Today the Conservatives unveil their immigration cap – their response to a clear demand from the electorate to bring down the high migrant numbers of recent years.

Kicking the cap is the easy bit for Labour. The cap has very few friends and, by attacking it, Labour not only rebuilds some bridges with migrant-supporting groups but also puts itself on the same side as big business – quite useful for the new leader as he tries to throw off the ‘Red Ed’ tag.

But as Labour embarks on a ‘profound’ rethinking of its policy positions 
opposing the cap will not sustain it for long. ippr has just published a collection of essays called Immigration under Labour which gives some pointers about the future direction of the party’s immigration policy. There is a lot to reflect on from the 13 years in power, when immigration constantly dogged the party.

The first thing to point out is that immigration did not lose Labour the 2010 election, as an analysis of British Election Survey data in our collection makes clear. Not surprisingly, it was the economy which swang the result. But, as a number of our contributors highlight, the voters’ hostility towards immigration is often a proxy for their concern about how the economy is failing them. Seen through this prism, high immigration is a very visible component of a globalised, flexible and dynamic economy, where competition for jobs involves not just others in the domestic workforce, but international workers as well. Many people, a lot of them natural Labour voters, felt very threatened by this economic model, which even during the boom years didn’t really deliver as much for them as they had hoped. One of Labour’s main failings in government was that it was slow to recognise this.

So a large part of the new thinking needs to focus on an economic policy which has deeper roots in our communities and spreads around the benefits of growing prosperity more equally. Such outcomes would be intrinsically worthwhile – but the added benefit would be lower immigration, not through artificial restraint, but as a natural result of a different type of economy. That’s not to say that policy interventions won’t be important – quite the opposite. Such a changed economy would only result from a concerted effort to skill up the domestic workforce to equip them to take up the vacancies available; policies to target new industries on areas with high existing unemployment; and policies to create long-term jobs with reasonable levels of pay and prospects. More controversially, the role of welfare-to-work schemes in channelling the workless into sectors which would otherwise be filled by migrants might need to be looked at. And it may even be time to consider whether, as a nation, we are prepared to accept slightly lower – or at least slower – economic growth in exchange for more stable communities.

While this idea might seem too leftfield, Labour does need to do a radical rethink of how the nexus between economy policy and immigration works. And it does need to accept that numbers matter. The Tory cap might be bad policy, but it has been good politics. The public supports the intention of the cap, even if they recognise that it won’t deliver. So Labour does need its own answer to the question of how immigration can be reduced from the high levels of recent years. The points-based system which Labour put in place under Gordon Brown was a good start, but it won’t do all the work on its own. Hence the issue of how we can shape an economy less dependent on high immigration. Without such major, long term change it is hard to see how migration numbers will come down substantially, because as long as the demand for migrant workers in our economy remains, the global supply will keep on meeting that demand, evading controls if necessary.

Of course, the other way of looking at it is that we should all learn to live with high migration. In some ways, this is the easier option – as it goes with the grain of a more mobile world. Politically it is much harder to sell, and I would argue that it should not be at the heart of new policy, but it needs to be at least part of the package. We can’t construct a Fortress UK without causing serious damage to our future prospects.

In this context, promoting greater integration between migrant communities and the host community is of great importance. Integration is one of those buzz words that can become rather fuzzy and meaningless if it is wholly owned by policy wonks and professional officers. But on the ground, in our communities, people want genuine integration, even if they don’t use the term. New migrants, settled migrants and long-established communities come together in this desire: to live in places characterised by greater neighbourliness, less change and upheaval and a greater sense of shared identity and outlook. This is fertile territory for Labour. Indeed, only Labour can really deliver on these aspirations. But if the party is to do so it needs to shed its squeamishneess about talking openly and honestly to all parts of its constituency about the impacts of immigration – good and bad. A start was made in government – too late to redeem Labour’s reputation – but now the talking, and in particular, the listening needs to continue.

Photo: Victoria Peckham