Immigration has come back to bite the government big time. Shabana Mahmood’s sage campaign to set up Labour as the party of effective immigration control by making it much more difficult to get indefinite leave to remain apparently got official approval and certainly showed signs of electoral promise. But the Home Secretary’s plan seems to have been carefully sabotaged.
Keir Starmer was tellingly noncommittal about it this week, suggesting that the proposal to require ten years of reasonably well-behaved residence would be ditched – at least in favour of those already here and approaching the current five-year deadline. Reports on Friday indicated that some Labour MPs are considering revolting against the government and could force a symbolic parliamentary vote on the reforms in the months to come.
All this, it is pretty clear, shows signs of Angela Rayner’s influence. There is little love lost between her and the Home Secretary (whom she has previously accused of a ‘breach of trust’ for would-be immigrants already here). More to the point, such an exercise in devilment directed at an ally of Keir Starmer is a useful support for an eventual run against him for the leadership.
However propitious for Angela, however, this is not good news for Labour. It is clear that a measure of the sort contemplated by Mahmood to crack down on indefinite leave to remain is actually necessary. Britain is a byword for lax immigration control: what would effectively guarantee anyone living here for five years the right to stay permanently would send precisely the wrong message.
Labour possesses an inability to display even the semblance of a united front
Furthermore, the earlier we give migrants indefinite leave to remain, the more difficult it is, both as a matter of domestic law and human rights, to remove those who abuse our hospitality once they’re here. This doesn’t even factor in the potential costs to the public purse in terms of social security payments to those now to be given the full benefits of residence.
The need to stiffen, rather than relax, migration controls is also increasingly recognised by voters who, at least in large measure, ditched the Tories at the last election. This was not because they disliked their stated immigration policies, but because they seemed too incompetent to carry them out and it was just possible that Labour’s performance might just be slightly less ineffectual.
There is also the issue that any move by Keir Starmer to distance himself on immigration from Shabana Mahmood amounts, in effect, to a move towards the Lib Dems and the Greens. The Lib Dems under Ed Davey are fairly free and easy on migration, while the Green party leader Zack Polanski is rapidly establishing himself as an open-borders enthusiast (except, doubtless, for any billionaire who sought to live here and actually invest in UK Plc).
It is not immediately apparent that this makes much electoral sense. Lib Dem voters are clannish and make a point of distancing themselves from Labour; they are unlikely to be attracted by antics of this sort. And the idea of Green supporters of open borders flocking to Labour because of a grudging relaxation of immigration rules when they could have the real thing under Zack Polanski is, one suspects, for the birds.
Indeed, in terms of the voters it needs to woo, the sensible move for Labour would be to become more, not less, hawkish on migration. As the Tories are discovering, the electorate might not be particularly right-wing on economics or free markets. But anxious and socially conservative it is, and it regards the growing threat from migration with great concern, both in terms of numbers and of the actions of some unassimilated groups who seemingly have little in common with the English except a desire to live here. There are plenty of clothes to steal from the Tories here and even more from Reform: this is where Labour ought to be seeking to pick up support.
What this episode also shows is two fundamental weaknesses of Labour. One is its inability to display even the semblance of a united front. On one side is a sensible group of MPs who realise that there is a great deal of mileage in Labour presenting itself as the Tories in different-coloured rosettes but, by contrast, decent and competent. On the other, a left-wing awkward squad, a minority it is true, but big enough to put a spanner in any works it dislikes. This group of wreckers has already stymied any attempt to corral the government’s runaway welfare bill; it also lies behind the latest devilment from Angela Rayner. It may yet get its way. Good luck to Captain Starmer in trying to keep these two crews in anything looking like the same ship.
The other problem faced by Labour is a disconcerting disconnect between its MPs, its membership and its potential voter base. Angela Rayner, one suspects, has every support from party members, who reject out of hand any move towards the policies of parties like Reform UK. To them, Nigel Farage’s party is unpleasant, uneducated and reactionary. Unfortunately for their feelings of righteousness, this isn’t the view of the voters Labour needs to gather in. The present crisis shows precisely this. Immigration came close to burying the Tory party in 2024. It now risks doing much the same to Labour.
Comments