Labour leader candidates must address immigration angst

There is usually one episode in a prime minister's tenure that sums up where it all went wrong. The winter of discontent for Jim Callaghan, the poll tax for Margaret Thatcher and Black Wednesday for John Major all spring to mind. The obvious one for Gordon Brown is the banking collapse – and yet the Labour leadership candidates seem to think the real clincher may just have been him calling Gillian Duffy "a bigoted woman". In a rare instance of a prime minister performing a physical U-turn, Brown had to get his car to rush back to Rochdale to deliver a grovelling apology – the leadership candidates have been saying sorry ever since. For though it may seem trivial in the great scheme of things, the Gillian Duffy incident wasn't just a personal humiliation for Brown, it was the moment that Labour's collective angst over immigration was laid bare. To use another psychological term, the party has suffered from cognitive dissonance over migration: a syndrome in which two conflicting views held at the same time lead to severe tension. On the one hand, traditional Labour values and the economics of a globalised world argued for an open approach; on the other hand, traditional Labour voters and communities struggling to adapt to the pace of change spoke up for restrictions. During its 13 years in power, Labour was never able to settle on a strategy or forge a narrative which could reconcile these competing pressures. Now in opposition, the leadership contenders are trying to rush themselves through a recovery programme. The accompanying mantra goes something like this: Labour "failed" on immigration – particularly among their "natural" supporters; this failure was key to losing the election, and the best way to reconnect with Labour voters is to promise tougher policies in future. Let's start with election defeat. Of course, immigration featured prominently during the campaign – as it did in 2001 and 2005, incidentally – but Ipsos Mori polling suggests it was only the fourth biggest issue for voters – after the economy, healthcare and education ; and while YouGov had it second, the economy was by far the biggest issue. It is true that the Conservatives had a big lead over labour on immigration issues (11% according to Ipsos Mori), but it had similar leads on defence, crime and reforming MPs' expenses. In much the same way, it is hard to read anything into a mixed bag of results in which two ex-home secretaries lost their seats, but at the same time Labour destroyed what was thought to be a serious challenge from the BNP in Barking and Dagenham, and it took Rochdale from the Liberal Democrats on a modest swing . We await an in-depth analysis of voting trends, but the picture so far surely cannot sustain the view that immigration was the killer issue for Labour. Yet it is understandable why many think it was. The leadership candidates, as with all doorstep campaigners, have had their ears chewed on immigration. Many less-well-off voters are really anxious and upset about immigration – but it's important to understand why. In an article much quoted since the Duffy furore I wrote of how the left had been far too dismissive for too long of critics of immigration. It was only at the very end of the Labour era that it became acceptable to argue that managing and controlling inflows (and yes, trying to reduce the numbers) is consistent with progressive values on race and migration. Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests this is where the public had been all along – positive about migration, but worried about its scale and some of its impacts. But the same research showed that there were not strong demands for a toughening of policy. Labour's difficulty has been that voters' perceptions of the immigration regime lag behind the reality, but when they hear about the policies now in place they feel they are the right ones. That is why it was dismaying to hear Ed Balls, calling for restrictions on free movement within the European Union, on the basis that it was driving down pay and conditions for his constituents. There simply isn't any evidence to justify this change. Rather, as Ed Miliband seemed to be implying in his main intervention on the subject, the impact of migration has become mixed up with the impact of globalisation and neoliberal economic policies on poorer and more vulnerable communities. This is where Labour leadership candidates really need to be focussing their attention. On migration, they should be mounting a stout defence of Labour's hard-won policy position as it left office, and coupling that with a more positive tone towards migrants themselves. The two strands are not inconsistent and they offer a real way forward for Labour on migration.