Today’s Conservative party annual conference was addressed by home secretary Theresa May in a long-anticipated speech on immigration. Many expected this to set out her stall as a potential successor to David Cameron. But what we heard was not very promising.
May’s speech had the usual well-rehearsed lines we have been treated to before. One minute she claims that Britain continues to honour its commitments to protect refugees, while the next several minutes are spent detailing all the ways in which she plans to shut the door on them. This is a dishonest double-speak we have become used to.
She said our compassion for genuine asylum-seekers puts the lives of the most desperate at greater risk. This was a speech not for the heart, but for Tory heads. Those who had made it to Europe are those that can – often young, healthy and educated. No, we must be cold to be kind and clamp down on their entry so we can divert resources to help those even more vulnerable and unable to escape far from camps on the borders of Syria and similar war-torn regions. We should not let out our hand to help those that are here for fear others might follow their risky paths across sea and barbed wire. Instead, Britain should collect the refugees from sites it is willing to receive from.
I know – this is the kind of argument we saw from Nigel Farage and the United Kingdom Independence party during the general election. It says, ‘We’re for clamping down on immigration even if it hurts the economy’. But May goes further in saying Britain should focus on those who are the most desperate. These are people who require assistance, but for whom a life in Europe an even greater leap and more difficult adjustment. There was nothing at all from May on what additional support she would offer asylum-seekers from these areas she is willing to accept from to enable their integration into British society. She can demand they speak English, but if they lack free support this will not happen and May will make it more difficult for some migrants to integrate.
This is perverse because May claims mass immigration has made a cohesive society impossible. Now that is at odds with what the prime minister said hours before – he said we should be proud of the multiethnic, stable country that Britain is. Clearly one is not listening to the other. But if mass immigration is such a problem, May has herself to blame. It is on her watch – and now more than five years in her role as home secretary. She has seen through multiple immigration laws. Tories breaking new net migration records is no fault of any Labour government.
And her wholesale opposition to a common European Union asylum policy drew cheers from the audience, but this go it alone attitude shows remarkably poor political skills in finding room to negotiate. British tabloids might say we are swamped, but we are far behind Germany, Sweden and others in the numbers of refugees making claims. By many thousands. Working together allows for compromise. But going it alone means we try to plead our special case – and since others are under much greater pressure I fear she can expect very little in return. May’s plans can only disappoint.
There is so much to dislike about this speech it is hard to know when to start. May says migrants bring no economic benefit, but that is not what her own officials have said and what the government’s own assessments claim from the Treasury to the Office for Budget Responsibility.
Worst of all, the public can be forgiven for thinking all migrants are refugees. Or that refugees are the biggest number of migrants to the United Kingdom. After all, May only really devoted time to speaking about them. But they are not – and by a long shot.
Most immigrants are a lot like me. I came as a student. ‘Students are not, and never have been, immigrants’. Who said that? Enoch Powell in his ‘rivers of blood’ speech. When you are running to the right of Powell on immigration, we have a big problem. Most other migrants – like me – are in work. We are not refugees. We did not claim asylum. But we are somehow off the table not for discussion. And I am sure that yet again we have another immigration speech by a minister who knows nothing of being an immigrant first-hand and does not know the system from the ground up. If only she spent less time reading reactionary headlines and more time speaking to real migrants, we would have heard something very different.
There may be reasons for this. It may be that May focuses so much on refugees because she can do something about those figures. She can also close the taps allowing non-EU students or workers and maybe she really is willing to let the economy tank to score a political point in trying to outmanoeuvre George Osborne or Boris Johnson to replace Cameron.
And that is what this was really about. It was not a speech about immigration, but ambition – May’s ambition. She will clearly run to follow Cameron and set out a populist speech, but I suspect her abandoning the centre-ground to Tory modernisers is either the gamble she has to take or the end of her leadership campaign before it starts. My guess is the latter.
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Thom Brooks is professor of law and government at Durham University. He tweets @thom_brooks
I can’t find any reference to students in Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3643823/Enoch-Powells-Rivers-of-Blood-speech.html
At middle of speech, Powell talks about medical students – they “are not, and have been, immigrants.”
Not sure how many asylum seekers were in the mob abusing everyone outside the Tory conference in Manchester but the progressive left seem incapable of recognising the dreadful economic cost of unplanned immigration. We are already a very crowded Island and we have a dreadful burden of debt which will ultimately damage our global competitiveness. As our population rises so do the costs of all the services we have to supply to meet the decent intinerant population expectations for high quality transport, schools, hospitals and social services. We cannot blindly pursue a so called humanitarian solution to the dreadful middle eastern war if to do so means that our own countries ability to withstand global disruption is weakened. We should shame those fuelling war into finding humanitarian solutions.
Crowded island? Currently 6.8% of the UK had been built on. As our population rises so do taxes and therefore funding for public services. On your reckoning the US should be bankrupt by now what with it having 5 times the UK population and basically being 100% immigrant.
What I missed was any apology for her abject failure to control the mass immigration which is threatening our precious public services, and crushing our housing, education and health.
She was absolutely spot-on, shame she has thus far failed to do anything about.
Mass immigration has been a disaster for the UK and its demonstrative of the contempt that the left now have for the working people of Britain that they continue to encourage it.
Why don’t you show your real name? I agree that politically immigration is unpopular and the Conservatives and UKIP gain electorally from the hostility towards immigration. The truth is if we had not had the large scale immigration we, as a country, would be ageing like Japan. Japan, which because of language and culture has very little immigration is a dying country with whole towns emptying out and hospitals and schools closing down. Both Labour and Conservative have been economical with the truth about immigration but both Parties know much of our infrastructure would’ve collapsed without the immigration of the last few years. And that’s where it went wrong. Because they were furtive they did not plan for it so housing, schools and other services are overwhelmed.
Mass immigration has been an unmitigated disaster for Britain, it has resulted in severe social tensions, overwhelmed public services, depressed working class wages and worse. The only people who defend mass immigration are malicious leftists who see it as a vehicle for destroying British culture and unimaginative big business that want to keep wages low.
Ugh ‘destroying British culture’, British culture IS immigrant culture, stretching back 1500 years of mass migration to Britain. There are problems with public services because the Tory party wants to shrink the state. But no let’s just blame immigrants because it’s easier and im a bit simple and reactionary.
It is a fact that mass immigration burdens public services, holds down wages for the low skilled and forces up housing costs.
The children of Rotherham found out that British culture was quite desirable, the immigrant one less so. As did Lee Rigby and the victims of 7/7.
Ah this is where we get the truth, you ignore the millions that have come here to work, build a better life, and integrate in to this country and focus on some small handful of unpleasant people (of which there are plenty of British examples as well but of course you’re not interested in those because they don’t feed your pathetic worldview).
Of course very telling is that you assume the killers of Lee Rigby were immigrants when they weren’t.
It doesn’t matter if they come here of work, they are still holding down wages, forcing up housing costs and burdening public services. The Lee Rigby killers were following an immigrant ideology.
‘An immigrant ideology’. You’re an idiot.
If immigrants are holding down wages (not true, where’s your evidence?) then why don’t you argue for a higher minimum wage
It is an immigrant ideology. I know lefties hate it but British society is derived from the Judao-Christian tradition.
Low skilled immigrants hold down wages by increasing the labour supply, its basic economics.
Haha you know that Judaism and Christianity are middle eastern religions right?
And you know they are not Islam, right?
Are you really this simple or are you just doing a pisstake of a far right nutcase?
Are you really that desperate to import a homophobic, sexist and violent ideology? Oh wait, of course you, thats basically what Corbynism is.
OK you’re a troll. Well done, I’m out.
Is facing the reality of your ideology really that painful?
Also they don’t ‘burden’ public services. You really don’t understand economics very well do you? If people are working then they are paying taxes, if they are paying taxes then they are funding public services. You presumably think any population increase burdens public services when in fact it’s quite the opposite, if it wasn’t for immigration we would have a demographic crisis right now with not enough people to fund an increasingly ageing population. Why do you lie about these things? Do you just hate foreign people?
If they are working in low skilled jobs they are paying hardly any tax, you don’t really understand the tax system do you?
And no, we would not have a demographic crisis.
Income tax is not the only tax – have you never heard of employers NI, employees NI, VAT, council tax, road tax, tax on alcohol, tax on cigarettes, tax on petrol. You don’t know much about the tax system do you?
All too high but not enough to cover the cost of educating their children or providing them with health care. Not to mention collecting their rubbish, paying their benefits et, etc.
You really don’t have a clue, you just hate the working class and want their communities destroyed and their children abused.
Yeah fuck off am I going to take lectures on hating the working classes from a fan of Ayn Rand.
Just admit it, you thinking working class people deserve to have their communities trashed and to be made to live in poverty.
Erm no? I’m the person that’s arguing the exact opposite to everything Ayn Rand believed in. I’m arguing for a living wage not minimum wage, against a cap on benefits, massive investment in social housing, free higher education, higher taxation on the wealthy to help improve public services. You know – all the things that will HELP the working classes. What are you arguing for – kick out all the immigrants? Anything else?
No, you are arguing that the poor be kept in their place, given no opportunity to reach their potential. You are arguing for their communities to be destroyed, their housing costs raised and their wages held down. You want to deny the poor both opportunity and self-respect. Its the classic sick lefty ideology.
It is a fact that the Labour Party under Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith introduced a Migration Impacts Fund paid for by a levy on immigration applications. I know about it because I paid it. The Fund provided resources to help public services. A great idea.
But one of the very first things the Tories did was scrap the Fund. They did keep the cash though – it was earmarked to help pay for tax cuts for the most wealthy.
If you’re concerned about burdens on public services, then you should direct at least some criticism to the current government which saw this coming and turned a blind eye. Things are worse on their watch.
You are a sad bigotted person. Unfortunately, the attacks by the right have allowed crypto fascists like you to spread your fear and hatred. My Father’s generation saw what people like you cause so please, crawl back into your own nightmare world and leave decent people alone.
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