Labour's response to the Illegal Migration Bill is not good enough
Starmer's party is on the back foot because it is trying to conceal its true beliefs
THERE are two broad strategies open to those wishing to oppose the Government’s small boats legislation.
The first is to brand it evil and attempt to summon up a backlash against alleged Conservative extremism and moral depravity. This route has been taken by a wide range of left-leaning figures from Gary Lineker (“immeasurably cruel”) to former Lib Dem leader Tim Farron (“deeply wicked”) and was also deployed in the Commons today by SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn (“a complete and utter disgrace”) and the Labour backbencher Imran Hussain (“Far Right”).
Yet none of these figures has a primary responsibility to try and win a UK-wide parliamentary majority against the Conservatives. Sir Keir Starmer, by contrast, does.
So it was no surprise to see him take a different tack at PMQs. Because branding legislation that polling will probably soon show commands majority support among the electorate as disgusting and evil is not a winning strategy. Were he to do this, he would risk giving the impression that he believes anyone who backs the small boats policy is a morally flawed character, part of what Hillary Clinton once described as the “basket of deplorables”. From what we know of his background and prior pronouncements, it seems very probable that Starmer does indeed think this. But his canny advisers will not risk him saying it.
Therefore he chose to adopt an alternative strategy: to deride the plans as a gimmick and unworkable and claim the Conservatives are simply not competent enough to get on top of the small boat crossings. To be fair to Starmer, he had lots to go on here. Multiple previous Tory plans to combat illegal immigration have been oversold by their exponents and were indeed gimmick-heavy. The litany of statistics around the number of deportations achieved, the length of the asylum case backlog and other key metrics are a horror show. Public faith in the Conservatives on the issue of all types of immigration is at rock bottom, especially among the Red Wall voters who powered them to victory in 2019.
There was no avoiding the Illegal Migration Bill at PMQs today but nonetheless Starmer’s overall hope will be that the small boats furore does not start to command a dominant presence in media coverage of politics. As an issue, his team will know that Labour can’t really win on it and the best they can hope for is a no-score draw based on concealing their own real attitudes and emphasising past Tory failures. They would far rather focus on the living standards crisis, the state of the NHS and half a dozen other issues where they are more in step with the British public.
Based on today’s exchanges it is by no means clear that Labour and Starmer will get their wish. Because Rishi Sunak also came prepared with a damning account of Labour’s past record on the issue, including Starmer’s own voting record on deportation issues and numerous examples of his opposition to rigorous border control. One of Sunak’s punchlines branded Starmer: “Just another leftie lawyer standing in our way.” Expect to hear that phrase again and again as it taps into a popular perception that the Labour leader often doesn’t present his true face to the electorate.
Sunak argued that Labour simply doesn’t want to control our borders but remains the “party of free movement”. As someone who has spoken to many Labour politicians and activists over the years, I have to say that assessment rings largely true. In office, Labour’s main way of dealing with illegal crossings by small boat would be to arrange legal crossings by big boat.
The more this issue gets talked about – and the Tories intend to make sure it is talked about a lot – the better the prospect of the 2019 victorious Conservative electoral coalition being stitched back together, but on one proviso: Sunak and Suella Braverman will have to show via their deeds that they truly are committed to stopping the boats, no matter what legislative or other lengths must be gone to. If they blink even once about taking an action that becomes necessary – even one as controversial as withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights should the Strasbourg Court block deportations once more – then they are done for.
The issue of border control plays into a basic values divide in modern Britain. Possibly around 25 per cent of the electorate genuinely regards deploying rigorous immigration controls – even against illegal migrants – as an extreme right-wing and morally repugnant stance. I have no doubt that Mr Lineker is sincere in his feeling that the nation is sliding towards outright xenophobia and possibly worse. I have met many otherwise intelligent people who appear to believe that all immigrants should be welcome and all are an unalloyed boon to the nation and that anyone who questions that is a bigot.
But there is a far larger section of the electorate that believes the rights of British citizens are being trampled over by a political class which has inflicted unprecedented levels of immigration upon it without ever having won permission to do so in a democratic vote around a manifesto which was open about that intention. And the idea of overseas nationals being permitted to illegally surmount what paltry immigration controls there actually are and then being put up in hotels and never removed is, for this group of voters, an utter outrage.
Between now and general election day, probably in autumn 2024, the Tories will pitch remorselessly for the support of this latter group of voters while Labour will hope that the former group will only require a nudge and a wink to understand why it is not giving full voice to their moralistic objections.
My own theory is that immigration-scepticism runs even more deeply and broadly in the electorate than pollsters have yet picked up and that the Tories have more to gain from stopping the boats than even they can yet conceive. The high octane, moralistic arrogance of the likes of Lineker and Farron has led to opposition to mass immigration becoming a viewpoint that many people choose to hide for fear of being pilloried.
Given his own and his party’s underlying beliefs, Keir Starmer has adopted the least electorally damaging stance available to him: technocratic objection rather than moralistic opposition. But it may well prove to be insufficient.
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