Immigration policy can ‘swamp’ a party’s message. But Cameron knows this

Cameron enters the immigration debate

The government’s failure to count up the number of foreign workers in this country rightly reinforces the public’s fear that control of the borders has been lost, that an unstoppable tide of migrants is flowing into the country. It is in these circumstances that unsavoury politics flourish.

To Gordon Brown’s immense discredit, he has expended more energy trying to capitalise on public disquiet over immigration than on trying to fix the problem. So Mr Brown talks of ‘British jobs for British workers’ and promises to deport migrants who peddle drugs to ‘our children’. Short of promising to deport those who rape our daughters, he could not have made a baser — or more emotive — appeal. The utter cynicism of it all is demonstrated by the facts that ‘British jobs for British workers’, if implemented as policy, would be illegal, and that the deportation of foreign criminals is far from open and shut, as the case of the Italian-born murderer Learco Chindamo demonstrated.

Brown’s nativism is based on the political calculation that he can say things which no Tory leader can. The legacy of Enoch Powell means that Tory politicians must always fight against the suspicion that their real immigration policy is to ‘send them all home’, which is why including the word ‘racist’ on Tory election posters in 2005 was such a disastrous idea.

David Cameron — to the trepidation of some in his inner circle — waded into the immigration debate this week. In a long and thoughtful speech, Mr Cameron argued that net immigration to this country is too high, something that he had already said on Newsnight in August. This is a dangerous position for any politician to take, especially one of the centre-Right.