Immigration

A rather typical 24 hours in the life of modern Britain.  Everyone does another round of ‘we need to be able to talk about immigration.’  The main parties once again say (as though this were a great revelation to the rest of us) that it is not racist to talk about immigration.  The Labour and Conservative representatives then go on the BBC’s Question Time and claim that the Ukip candidate (now Ukip MP) for Rochester and Strood is a racist. And a Labour shadow minister mocks the awfulness of people who fly the national flag.   Meantime, if you scroll down the news stories you can read about the chief inspector of

   Washington DC [audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_20_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Michael Lind and Sebastian Payne discuss the growing similarities of the Britain and American right” startat=1350] Listen [/audioplayer]Amid all the commentary about the Republican party’s triumph in America’s midterm elections, a remarkable fact was ignored: in style and substance, the American right is rapidly becoming a lot more like Britain’s. And that might be the key to its success. In the last generation, American right-wingers have stood proudly apart from their counterparts in Europe, Britain, Canada and Australia. They were more religious, and more supportive of mass immigration. But that is changing. Exhibit A is the dwindling influence of the religious right in the US.

Wonderful: Labour has a new slogan on immigration, which appears to be the Conservatives’ old slogan from 2005, the one that Labour said was racist. I have far more respect for any Labour politician who actually defends their record on mass immigration – only a fifth of which was from Europe, incidentally, although that gets at least four-fifths of the coverage – than those who goes along with the current fashion. Someone who said that diversity made us more tolerant and kinder and was culturally-enriching; and that the economic benefits, although they are more helpful to the rich than the poor, are worth the downsides. That mass immigration was a Left-wing thing

Who is tougher on immigration? Neither the Tories nor Labour want to be left behind by Ukip, and have descended into an arms race over who can best crack down on EU migration. Today Ed Miliband’s party launched a two-pronged attack on the subject, with Yvette Cooper speaking in the morning about her plans to hire 1,000 additional border guards by imposing a charge on visitors from certain countries including the US, and Rachel Reeves announcing plans for a clampdown on EU migrants claiming out-of-work benefits. Amusingly, Reeves gave her policy to the MailOnline as an exclusive, just a few days after Ed Miliband spoke about dark forces out to get

Philip Hammond’s interview in The Telegraph this morning is striking for several reasons. First, Hammond admits that Britain isn’t going to regain full control of its borders in the renegotiation. As he puts it, ‘“If your ambition is that we have total unfettered control of our own borders to do what we like, that isn’t compatible with membership of the European Union, it’s as simple as that. And people who advocate that know jolly well it is not compatible with membership of the European Union. So if that’s what you want, you’re essentially talking about leaving the European Union.”   But he does seem to think that agreement on something

Was that a pop at Hattie? Ed Miliband began PMQs by evoking the centenary of the Great War. ‘We will all be wearing our poppies with particular pride this year,’ he said. And every eye ran along Labour’s front bench to count off the crimson blooms. Balls, poppy. Miliband poppy. Harman, poppy. No, wait. As you were. Harman, no poppy! Her chic, double-breasted grey jacket bore no tribute to the fallen. But I expect it’s a CND thing. All the same, Miliband should send her out to buy one. Tuppence ought to do it. The Labour leader needed a win today. Badly. His poll ratings have dipped to the same