You want a serious debate about immigration? Let's have one, then – Telegraph Blogs

Monday 14 July 2014 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Dan Hodges

Dan Hodges is a former Labour Party and GMB trade union official, and has managed numerous independent political campaigns. He writes about Labour with tribal loyalty and without reservation. He is on Twitter at @dpjhodges.


Lemmings on the White Cliffs of Dover (2)

Grown-up debate doesn't mean claiming we're all being pushed lemming-like into the sea

Labour MP Frank Field delivered a measured response yesterday to census figures showing a 7.1 per cent increase in the population of England and Wales. “This is not so much a wake-up call, it is almost time for the firing squad for politicians who have allowed this to happen,” he said.

Actually for Frank that was quite restrained. Just before the general election he decided to go for his own little paddle in the rivers of blood. “Our political leaders must allow the ballot box to decide this issue before anger over the scale of immigration spreads to our streets,” he warned.

Good old Frank; he tells it like it is. If only we had a few more plain-speaking politicians like that. Calls for summary executions and breathless warnings of civil unrest are what every mature democracy needs from its elected representatives.

This morning’s Telegraph leader calls for “a mature debate” on immigration. OK, then let's have one. And let’s start by giving the firing squads and riots a miss.

Last week the Office for Budget Responsibility produced a report which showed that higher rates of immigration are actually good for the economy, good for growth and good for deficit reduction. Specifically, the OBR calculated that higher immigration would raise the annual growth rate over the next five decades from 2.4 per cent to 2.7 per cent. As a result the size of the fiscal consolidation needed to bring down the public debt to 40 per cent of GDP would actually be reduced.

That’s from the Office of Budget Responsibility. Not some Lefty think-tank or Blairite quango. That, to me, is a mature contribution.

This isn’t. “This is the tipping point, the point where growth in London and the South East populations tip us overboard into the English Channel,” wrote Janice Atkinson-Small in the Mail, “and I’d like to drag Blair, Brown, Balls, Miliband, Vaz et al into the sea with the rest of us.” We’re falling into the sea, are we, Janice? Seriously?

Yes, I know how the liberal Left has dealt with legitimate concerns about the impact of immigration in the past. We’d knock on the door of some run-down housing estate. Someone would answer and we’d jump into the script; “I’m from the Labour Party. Can I ask what issues are worrying you?”. The NHS, jobs, housing, welfare. All would elicit a sympathetic smile, and an extended discussion about Labour’s policy prospectus. But one word on immigration and the smile would be replaced by a curt nod, a “sorry for troubling you”, and we’d be on our way.

We get it. People “worry about immigration”, Ed Miliband told the Labour party last month. “They worry it might make things harder rather than easier for them and their kids. Worrying about immigration, talking about immigration, thinking about immigration, does not make them bigots … and since this conversation is going on in the houses, streets and neighbourhoods of Britain, it must be a conversation that the Labour Party joins too.”

I support immigration. I believe Britain is economically, socially and culturally richer for it. But I accept others have a different view, and I’m prepared to have a sensible debate with them.

But I’m not sure they’re ready for a sensible debate with me. “You can’t say anything about immigration without being called a racist,” they cry. No, actually, you can. Everyone from the Left to the Right now accepts we have to talk about immigration.

The question is how we talk. Because it’s not the liberal supporters of immigration who now have a problem with a mature discussion, it’s the opponents. It’s not us who are banging on about firing squads and riots and the country being swamped or people being pushed into the sea.

It’s not me that’s rebranding London “Londonistan”, or warning of how Britain is “creating a terror state within”.

Do people who claim to be concerned about immigration want a dialogue? Or do they just want to vent and rant?

Because those of us who see the benefits are well up for that debate. And you know why? Because we’ll win it.

We know the British people want sensible, fair and balanced migration. But we know also they’re not into their country being turned into a fortress. Or seeing their fellow citizens, whatever their country of origin, being stigmatised. And they’re certainly not going to be told what to think by a travelling circus of second-rate Enoch Powell mini-mes.

Deep down I suspect the opponents of immigration know this. That’s why they’re the one’s who are now scared of having a serious and sensible discussion. Why they constantly feel the need to hide behind hyperbole and hysteria.

You want a debate about immigration? Me too. Bring it on.

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