Cameron’s predictable lines on immigration hide the real issue: wages for those with middle-incomes are not rising and Tory tax hikes are driving inflation. Those at work are seeing their standards of living fall, while the Conservative government’s budget has prioritised handing back cash to large corporates.
The Tories are desperate to rewrite the history of Labour’s New Deal, which led the world in reforming government intervention in the labour market to get people back to work. Since Osborne’s budget, growth is down and young people facing unemployment is up. That’s his record as chancellor, and families in the UK are facing the consequences.
Alison McGovern, MP for Wirral South
The turn of the European right to nationalist identity populism is bad, sad politics. Given how much Cameron pretends to be apart from the EU it is interesting to hear him use themes now common on the right of continental politics. Fair pay and fair play from employers would be a good start. Will Spain’s PM now demand that 900,000 British immigrants in Spain now learn Spanish and integrate with Spanish culture, food and way of life?
Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham
Yes we need to have a rational discussion about immigration but Cameron’s view is far too simplistic. Is he implying that immigration is the sole reason for communities being disjointed? His empty rhetoric about wanting ‘good immigration, not mass immigration’ reeks of a ‘big society’ type phrase which has no real meaning. What actual policies will he implement to tackle immigration? He talked about creating a UK Border Police Force but instead, he has cut the UK Border Agency by 5,000 staff.
Tulip Siddiq, cabinet member for culture, London borough of Camden
Cameron is wrong to claim that ‘migrants are filling gaps in the labour market left wide open by a welfare system that for years has paid British people not to work.’ The truth is that over the past decade our welfare system has undergone a remarkable transformation. Facing local labour markets wracked by years of economic misery during the 1980s and a government shunting an entire generation onto incapacity benefit for political expediency, Labour inherited a challenging task in 1997. By all accounts, not everything the last government did was perfect, but significant reform and progress was achieved.
They took forward the Jobseeker’s Allowance regime, one of the toughest claimant schemes worldwide; introduced JobCentrePlus, internationally revered for best practice (on coming to office the claimant count stood at 1,619,600 and by May 2007 it had fallen to 870,800); launched the New Deal and Pathways to Work schemes, bringing back those left on the scrapheap under previous Tory governments (unemployment fell from 7.2 per cent in May 1997 to 5.4 per cent 10 years later); and introduced tax credits, supporting those in work. The government’s welfare reform agenda, the Work Programme and Universal Credit, are to all intents and purposes, an evolution of Labour’s Flexible New Deal scheme and tax credits system. So rather than being so critical, perhaps Cameron should be complimenting the previous government.
Rayhan Haque, policy adviser
David Cameron is wrong. Immigration has been overwhelmingly positive for our society, our culture, our public services and our economy. Labour introduced sensible measures such as the Citizenship Test and the points based system both of which have been great successes. We have a new generation of proud British people making a huge contribution and integrating while bnringing new perspectives that enrich our culture. There clearly are issues and challenges faced in most of the EU – overstaying visas and the failure of a minority of migrants to better integrate being two of them – but stirring up emotions and playing to the gallery of bigots is not going to help. The UK is a global hub – that is one of our unique selling point – and global mobility is essential to that. We have much to celebrate and Labour has much to be proud of in its record.
David Gardner David, I fully agree with you. Yes indeed, Labour has always been the party to steer a course wisely without rocking the boat! People have benefitted in greater strides within this very policy of good governance that New Labour can be truly proud of. What we are seeing today, and typically with the Tories is ruthless governance, that speeds on without brakes, until a Labour government takes on and mends the path, rectifying the mess they always make whilst in power.
Let me tell you the people do not think immigration has been positive, although they may well not be BNP voters these sick idiots could have been major players except for the racism, people are not racist, but they do feel immigration went way to far. As for Labours new deal are you mad, have you actually used the New Deal. Funny how welfare and especially sickness benefit have taken a hiding from Labour and the Tories, I lost the use of my legs, my bowel and my bladder after a massive accident at work, it took me sixteen years to get compensation, in the end I said sod it. Last month I was told legs are only an implement of mobility, your wheelchair are now your legs hence your deemed able to work, yes I know about your bowel and bladder, but that can be sorted out by the employer placing you next to a toilet. So no legs a lot of young soldiers will see this as being great. Politics has hit the lowest level with labour calling people work shy scroungers. I spent a long time in the Labour party but it died a long time again.
we are sorry for your pain and your loss R. Pain and loss are often the reasons why people are forced to flee their country or simply have the right to because their country was occupied by us in the past.It must be hard for you to look beyond your own terrible suffering, sure ,try to empathize with others. .”The people” as you call them are a mixed bunch and yes some indigenous Brits ,if you like,turn in their desperation over being in deprived circumstances and look for someone to blame as you do with the Labour Party,but it is infact the socio-economic picture as a whole that has failed ,education for opportunity,schooling,social housing programs ; if all these were improved,as they could be in the 6th richest country ,instead of those at top at the top of the Capitalist ladder committing robbery we should be able to honour and respect the contribution of all our citizens.
Perhaps Dennis’ idea should encourage the Spanish Prime Minister. I know a number of these so-called ex-pats in Spain. Stay in their tidy little villa in the winter, come “home” in the summer thus avoiding their own countrymen on holiday. Forever whingeing they vote Tory to a man or woman and not one speaks the local language. They think that they do not need to as all the shops they shop at and all the restaurants they use are Brit owned and, on the Costas of S.Spain most Spanish in the service and holiday industries speak English (not so in the North which is Brit-free as a result- a blessing!).
The banner at the top of the article: ‘Cameron fans the flames?’ Perhaps the Labour peer Maurice Glasman is ‘fanning the flames’ when he says this: Like most conservatives, blue Labour thinkers profess their love for a nation that, simultaneously, they think is going to the dogs. They are, though, prepared to confront tough questions. Blue Labour shares with David Cameron the fear that immigration leads to “discomfort and disjointedness”. In an interview with the new Labour journal Progress, Lord Glasman alleges that the Labour Government used immigration as a de facto wages policy: “Labour lied to people about the extent of immigration … and there’s been a massive rupture of trust.” He traces the rise of the English Defence League to the severed bond between Labour’s lofty idea of fairness based on need and the English people’s alternative notion that fairness means you get back what you put in. Is Maurice Glasman, a Labour peer, ‘fanning the flames’ too? There is no honesty over the subject of immigration, particularly from the left. The line drawn in the sand by the left is that ‘immigration can only ever be good, you are racist if you disagree’. It was successful as a political tactic in holding off criticism of Labour immigration policy for years. Any policy proposed, and introduced by a political party in government, needs to be looked at and scrutinised to see how it benefits the self-interest of that political party. New Labour immigration policy was off limits from this scrutiny for years, the simple threat of an accusation of ‘racism’ being enough. One has to be grateful, that the vice-like hold the left had on the boundaries of what can or cannot be mentioned when debating immigration, is finally being busted.