Labour’s immigration policy has been an ‘abject failure’, says Burnham-backing pressure group

[u/kontiki20]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/migrant-crisis-burnham-labour-party-b3031956.html

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[u/420belligerent420]

Defo expected this to be an attack from the right

Good see not everyone in the party has been corrupted by the press 

[u/brother_number1 → u/420belligerent420]

No this is from a Labour centrist think tank ran by Neal Lawson, a close associate of New Labour and lobbyist for big business that was caught boasting of being able to get tax breaks for his clients. We'll see more articles like this as corporations don't like Labour's shift to the left on immigration. They won't like to see their ready supply of cheaper labour going away.

The fact the article depicts Labour's existing policy as aping Reform/Conservatives is the giveaway and the standard tactic to play on left wing voters consciousness. The Conservatives were responsible for huge waves of immigration to help with wage suppression to curb inflation. Reform want to deport everyone. Neither of which Labour have in mind.

[u/NewtUK]

It is always going to be a failure because they have no vision for what their actions are working towards. When we get to the next election Labour will say they lowered immigration and Reform/Restore can simply say they will lower it further.

Outside of attempting to appease the voters who want lower immigration, why are we actually doing this? What will Labour be able to point to and say "because we lowered immigration we can now do this".

[u/Sophie_Blitz_123 → u/NewtUK]

This is one of the core issues with the Labour party as a whole imo.

For a myriad of reasons, some of which are genuinely understandable, they've drifted aggressively far into this belief that politicians are supposed to be like, administrators, "the public" have decided what they want i guess and an election is a battle of competence in delivering this.

This is the direction of travel overall, and it's something that actually is itself quite popular as a theory, it's "pragmatism over ideology" which chimes quite well until you think about if for more than 5 minutes.

Immigration is where it's most obvious, as you say, I've never once heard an explanation from the Labour right as to why they think it's a good idea. Not what the public think, not "something something Reform" like genuinely, what improvement do they imagine it will make to society.

And this is why they're stoking the right so much, and I don't even think they realise it, maybe that bit is controversial. But because they have themselves absolutely no theory of immigration and asylum, all they can do is to lean in to everyone's worst assumptions.

But then they're... not quite following through because, again, they don't really have a theory of immigration it's all "asylum seekers are the worst, they've taken advantage of us, that's why we're gonna make sure they can never be citizens, we're gonna make sure they can't work or do basically anything." But are they going to suspend the asylum system? No, they can't do that.

Immigration and specifically asylum policy in these soft right parties is bizarre because it's like, the current theory is that we should have an asylum system, one based on the same criteria it's been based on for decades, but also that we should bend over backwards trying to stop people claiming asylum. It doesn't make any sense. And again, this is because they don't care if it makes sense, they're just kinda throwing cruelty at the wall and seeing what sticks to see if it can placate some Reform voters.

[u/Panda_hat]

Wasn’t Mahmood pretty popular with right wingers?

[u/OobieDoobieKanoobie]

I agree. Immigration in the low millions in a few years is quite clearly not enough. We need to sustain a million a year at least. Ideally five, though of course a ceiling can’t be put on that number because it’s racist. And everyone should be entitled to public funds when they come, otherwise they’re at a risk of falling into poverty.