Labour's conference: Are we really being offered all the options for a serious debate on immigration policy?

The headline news is that shadow chancellor Ed Balls has listed migration policy as one of the ‘mistakes’ of the last government.  Amongst a list of other errors he included the statement “We should have adopted tougher controls on migration from Eastern Europe.”

This comment echoed remarks which were made by the Labour leader to Sky News reporters on the opening Sunday evening of the conference.  Mr Miliband said on that occasion, “I do agree that we got it wrong in a number of respects, including under estimating the level of immigration from Poland, which had a big effect on people.”

He went on to say, “I think that what people were worried about in relation to Polish immigration in particular was that they were seeing their wages, their living standards driven down.”

As we all have reason to lament, a falsehood can march thrice around the world whilst the truth struggles to lace up her boots. Both Miliband and Balls continue to drive to distraction those of us who have found no substantial evidence for the claim that migration has been responsible for undermining the living standards of ordinary people in the UK.  The myth that the immigration of the past decade is one of the mistakes of the last government, worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as the invasion of Iraqi or the failure to regulate the banks, desperately needs to be nailed.

The Work Foundation report,  Migration Myths: Employment, Wages and Labour Market Performance, is still the best review of what the impact of migration was on UK labour markets during the height of inward flows in the years up to 2008.  It concluded that the propensity of migrants to avoid employment sector where there was an over-supply of domestic workers married to the effect of the minimum wage meant that people in the mainstream economy had been protected from negative effects.

There is some evidence that MPs and Labour supporters on the fringe of conference have tried hard to offer a perspective which makes better sense of everything we have experienced on the immigration front over the last decade and a half.  Awale Olad has already reported on the contributions made by platform speakers at MRN’s fringe meeting on Sunday evening.

During the course of Monday the MP for Barking, Margaret Hodge argued the issues out with Salford MP, Hazel Blears. Hodge’s basic position is that immigration is an unavoidable fact of modern life and governments should be honest with voters on this matter.  She condemned what she called ‘the numbers game’, which concentrates attention on the volume of people crossing borders.  However her plan to regulate the situation will be regarded as just as controversial, requiring access to ‘limited resources’ like housing to be rationed in favour of those who have lived in the country longest.

 Blears on the other hand took the view that more could be done to control numbers, calling for tougher curbs and suggesting that immigration from the EU could be limited.

Another contribution, indicating an even more radical strand of anti-immigration sentiment, came from the Labour peer and leading ‘Blue Labour’ luminary, Maurice Glasman.  Returning to the controversial theme he took up earlier in the year, when an interview with the Daily Telegraph was interpreted as a call for ‘zero immigration’, Lord Glasman called for a ‘treaty change’ to stop the free movement of EU migration.   He claimed that the Labour government has concentrated on the economic benefits of migration from the standpoint of corporate agendas.  He called for a “wider discussion about how you protect workers.”

From the standpoint of the outside observer who is interested in seeing a sensible discussion getting of the ground on migration, all these opinions are bound to stir up mixed emotions.  Whilst the claim that increased levels of migration actively worked against the interest of native workers and was disruptive of community cohesion is grossly overstated, there is truth in the claim that the benefits it brings were limited to narrow sectors of the economic elites. 

The last government did too little to ensure that migrant workers in jobs considered low skill were protected from exploitation and abuse by many employers.  It also failed to raise to the challenge of redistributing the higher level of tax receipts which could be attributed to migration to the parts of the country which needed extra resources to support the level of demand population changes had created in areas like housing, schools and health services.  But this is not a criticism of immigration as such; more the way governments redistribute the benefits which come from higher growth rates.

But in addition to failing on this elementary task of ensuring greater fairness within existing policy frameworks, we also have to be concerned that so much of the discussion is still conducted in the out-of-date language of ‘British interests.’  Lord Glasman castigates Polish workers for adopting migration as a strategy for survival within the confines of the limited range of options they have been given by the particular way Poland has been absorbed into the EU.  The shock doctrines of the period after Communism were called down on the heads of the people of the former Warsaw Pact lands for reason which primarily benefitted western economic interests who were on the prowl for new markets and low cost labour reserves.  Whatever options which might have existed back in 1989 to provide better outcomes for the citizens of what became the A8 and A2 countries were sharply reduced when Britain and the other states of elite Europe decided that radical privatization, western takeovers and workforce shake-outs were the key conditions for getting capitalism going in these lands.

The recent MRN sponsored TEDxEastEnd event, presented as a look at  ‘Society Beyond Borders’, through up many more perspectives which require serious consideration that the tired insistence on British interests.  That might be the best way to re-shape a policy debate which really puts all the options on the table:  less of the ‘British’ please, and more of the ‘Beyond Borders’.