How Labour addresses immigration on the doorstep was the subject of the Progress and British Future’s fringe meeting ‘The Doorstep Challenge’.
Three campaigners, one of them being me, spoke of real experiences where voters have raised immigration on the doors.
Labour for too long have felt uncomfortable talking about immigration – no one will ever forget ‘the bigoted woman’ comment and the damage it did during the general election campaign.
So how do we address the voters’ questions? Their concerns about jobs, housing and services?
The first step is to admit that Labour got it wrong. We underestimated the scale of migrants who would come over from eastern Europe: Chris Bryant at the event said he thinks our policy of allowing people from the new EU countries to come over and work immediately is partly to blame. Other countries who impose time limits on EU migrants working had far fewer people coming to them.
The main thing that came over from the panel was that the perception of immigration and the effects it is having on our towns and cities is far greater than the actual reality: that foreigners are coming over, getting everything handed to them and are taking over our communities. Peter Kellner warned that knowing when you are not going to convince a voter is key. If you don’t think they will listen to your argument, walk away. It’s a waste of both of your time and can be a downheartening experience.
Will we ever become comfortable talking about immigration? Maybe not, but hiding from it, won’t make it go away. You can all come and hone your skills where I am a councillor – on the doorsteps of Corby!
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Gail McDade is a Labour councillor in Corby and tweets @Gail_McDade
Walk away (and ‘privately’ call them bigots)? Is that the best we can do? Maybe we need to learn how to confront fear and prejudice in ourselves as well as in others. Maybe some of what we perceive of as prejudice and bigotry isn’t that at all. Some of it may stem from practical experiences, which we need to listen to. Then maybe we can modify our argument to take account of that experience, so that the voter listens to our challenge to their broader view. Otherwise, we leave them with the impression that their experiences are awkward realities which we want to avoid, and that only our view is valid.