Ed Balls’ choreographed apologies earlier today included the acknowledgment that
“we should have adopted tougher controls on migration from Eastern Europe”. He first adopted this stance during last year’s leadership election, when he offered an undeliverable but popular objective to court
the ‘Gillian Duffy tendency’, who had turned away from New Labour.
What began as classic opposition politics is now the party line, with Ed Miliband telling delegates yesterday, “We got it wrong in a number of respects including understating the level of immigration from Poland, which had a big effect on people in Britain.” And there are stories in today’s Mail and the Express about the deleterious effects of unfettered immigration from Romania and Bulgaria under the last government, indicating that this remains a pressing issue.
Immigration is, of course, a tricky subject for the progressive, metropolitan party. But the European Union is the matter at hand here because of its provisions enabling the free movement of labour across borders, so this is more a matter of diplomatic administration rather than xenophobia.
Labour might have examined EU migration in depth, given the existential threat it poses to the coalition. But, despite the interventions from Miliband and Balls, the party is bereft of a policy in this area. Speaking at a fringe event this morning, shadow Europe minister Wayne David conceded that he didn’t yet have an answer, although he suggested that European countries may negotiate new opt-outs and migration control in the immediate future to protect their workforces’ competitiveness, especially in the event of further EU enlargement. Hazel Blears made similar suggestions at a fringe meeting with Politics Home earlier this afternoon.
It’s impossible to predict anything about European politics at the moment; but the recent squabbles over the Schengen agreement suggest that existing rules within the single market are not sacred.
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