In 2004 the Labour government opened Britain’s market to eight European accession countries, when other key European nations closed their doors. Since then, the sheer scale of the movement from Eastern European countries has promoted Labour’s own internal debate – weighing the economic benefits of migration against the huge challenges of integration.
It was inevitable in this context, then, that the deputy leadership contest would lead to controversy about migration. Access to affordable housing and the myth that new migrants get priority echoed debates from the time of mass commonwealth immigration in the 1960s and 70s, and the asylum movements of the 1990s.
So how is Labour dealing with the debate now and what can the new Brown government do differently? Every postwar Labour government has had a difficult relationship with immigration. The politics are deeply emotive, often going to the heart of ‘Britishness’, and bound up with notions of race, difference and religion.
For the Blair government, struggling with the rise in the number of asylum-seekers in the 1990s followed by increasing trafficking of clandestine immigrants, finding the right response has often been difficult. There is continued concern over what can be said against the negative mood music of the tabloids. Added to the mix has been the new and stark legacy of radicalisation in some ethnic minority communities, and the confusion about how to tackle it outside the immediate security agenda.
Part of the problem is the lack of clarity at every level of British society about what is actually happening. There are various different strands of migration: legal migration from within and from outside the EU, which is dramatically increasing; asylum to the UK, which is sharply decreasing; and illegal immigration – trafficked human beings and over-stayers whose numbers are notoriously hard to estimate. In this context, policy on the integration of migrants is currently in flux.
In day-to-day press coverage, confusion reigns, with conflation of all four strands of the debate. How many Britons are aware for example that asylum numbers are dropping sharply? Or that among the huge numbers of EU migrants, many were already here prior to 2004, and intending to stay temporarily? Or that there are signs that the early movers are also returning home?
Two critical controversies illustrate the difficulty of conducting a balanced debate. First, the debate over numbers. When David Blunkett famously admitted to not knowing how many illegal immigrants there were in the UK, a tabloid storm was created.
Yet no western country can accurately measure the numbers and if an open discussion about figures creates press hysteria, politicians’ reticence is understandable.
Meanwhile, Home Office figures are increasingly seen as less credible. This has resulted in organisations such as Migration Watch filling the gap with their own, often wild, estimates. It is also the case that our government badly underestimated the annual totals of accession state migration in 2004.
A second critical debate is about the economic benefits of migration compared with the social problems caused by it. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research says that new migrants have added to the UK’s GDP growth by a hefty three per cent over eight years. The causes of our overcrowded infrastructure and hospitals are largely the result of rising affluence and long term underinvestment, not migration. In fact migrants such as foreign doctors and nurses are vital to the functioning of public services.
And what of the two sides of industry? Brendan Barber from the TUC has argued that the highest job losses have been in areas with low migrant populations. Barber thinks we need better union organisation of migrant workers, and warns against the growth of a two tier unregulated labour market with a proliferation of agency and employer exploitation. It is a measured response, but it is often difficult to allay the fears of settled trade unionists in key sectors such as construction.
Similarly, many voices in business have welcomed new migration, but organisations like the CBI whose members benefit from migrant labour can become ambiguous about the benefits when migrant workers suffer tabloid attack. The impact of migration, then, even if there are economic benefits, can never be problem free unless we recognise that it is about integration as well as economics.
There are no easy solutions for a new Labour PM, but there are some examples of progressive thinking. First, Labour needs to communicate the facts of migration more openly. Creating an all-party consensus on statistics will be helped by the creation of the new Migration Advisory Committee. So too would be an open explanation of how globalisation and the need to manage the workforce in a country with a rapidly ageing population is not unique to the UK. All western countries are experiencing these flows; and it is the developing world which still takes the major burden of asylum and displacement of people due to war, poverty and persecution.
The UK is currently developing a points-based policy for skilled migrants. It is important we also manage semi-skilled and unskilled migration, rather than leave it to an increasingly unregulated labour market characterised by gangmaster exploitation. International best practice should be harnessed wherever possible. Ireland, for example, faced with a proportionately larger influx of migrant workers, saw their trade union movement negotiate a successful partnership with employers and government, held together with
all-party support.
We also need to debate how to harness the skills of asylum seekers currently unable to work. Asylum seekers were often well qualified professionals in their own countries, but they are prevented by asylum rules from working during the determination process. This naturally associates asylum seeking with benefits, and has had a hugely negative effect on their image. It has also been a lost opportunity for our economy.
Harnessing the power of common EU solutions can also help our own situation. One of the most effective areas of law making in the EU today is in the area of justice and home affairs, though crucially the UK has negotiated an opt out. In recent years, however, the UK has chosen to opt in to most common asylum directives and increasingly those on illegal immigration and trafficking. The reason is that while the EU is often seen as the cause of migration pressure, the fact is that asylum seekers often travel through more than one EU country. Policies such as burden sharing are only practical at this level.
These debates will be sensitive for Labour – but none more than our approach to integration. It is vital that new policy ideas coming from across the party and from the Commission on Integration and Social Cohesion are built to last, and speak to migrants, as well as settled British citizens, including Britain’s settled ethnic minorities. Some of these policies like citizenship education are beginning to mature, but debates over the learning of English perhaps indicate how far we’ve got to go.
Ultimately, much of integration lies in the ‘hardcore’ areas of housing, education and the workplace. It is here that our new government will be watched closely. As Cameron attempts to bury, temporarily at least, the Michael Howard approach to migration, Labour has a window of opportunity. Getting it right would count as major success for a Gordon Brown government.