If Labour continues with its present policy on migration do not rule out Farage realising his great dream of destroying this country’s historic two-party system, writes Mihir Bose
That forty Labour MPs have called on the government to be tougher with illegal migrants should come as no surprise. Their demand reflects the fact that they are aware that they are under threat from Reform and need to do something to shore up their crumbling support and stop Nigel Farage, whose party is already ahead in some polls, become so powerful that Labour will never be able to catch up. Reform is already advertising posters which mock Labour’s failure to stop migration.
But how come MPs of a party that claims to appreciate the value of migration make such a call? It can because Labour, contrary to what is widely believed, has never been soft on migration. In fact, it has often been tougher on immigration than the Tories. But while the Tories have never denied they want to be tough, Labour’s problem is that while in opposition it presents itself as being fair, once in office it quickly changes tack but without ever admitting it has. Indeed, in the history of post-war migration Labour has passed legislation far more restrictive than the Tories with one piece of legislation betraying all of the hallowed principles this country stands for.
This double-standard on migration started in 1948 when Labour, having a majority like that of Keir Starmer, passed the British Nationality Act. Astonishingly the Conservative party had inspired the idea. The Conservative manifesto for the 1945 election had proposed that in order to promote greater Imperial integration “movement of men and women within the Empire must be made easier. A two-way traffic should grow. Those who wish to change their homes should be enabled to carry their national insurance right with them wherever they go. Imperial ties should be knit together by closer personal contact and understanding.”
However, the Conservatives did not mean free movement for all the people of the empire but only for the whites in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa. Labour’s Act opened it to all people whatever their colour.
It was this that led to the Windrush generation from the West Indies coming here and for the first time a country that had previously been almost wholly white acquired significant numbers of people of colour. However, even as the West Indians were getting on ships heading for the mother country, Labour revealed it did not want them. When George Isaacs, Minister of Labour in the Atlee Government, was asked why West Indians were coming to this country he helplessly confessed, “I wish I knew, but I do not”. He warned, “I hope no encouragement will be given to others to follow them.”
In the 1960s, the Tories, always worried by the “coloured invasion”, introduced immigration control. Labour in opposition vigorously opposed the act. However, when in 1964 Labour came to power, it introduced measures that actually toughened these restrictions. Worse still in 1968 they passed the Kenyan Asian Bill reversing a solemn promise made by the Conservatives in 1962 that when Kenya got independence should “Africanisation” result in Asians being kicked out of Kenya they could come to Britan. It was this legislation that was described to me by Tony Benn as the most shameful piece of legislation ever passed by the House of Commons. To his great credit Ian Macleod, the Conservative minister who had given the promise, voted against the measure. To their shame the majority of Labour MPs nodded it through.
In 1971 when the Tories introduced the patriality clause, which defined who could claim to come to this country, there was much Labour noise that this was a hidden form of racism, which it was. But when they came to power in 1974 they did nothing to remove it.
Labour cannot escape responsibility for the current crisis in migration. Tony Blair should have restricted migration from eastern Europe after the EU expanded following the fall of communism. The Cabinet papers released since then show that Blair’s government did not even consider this an important subject. And it was his disastrous support for America’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq that started the wave of migration from those countries. True, David Cameron carried on with that policy in Libya, making it even worse, but it is debatable whether without Blair’s much trumpeted belief that “liberal intervention” would dramatically change these countries, such a disastrous policy would have been followed.
This failure to appreciate reality is being shown by Labour’s approach to the migration crisis. Its answer is that the way to control illegal migration is by smashing the criminal gangs that put people on boats and send them on a perilous voyage across the English channel. That the gangs exist cannot be denied. But why are people so desperate to make such a journey? It is because their lands have been destroyed and for them there is no other alternative if they are to survive. The gangs can only put migrants on boat because people want to get on the boats. Destroying the current lot of gangs will not stop the boats. Unless something is done to deal with the crisis in the countries from where these people are coming from they will find other means to keep coming as they see this as their only way of salvation.
The problem is there is no evidence Labour understands the need for a properly thought-out long-term policy of getting these countries, from where the people are fleeing, on their feet. That will take good planning and time. But without that the migration crisis will not be solved. It is like putting sticking plaster on a wound that is deep. All it will do is make Nigel Farage drink another pint of beer satisfied that Labour is playing into his hands.
In case you think I am building up Farage remember nobody thought Farage would convince the country to vote for Brexit. But he did. If Labour continues with its present policy on migration do not rule out Farage realising his great dream of destroying this country’s historic two-party system. The impossible could become reality like Brexit.
(Mihir Bose is the author of Thank You Mr Crombie Lessons in Guilt and Gratitude to the British.)
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