Labour leadership candidates move towards the Cruddas position on immigration

One striking feature of the Labour leadership contest so far is how a new more honest line on immigration is emerging. At the Fabian Society conference this morning, Ed Miliband declared that ‘immigration is a class issue’. Pointing out that, “If you want to employ a builder it’s good to have people you can take on at lower cost, but if you are a builder it feels like a threat to your livelihood. And we never had an answer for the people who were worried about it.” In the Guardian, Ed Balls sounds a similar note. He tells Patrick Wintour and Nick Watt that Labour did not, in the eyes of voters, do enough on immigration.

But there has been one figure in the Labour party who has been pointing out that immigration is a ‘class issue’ for years’ and warning that Labour’s failure to address it was costing it the support of the white working class: Jon Cruddas.