters cite as their top concerns, has naturally declined. During the referendum, about half of voters cited immigration as their top priority. By the end of 2019, before Brexit became law, this proportion had fallen to less than one in five. It started rising again around mid-2022, but it has not yet exceeded its previous peak.
Meanwhile, people kept coming.After a sudden decline due to border closures due to the pandemic, net immigration numbers are Rapid growth after 2020. Last year, the number was 672,000. The main change since leaving the EU is that more people are coming from non-EU countries on visas issued by the Conservative government for work in the NHS, social care and other sectors. Rishi Sunak is not boasting, but this is a matter of sovereign policy choice.
Instead, he is talking about stopping boats carrying a relatively small number of people seeking asylum (29,437 last year). A symbolic sample of these boat passengers could be spirited away in Kigali now that Rwanda has been declared safe by an Act of Parliament and British courts are prohibited from ruling otherwise. .
Of the vast majority of people who will remain in the UK, many will be prohibited from naturalizing.last year’s illegal immigration law ‘Irregular’ arrivals on British shores (contrary to the International Protocol on the Humane Treatment of Refugees) are automatically grounds for refusal of sanctuary. There are no regular channels.
Sunak will be satisfied if he can get off the tarmac and onto a plane by July. Dozens of deportees are likely to leave mainland Britain by voting day. Tens of thousands more will be rendered legally incapacitated, eligible only for indefinite detention in Britain under a system primarily aimed at projecting strength in electoral campaigns. Then the entire portfolio becomes Starmer’s problem.
Opinion polls show Labor is more trusted than the Conservatives on immigration. But not too many. Partly this is due to Brexit. Pro-Europeans loathe Mr Starmer’s hardline stance on freedom of movement, but he has done a good job of shutting down accusations that Labor is against border controls. No mug required.
Most polls express widespread disdain for the Conservative Party. If the government is really bad, there’s a good chance the opposition will handle everything better. Labor could attack Rwanda, which is in turmoil, on the grounds of cost and capacity without having to dwell too much on the options on this side of the election.
After that it gets complicated. The ship is still coming. As long as there is a need for key workers and sustained economic growth, net immigration will remain high. The Conservatives will continue to beat the immigration drum relentlessly, both in Parliament and in their competition with Nigel Farage. The media cheerleaders take the beat.
Most of Labor’s responses to that pressure will polarize opinion on the left. If the message is even slightly tailored to conservative tastes, it could be criticized at some point as pandering to the far right. And it is difficult to convey subtle nuances to the Ministry of Interior.
Governments serious about managing cross-border movement need to discriminate about who can move and under what conditions. I instinctively object to such a choice, even if it comes from the Minister of Labor. especially When the Labor Minister decides on it, it is deeply ingrained within the party.
But the obligation to overcharge Mr Starmer with the former Brexiteer’s views does not disappear the day after victory. These will be incorporated into the governance agenda as a requirement to maintain the loyalty of voters in retaken narrow seats. The restored “Red Wall” needs reinforcement.
This need not require a polarized stance on immigration. Mr Sunak demonstrated the futility of plans that prioritize slogans and performance over actual implementation. The Rwanda plan wasn’t even his idea in the first place. Imposing your credibility on something you know won’t work is a combination of weakness and dishonesty. It would be cheaper to issue every voter with a “Stop the Boat” mug.
For Starmer, there is an opportunity here beyond short-term electoral dividends. attitude towards immigration Public debate is more subtly shaded than is generally recognized. The majority believe that there is an influx of too many people, but some believe that the country is benefiting from this influx. Xenophobic fears that indigenous cultures will be swallowed up by aliens may be tilting some quarters towards supporting Brexit, but this is not the mainstream view.
A larger driver of anxiety and prejudice is a sense of unregulated competition for public resources such as housing, GP appointments and benefits. It’s the suspicion that someone unqualified is jumping the queue. With economic stagnation and declining services, that dissatisfaction is further diminished. It is exacerbated by a pool that fuels populism and xenophobia.
A government that makes tangible progress in restoring a sense of order and fairness in the public sphere will not satisfy anti-immigrant die-hards, but it doesn’t need to. If we had a period of time where we could just let the system function and maintain its competency, a lot of the poison would be drained out of the debate.
I don’t meet many people who are convinced Starmer can pull it off. A knack for charismatic storytelling that tells the story of a national journey to sustain a disparate coalition of voters will come in handy. But evangelism is not his hobby. He is more of a persistent problem-solving type.
Still, in that respect, the Labor leader and the British people may prove surprisingly compatible. In a country so consumed with all its gimmicks and slogans and tired of getting angry, there is a clear vacancy for a prime minister who just gets the job done.
