Who is right on immigration?

Steve Richards, one of the unmissable voices of the centre-Left, has an interesting column in today’s Indy in which he takes issue with Fraser over immigration. If those on the Right who welcome immigration concede that more and better public services will be required, asks Steve, surely we are conceding the Left’s point that more Government intervention and investment will be needed? His broader point is that the Right is in a muddle over the State (does it want more or less?) and immigration (does it want the labour market or the state to set its limits?)

There is a confusion here between pure free market ideology – which has certainly been influential in the Conservative Party since the late Seventies – and the broader tradition of conservatism. On family policy, law and order, immigration, and defence, many (perhaps most) people who call themselves conservative would argue for a strong role for the State, just as many on the Left would like to see government assert no fiscal judgments on family matters, more liberal immigration, and less military spending.

Equally, it is wrong to say that someone who calls for more public service capacity is necessarily calling for higher spending and therefore being (in Steve’s terms) “leftwing”. New Labour’s decade has partly been a failed experiment in proving to the taxpayer that public spending provides value for money. But that does not mean that value for money is unachievable: indeed there are those of us who think that if Blair had been more radical with his reforms public services in this country would be better and more efficient. But he didn’t and they’re not. It is quite consistent of Fraser to believe in a lower tax burden and better public services, and the Left’s failure to accept this will be part of its eventual undoing.

While I disagree strongly with Steve’s critique of Fraser, he has entered very important terrain. The Cameroons are increasingly asking themselves which aspects of policy should be included under the heading of “aspiration” (leave people be, let them flourish, encourage enterprise) and which under “security” (law and order, the environment, migration controls). And it is true that, on immigration, they have not yet resolved the question of who decides the appropriate levels of net immigration. But they are getting there.